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The work of theWright brothers inspired an entire generation of flying-machine experimenters in Europe and the Americas. The Brazilian experimenterAlberto Santos-Dumont, for instance, made the first public flight in Europe in 1906 in his14-bis. FrenchmanHenri Farman made his first flight the following year in theFarman III, a machine built byGabriel Voisin. Farman also completed the first European circular flight of at least 1 km (0.62 mile) early in 1908. On July 4, 1908, the AmericanGlenn Hammond Curtiss, a leading member of theAerial Experiment Association (AEA), organized byAlexander Graham Bell, won theScientific American Trophy for a flight of 1 km in theAEA June Bug.

The Santos-Dumont, Voisin, and Curtiss machines were allcanard (elevator on the nose) biplanes with pusher propellers that were clearly inspired by what the designers knew of the work of the Wright brothers.

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By 1909 radical new monoplane designs had taken to the air, built and flown by men such as the French pioneersRobert Esnault-Pelterie andLouis Blériot, both of whom were involved in the development of the “stick-and-rudder” cockpitcontrol system that would soon be adopted by other builders. Blériot brought the early experimental era ofaviation to an end on July 25, 1909, when he flew hisType XI monoplane across theEnglish Channel.

The following five years, from Blériot’s Channel flight to the beginning ofWorld War I, were a period of spectacular growth and development in aviation. Concerned about the potential of military aviation, European leadersinvested heavily in the newtechnology, spending large sums onresearch and development and working to establish and support the aircraft and engine industries in their own countries. (For an account of the aerialarms race,seemilitary aircraft.) In addition to practical developments in the areas of propulsion and aircraft structural design, the foundations of modern aerodynamic theory were laid by scientists and academics such asLudwig Prandtl of Germany. With the possible exception of flying boats (seeCurtiss Model E flying boat), an area in which Curtiss continued to dominate, leadership in virtually every phase of aeronautics had passed by 1910 from theUnited States to Europe, where it would remain throughout World War I.

The headliners

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Although airlines ran newspaper advertisements after World War I, the biggest aviation headlines belonged to fliers in relatively primitive piston-engine aircraft that challenged the Atlantic and transcontinental distances. In May 1919 a U.S. NavyCurtiss NC-4 (successor to theCurtiss Model E flying boat) made it from Newfoundland to Portugal by way of the Azores Islands before flying on to Great Britain, compiling 54 hours 31 minutes in the air over its 23-day trip. The following month, former BritishRoyal Air Force (RAF) pilots John Alcock and Arthur Brown made the first nonstop crossing of the Atlantic, requiring 16 hours 28 minutes for the journey from Newfoundland to Ireland in a Vickers Vimy bomber.

By 1924 the U.S. Army had completed plans to make the firstaerial circumnavigation of the world, sending a quartet of single-engine Douglas “World Cruisers” westward toward Asia. These fabric-covered biplanes featured interchangeable landing gear—replacing wheels with floats for water landings. One plane crashed in Alaska, forcing the two-man crew to hike out of a snowbound wilderness. Near the end of the expedition, a second aircraft, en route to Iceland, went down between the Orkney and Faroe islands. With support from the U.S. Navy, U.S.State Department, and overseas American officials during an odyssey of 23,377 miles (37,622 km) that consumed 175 days, the remaining pair of planes arrived back in Seattle. All this happened beforeCharles Lindbergh, flying a single-engine Ryan monoplane, made his nonstop solo flight in 33 hours 30 minutes fromNew York to Paris in 1927. Lindbergh’s flight, in particular, demonstrated the essential reliability of improved radial engines.

In Britain, overland flights connecting colonial interests down the length of Africa drew considerable attention. Departing London, another pair of ex-RAF pilots battledcapricious winds, sudden storms, equatorial updrafts, and assorted adventures before arriving atCape Town after 45 days and three planes.Alan Cobham repeated the feat in a single-engine commercial plane, surveying a route for Imperial Airways Ltd. from 1925 to 1926. Other British pilots persevered in reaching Australia by way of India (brothersRoss and Keith Smith, 1919) and across the Pacific (Charles Kingsford Smith and Charles Ulm, 1928). The challenge of polar flights also engaged a number of daring fliers. Piloting a Fokker trimotor,Richard Byrd made claim to the first flight over theNorth Pole in 1926, followed by his pioneeringexpedition with aFord Motor Company trimotor over theSouth Pole in 1929.

The 1930s brought a new round of record flights by Americans. In 1931, with navigator Harold Gatty,Wiley Post piloted a Lockheed Vega 5B monoplane (namedWinnie Mae for Post’s daughter) around the world in slightly less than 8 days 16 hours. Two years later, with the aid of an autopilot, Post broke his world record during a solo flight of 7 days 19 hours. In 1932Amelia Earhart became the first woman to complete a solo transatlantic flight. Five years later, during a global attempt, she disappeared somewhere over the Pacific. Aviator and industrialistHoward Hughes, piloting a twin-engine Lockheed Model 14 (similar to Earhart’s Lockheed 5B Vega airplane) with a four-man crew, completed a global flight in 1938 in the record time of slightly more than 3 days 19 hours. Flights like these demonstrated aviation’s ability to overcome geographic barriers and shrink time-distance relationships.

In addition to long-distance records, speed records continued to rise. For example, theSchneider Trophy races, conducted in Europe between 1913 and 1931, pitted single-engine racing planes equipped with floats against each other. With entrants carrying the colours of their respective countries, considerable internationalprestige and technological recognition was attached to the outcome. Designers focused on high-performance engines and streamlined fuselages. By the early 1930s, successful British racers from Supermarine, reaching about 340 miles (550 km) per hour, were contributing to the designs that led to the legendarySpitfire fighters ofWorld War II. Behind the headlines, thecollective technology and operational know-how of the record-seekers contributed to modern airline travel.