Handbook of Energy

Section 36

Transportation, Air

The subject area “Transportation, Air” deals with notable events in the history of air and space travel. Humans aspired to emulate the birds from the earliest times, as evidenced by ancient legends such as the story of Daedalus, who made wings of feathers and wax which he and his son Icarus used to fly above the ocean. (Foreshadowing the dangers that would be associated with early air travel, Icarus flew too close to the Sun and the wax melted, causing him to lose the wings and fall to his death in the ocean.)

The theoretical basis for manned flight was described by the Renaissance genius Leonardo da Vinci in the late 1400s, through his design for a flying machine. However, it was not until about three hundred years ...