History
Otto Lilienthal died while flying in 1896 as the result of a stall. Wilbur Wright encountered stalls for the first time in 1901, while flying his second glider. Awareness of Lilienthal's accident and Wilbur's experience, motivated the Wright Brothers to design their plane in "canard" configuration. This made recoveries from stalls easier and more gentle. The design saved the brothers' lives more than once.
The aircraft engineer Juan de la Cierva worked on his "Autogiro" project to develop a rotary wing aircraft which, he hoped, would be unable to stall and which therefore would be safer than aeroplanes. In developing the resulting "autogyro" aircraft, he solved many engineering problems which made the helicopter possible. Tragically, he was himself killed in the crash of an airliner, possibly due to a stall at take-off.
Read more about this topic: Stall (flight)
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Every generation rewrites the past. In easy times history is more or less of an ornamental art, but in times of danger we are driven to the written record by a pressing need to find answers to the riddles of today.... In times of change and danger when there is a quicksand of fear under men’s reasoning, a sense of continuity with generations gone before can stretch like a lifeline across the scary present and get us past that idiot delusion of the exceptional Now that blocks good thinking.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)
“The history of philosophy is to a great extent that of a certain clash of human temperaments.”
—William James (1842–1910)
“I saw the Arab map.
It resembled a mare shuffling on,
dragging its history like saddlebags,
nearing its tomb and the pitch of hell.”
—Adonis [Ali Ahmed Said] (b. 1930)