Whenever I see a plane the first question that comes to mind is "What is causing that thing to stay off of the ground?"

Well I finally discovered the answer. When a plane flies there are four forces at work that keep the plane flying. These forces are lift, thrust, gravity, and drag.

Airplane wings are created with a special design called an airfoil. The airfoil design bulges out more on the top than on the bottom. This causes the air that hits the wing to go off into two different streams, one that goes over the top and one that goes under, and they both meet up in the back.

The air moving over the top of the wing is caused to go faster than the slower moving air on the bottom. Faster moving air has less pressure, so this causes the pressure on the bottom of the wing to be greater and the plane is lifted. This effect is known as the Bernoulli Principle. This principle was developed by Daniel Bernoulli who was a Swiss mathematician and phy

In 1843 an English inventor by the name of William Samuel Henson published his patented design for an Aerial Steam Carriage. His design was a big step towards establishing the modern airplane. The design was a fixed wing monoplane with propellers, and fuselage, and wheeled landing gear, and flight control by means of rear elevator and. rudder. The steam-powered models by Henson in 1847 were promising,however unsuccessful Sir George Cayley's 1799 design for an airplane -- fixed wings for lift, a movable tail for control, and rows of "flappers" beneath the wings for thrust

1891 - 1896

Between 1799 and 1809 Sir George Clayey who was an English Baronet came up with the concept of the modern airplane. At this time Clayey had abandoned the ornithopters tradition. He designed airplanes with rigid wings to provide lift, and separate propelling devices to provide trust. Clayey laid the foundations of aerodynamics through his published works. He showed both with models and full-size flight control by means of a single rudder-elevator unit mounted on a universal joint. In 1853 Clayey sent his coachmen on the first gliding flight in History on his third full-size machine.

In 1908 the two brothers demonstrated their airplane to the U.S. Army's Signal Corps at Fort Myer. The Army had been long using balloons to observe the battlefield, and recognized the possibilities presented by the airplane. During World War I, the development of airplanes accelerated. European designers such as Dutch-American engineer Anthony Herman Fokker and the French engineer Louis Bleriot developed even faster, more capable, and deadlier combat airplanes.

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Approximate Word count = 1220
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)