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History Bombs, Pilot Episode, Action!
Yo, Narrator Man, whatsup?
Wilbur Wright, what are you doing?
Well this is my gig man, History of Aviation
Yes, but we don't get to you for 2:50
Now get lost!
Whatever man, Jeez!
Why are the British so uptight!
It's time for the History Bomb of Aviation
And our journey begins in Ancient Greece
Icarus and Daedalus took to the skies
Tragically flew just a little too high
Waxy wings got melty like a candle
The Sun proved too hot to handle
So before you make wings don't be a hero
Keep the wax for your legs and the feathers in a pillow
Wise words there
So not the most promising start for human aviation
But bizarrely this mythical mishap inspired the first pioneers of flight
Let's meet one of them now
The year is 1010
An English monk has a similar plan
Homemade wings, jumps off an abbey
Flew 200 metres then got a bit flappy
Crash landed and broke his limbs
Shoult have stuck to praying and singing hymns
Ah yes, silly monk!
And that set the tone for the next few hundred years of human aviation
Not so much flying but assisted falling
The first person to think logically about human flight was this chap
Welcome to Florence, lovely to meet ya!
I'm in the middle of the Mona Lisa
But when I'm not painting a like to sketch drafts
For parachutes, gliders and rotorcraft.
I didn't have the time to make them, I'm far too busy!
Arrivederci, Leonardo da Vinci
Arrivederci indeed!
He did have some pretty good drawings but sadly
These weren't discovered for 300 years
In the meantime Europeans were getting very excited about hot air ballooning
And at the forefront were the Montgolfier Brothers
Bonjour, we're Montgolfiers!
Gonna take you up in the air
We learnt that hot air rises
Sent up balloons and we won some prizes
Lifted a sheep with a chicken and a duck
Most of France were like 'Qu'est-ce que sup'?
But that's our style, that's how we roll
Just like our balloons we are out of control!
Zut alors!
Two problems with balloons; 1) Impossible to change direction 2) They caught on fire
Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin solved the first problem with his dirigible airships but they still caught on fire.
Hindenburg Disaster anyone?
Now whilst the French were messing around with airships
It was naturally left to a right minded Englishman to get on with the proper business of pioneering fixed wing aircraft
That man was Sir George Cayley
Silly French I have no time for dirigibles
It's time for the fundamental principles of flight
I say, what, what, where?
My butler flew a glider from here to there
The mechanics of flying, they are a must
Weight, Lift, Drag, THRUST!
I need a lightweight engine but they think I'm demented.
Sir it's the 1850s, they haven't been invented!
Cayley's work ushered in the age of steam
From the 1870s lightweight steam engines were being used for short test flights
And in the 1890s, Samuel Langley achieved an unmanned flight of 1km
At the dawn of the 20th century, manned flight was finally realised
Hey Wilbur, let's do this right
We're gonna be the grand masters of flight (Oh Yeah!)
Got the power of 3-axis control
Yaw, pitch and roll
Built a bi-plane called it 'The Flyer'
Launched off a catapult and got much higher
Planes were our invention, loud and clear
So quit whining about our landing gear (Oh Yeah!)
There is still arguement as to whether the Wright brothers did make the first plane
Because they used a catapult, not wheels, to take off
Nevertheless their revolutionary steering mechanism changed everything
In 1908 Louis Bleriot flew from France to England
And other pilots, both men and women, started taking to the skies to push forward the barriers of speed and distance
Pretty soon however planes were being put to a far more destructive task
Mein name ist Manfred von Richtofen
You might know me as 'The Red Baron'
Shot down Allied planes for fun
80 kills with just two machine gun
Bonjour je m'appelle Rene Fonck
No. 1 pilot for La France
75 kills I'm as good as they get
Even more deadly than a stale baguette!
Phew, thank goodness that's over with!
Oh, here we go, here's WWII, and interestingly it wasn't just the men who were flying as pilots
We are the night witches from Russia with love
We dropped 3,000 tonnes of bombs from above
Flying at night over enemy lines
Each woman flew over 1,000 times
When you think about WWII
And the brave pilots who fought for you
It wasn't just Bertie, Percy and Peter
It was Mary, Natalia, Irena and Vera
Incredible story. Both World Wars were unimaginably destructive
But through their course human flight was revolutionised
Planes were getting faster and more ambitious, and gutsy test pilots were pushing them to the limit
After WWII, flying got sexy!
Chuck Yeagar, pilot of renown, in '47 I broke the speed of sound
Albert Crossfield, US Pilot too, took a Skyrocket past Mk II
Yuri Gargarin, Russian ace, in '61 I went to outerspace
Neil Armstrong, how d'ya do, in '69 I walked on the moon
And the need for speed is still alive, in 2010 Boeing hit Mk V
And now for space, the final frontier, will space tourism soon appear?
Whatever happens we've come a long way from Icarus and Daedalus flapping away
Thanks for joining us for the ride, you've got half a second to SUBSCRIBE!