After the wright brothers success at kittyhawk
, north Carolina , America ,
they tried to sell their flying design to government's. But government's didn't buy the design as they didn't know how it worked. But in 1908 the wrights won a contract to build planes for the American army ,they lisecned patents to a french company to make their planes too.
the outbreak of the great war led to massive
plane production in Europe. By 1914 the fr
ench had built 2000 planes and the Germans 1000. America hadn't produced the multitude of planes produced in Europe . University's and research labs in America researched new ways of making planes . In 1930 planes started to be made from metal and not wood.
Air transport companies started to fly in 1920. European flag carriers such as British Overseas Airways Corporation , aerospatale and Lufthansa transported air mail from place to place. But only in the untied states did air travel compete with rail travel. The introduction of planes like the Boeing 247 (bottom left) and Douglas dc-3 (1935)(Bottom right) gave American companies the first chance of transporting passengers rather then air mail.
(http://www.wired.com/images/article/full/2007/12/douglas_dc_3_630x.jpg)
Germany and Britain made the biggest bombers but America made better bombers and they could mass produce them better then anyone else. Europeans invented new resources such as the jet engine, better nav aids and radar. but during the wa
r the Europeans used less aircraft more effectively.
After the war aircraft mass production stopped. From then on research was more important than mass production to the euro peons and the Americans. It was clear though that during the war years the Europeans led the development and research into new planes.
More info on ww11 aircraft production :http://www.world-war-2-planes.com/american-world-war-2-planes.html
For a fascinating video about the wright brothers first flight :http://www.history.com/video.do?name=science&bcpid=1681694258&bclid=1672079625&bctid=1478148523
http://www.world-war-2-planes.com/images/mustang_gr_500.jpg
