An airplane or aeroplane is a powered fixed-wing aircraft that is propelled forward by thrust from a jet engine or propeller. Airplanes come in a variety of sizes shapes and wing configurations. The broad spectrum of uses for airplanes includes recreation transportation of goods and people military and research. Commercial aviation is a massive industry involving the flying of tens of thousands of passengers daily on airliners. Most airplanes are flown by a pilot on board the aircraft but some are designed to be remotely or computer-controlled.

The Wright brothers invented and flew the first airplane in 1903, recognized as the first sustained and controlled heavier-than-air powered flight. They built on the works of George Cayley dating from 1799, when he set forth the concept of the modern airplane and later built and flew models and successful passenger-carrying gliders. Between 1867 and 1896 the German pioneer of human aviation Otto Lilienthal also studied heavier-than-air flight. Following its limited use in World War I aircraft technology continued to develop. Airplanes had a presence in all the major battles of World War II. The first jet aircraft was the German Heinkel He 178 in 1939. The first jet airliner the de Havilland Comet was introduced in 1952. The Boeing 707 the first widely successful commercial jet was in commercial service for more than 50 years from 1958 to at least 2013.

Many stories from antiquity involve flight, such as the Greek legend of Icarus and Daedalus and the Vimana in ancient Indian epics. Around 400 BC in Greece Archytas was reputed to have designed and built the first artificial self-propelled flying device a bird-shaped model propelled by a jet of what was probably steam said to have flown some 200m. This machine may have been suspended for its flight.

Some of the earliest recorded attempts with gliders were those by the 9th-century poet Abbas ibn Firnas and the 11th-century monk Eilmer of Malmesbury both experiments injured their pilots. Leonardo da Vinci researched the wing design of birds and designed a man-powered aircraft in his Codex on the Flight of Birds (1502).

In 1799, George Cayley set forth the concept of the modern airplane as a fixed-wing flying machine with separate systems for lift propulsion and control. Cayley was building and flying models of fixed-wing aircraft as early as 1803 and he built a successful passenger-carrying glider in 1853. In 1856, Frenchman Jean-Marie Le Bris made the first powered flight by having his glider L'Albatros artificiel pulled by a horse on a beach. Then Alexander F.Mozhaisky also made some innovative designs. In 1883, the American John J.Montgomery made a controlled flight in a glider. Other aviators who made similar flights at that time were Otto Lilienthal Percy Pilcher and Octave Chanute.

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