The engineering marvel: planes. Are you going to keep travelling by plane?

Long ago in this very world, people dreamed of having to fly without the inconvenience of having to grow real feathers. However, due to the fact that they did not have much of a bright idea themselves, they just looked helplessly in the sky imagining that they were soaring above the air with the birds. They also hoped that someone would eventually find a way to fly with the birds in the future. But have you ever considered what the first plane was and how did it function?

In the year 1487, Italian inventor Leonardo da Vinci devised a plan that he thought would fly for certain. Unfortunately for him, he couldn’t garner much of a crowd itself and couldn’t build one that worked. 20 yrs later after Vinci’s plan was rejected, a man decided to copy the birds and built a pair of wings that were made from real feathers. He, therefore, declared that he would fly from Scotland to France without even stopping for a break. Likewise, it would have been the end of his life if he hadn’t landed onto a dung heap.

The first plane that ever worked was made by two brothers named Orville and Wilbur Wright whose job was to construct bicycles. Nevertheless, their job didn’t stop them from getting interested in making planes. They made a few gliders first but all of them crashed. This repeated for a few more times before they made an engine with a propeller. They discovered that when air gets pushed backwards, it makes the plane go forward and took it for its test flight. This time, it flew. Be that as it may, it wasn’t easy launching the glider into the air: they had to build a pulley and a track system.

When the first working plane was invented, people started using the airplane for a favourable mode of transport. It was also much faster than most ships and people didn’t get as sick as people used to do on rocky wooden ships. Planes were often suggested for the use of travelling for holidays. People also used it for air shows and competitions but professionals usually manoeuvred the dangerous moves. As the popularity of the plane grew, so did the quality of the plane. Gradually, the best planes boasted large numbers of travelling passengers and the seats were covered in leather. Soon, many people started travelling while using airplanes.

The excitement of planes didn’t last long, though. Before long, the first world war erupted and people were suddenly using planes for different missions. These include hovering over enemy fire and blasting as well as bombing military targets plus planes. Nevertheless, these planes were not designed for war so pilots cried, “We need planes for fighting!”. Thus, plane engineers stuck machine guns on the front of the plane. Some even went further and built bombers—planes that are designed to bomb targets— such as the Italian Capronis that accomodates 3 machine guns and a very large bomb. The Red Baron, a terrifying German pilot, wanted one too and went on to shoot down innumerable aircrafts with his new “triplane”.

Planes have a lot of functions such as travel, entertainment, and battle: these enable people to make it easier to accomplish their goals. But airplanes are powered by fossil fuels: coal, gas, and oil. These fossil fuels are the main cause of climate change since planes give off harmful carbon dioxide which affects both nature and humans. These have also facilitated ice and glaciers to melt exponentially. For instance, the Doomsday Vault, located in Antarctica, houses at least 2 billion seeds. Due to the climate change and greenhouse gases, however, some of the ice situated at the Vault melted and flooded the entrance. At the end of the day, planes have made life more enjoyable, but have also brought unforeseen catastrophe.