1.Four hundred years before airplanes were invented, Leonardo da Vinci thought that people could learn to fly by watching birds. On his deathbed, he said he regretted that he never flew.
2. The first airplanes used motorcycle or car tires for their landing wheels,
3. In 1927. Charles Lindbergh became the first person to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. It took him 332 hours to fly from New York to Paris, Today, it takes about 7% hours.
4. The U.S. military's Falcon HTV-2 can fly at speeds of 13.000 miles per.hour (20,921 kph). Unfortunately, the super- fast bomber failed both of its test flights.
5. The oldest kites were flown thoOusands of years ago in China.
6. Before the Wright brothers built airplanes, they built bicycles.
7. When astronauts landed on the moon in July 1969, they Teft their backpacks and an American flag behind.
8. Early airplane flights across North America took 48 hours. Today they take about 6/a hours.
9. The Antonov A-225, the Targest plane ever made, has 32 landing wheels,
10. Hot air bal- loons stay aloft because hot air (warmed by burners) is lighter than the cold air in the sky around the balloon.
11. The world's big- gest kite is almost as wide as a football field.
12. In 2001, an American busi- Tessman became the first "space tourist. He paid $20 million to travel to the International Space Station.
13. You can take a flight on a modified 727 airplane, where you experience weightlessness (ar zero gravity ), just. like astronauts.
14, The spacecraft that carried the first astronauts to land on the moon back to Earth reached speeds of 25.000 mph (40,200 kph).
15. Some early inventors thought that one day people Would fly on kites.
16 . The first airplane pilots were exposed to freezing tem- peratures and gusty winds because the cockpits were not enclosed.
17. Only four years after the Wright brothers' historic flight, the first helicopter took flight.
18. A duck, a sheep, and a rooster were passengers on the first balloon flight.
19. F-15 Strike Eagle fighter jet Chimpanzees, dogs, monkeys, mice, and a guinea pig have all traveled into space.
20. The flying monkeys in The Wizard of Oz were played by actors held in the air by piano wire.
21. Early ba lloonists would throw bags of sand over the side of their balloons to keep them balanced in the air at a steady elevation.
22. The first, airplane flight lasted 12 seconds.
23. The Apollo 8 spacecraft, the first manned craft to circle the moon, entered its orbit on Christmas Eve 1968,
24. The youngest person to fly on a space shuttle was 28-year-old Sultan bin Salman bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud . He flew on Discavery in 1985.
25. In 1981, a solar-powered airplane flew from France to England. It took five hours and 23 minutes to fly 160 miles (258 km), a distance a jetliner can travel in 20 minutes.
26. En route to the South Pole, Richard Byrd and his crew lightened their plane to get over the Queen Maud Mountains by throwing out their survival packs.
27. There's a golf course nestled between two runways at an airport in Bangkok, Thailand.
28. Bats are the only mammals that can fly (but others do glide, like "fly- ing" squirrels).
29. Some planes can be flown remotely using computers,
30. The first hot air balloon fight happened in Paris in 1783.
31. An air- plane's "black box" records information on flights and is usually orange,
32. The Concorde aircraft, in service from 1976 to 2003, flew at twice the speed of sound.
33. The Airbus A380 is the world's largest passenger jet: It can seat 853 passengers.
34. One of the earliest known birds. Archueopteryx, lived 150 million years ago.
35. In 1923, the U.S. Army refueled a plane in mid-air for the first time,
36. Some 300 helium balloons were used to float a small house (with people inside) into the air-just like the Pixar movie Up.
37. A 747-400 jet has six million parts.
38. In 2000. the United States started developing an "exoskeleton" that would allow soldjers to wear a suit in which they could take off. fly, and land.
39. Weather balloons are released twice a day from nearly goo places worldwide to measure wind speed, humidity, and temperature.
40. Early pilots had few instruments to tell them how far off the ground they were; they had to look out and down.
41. In 1680, an Italian mathematician deter mined that the human body didn't have the muscles to be able to fly on its own. 4
2. In July 1937, when Amelia Earhart and her co-pilot disappeared over the Pacific Ocean, the United States sent riine ships and 65 airplanes to search for them
43. The longest paper airplane flight ever lasted 27.6 seconds.
44. NASA is developing a 300-pound (136-kg) personal "fying suit"nicknamed the Puffin.
45. Before becoming a major star, the fly- ing fairy Tinker Bell first appeared in the play Peter Pan in 1904-
46. In 1979, the pilot of the human-powered Gossamer Albatross pedaled the airplane across the English Channel. It weighed 70 pounds (32 kg).
47. The Portuguese pilots who were the first to fly across the South Atlantic survived two plane crashes along the way. They finished in a third plane.
48. The first man in space was the Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gaparin,
49. Daredevil David "The Bullet" Smith has been shot out of a cannon more than 5.000 times.
50. An erupting volcano on Iceland caused thousands of flights to be canceled in April 2010 due to the thíck ash in the air
51. In 1960, a US Air Force pilot set the record for the highest- altitude jump when he flew a high- aititude balloon to 102,800 feet (31333 m) before jumping out and free-falling back to Earth. He was protected by a pres sure suit and carried parachutes to slow his descent,
52. It's said that the rock band the B-525 named tihemselves after a beehive hairdo that resembles the nose of a Boeing bomber jet.
53. More than 200 years ago, André Jacques Garnerin became the first person to parachute from a hot air balloon,
54. In 1924, two airplanes each completed the first trip around the world.
55. To fly "blind" means to pilot an aircraft using only navigational equipment and by not igak- ing outside the cockpit.
56. The first person to break the sound barrier in a plane was Chuck Yeager in 1947. He was going 700 mph (1,10o kph).
57. NASA's five space shuttles flew 136 missions before the program ended in July 2011.
58. Scientists think that theropod dinosaurs grew wings arnd feathers and evolyed into modern-day birds.
59. The X-15 rocket plane can fly at an alti- tude of 354.500 feet (108,052 m).
60. A female pilot, Jacqueline Cochran, set more records than any other flier during her 30 years as a pilot. She broke the sound barrier six years after Chuck Yeager.
61. Wandering albatrosses spend 70 percent of their lives flying over water.
62. The multimillionaire inventor of the Learjet used by business executives and celebrities also invented the car radio.
63. In 1931, the first hydrogen balloon reached the stratosphere-51,775 feet (15.781 m) in the air.
64. The smallest airplane ever to fly, the Bumblebee if, was 8 feet 10 inches (2.7 m) in length.
65. Aerophobia is the fear of flying.
66. Seven-year-olds have piloted airplanes.
67. The snipe (a small bird) can fly for 96 hours straight and cover more than 4.000 miles (6,437 km).
68. US Navy personnel wear different-colored jerseys for their jobs on the deck of aircraft carriers-crew in purple vests handle the fuel, whereas plane captains wear brown jerseys,
69. A bird called the American woodcock flies at only five miles per hour (8 kph): you can bike faster than that!
70. Birds can fly and humans can't, but both bird wings and human arms have the same bone structure.
71. An airplane has an "elevator" on its back tail to allow the plane to move up or down.
72. Airships filled with hydrogen used to travel between Europe and the United States, but after the Hindenburg exploded in 1937, people lost interest in this mode of air travel.
73. Snoopy from the "Peanuts" comic strip would sit on his doghouse and pretend to be a pilot in a Sopwith Camel, a World War I fighter plane with only one seat.
74. BASE jumping is the extreme sport of jumping off cliffs wearing a parachute to help coast to a landing.
75. The McDonnell Douglas F-15, which began flying during the Vietnam War, has never been defeated in air-to-air combat.
76. Some 4.5 billion birds (of 185 different species) migrate to Africa each winter.
77. U2, the world-famous Irish rock band, is also the name of an American spy plane.
78. You can buy a kit to build vour Own airplane (npt a model one, either).
79. Want to fly like a bird? Martin Aircraft sells a jetpack for $100,000 that you can wear on your back to take fight.
8o. The white-throated needle-tailed swift can fly 106 miles per hour (17o kph).
81. Chefs on Gulf Air flights will prepare your meal for you, just as you like it.
82. North American monarch butterflies migrate up to 3,000 miles (4,828 km) from the north to California and Mexico,
83. The cabin air in the Airbus A-3Bo is always fresh since it is changed every three minutes.
84. Helicopters can trace their history back more than 500 years to drawings by Leonardo da Vinci,
85. Air moves faster over the top of the airplane wing and slower underneath; this is what creates lift,
86. When a plane breaks the sound barrier it creates a loud "boom" called a sonic boom.
87. Some skydivers use wingsuits-which make them look like flying squirrels-to slow their descent after they jump out of planes.
88. Ultralight airplanes were first designed with engines similar to those in chainsaws.
89. Planes that land on aircraft carriers have a runway of only 500 feet (150 m), so they have a hook on the tail of the plane that latches onto one of four sturdy cables,
9o. In 2005, Steve Fossett flew an airplane around the world withoOut stopping-or refueling-and set a new record. His plane had 13 fuel tanks,
91. In the late 180os, Otto Lillienthal flew his own hang gliders some 2,000 times before he died from a fall during a fight
92. The largest pterosaurs, flying reptiles from the age of dinosaurs, had wingspans of about 4o feet (12 m)-as wide as an F-16 fighter jet.
93. You can buy a ticket to space on Virgin Galactic, an airline that offers passengers 4 to 5 minutes of weightlessness in space.
94. Three hundred and fifty-five people have flown on the space 4utle.
95. Air Force One, the plane used by the President of the United States, includes medical facili- ties that can be used as an operating room.
96. In 1984, Joe Kittinger became the first person to pilot a hot air balloon across the Atlantic: he traveled from Maine, U.S.A., to Italy in 83 hours and 4o minutes.
97. You can rent your own private Jet for $1,850 an hour
98. Bee wings and helicopter blades use the same principle to get the bee, or helicopter into the atr.
99. The first nonstop hot air balloon flight around the world lästed 19 days, 21 hours, and 55 minutes.
100. In the 1920s. an airplane ticket cost $5 (about $60 today).
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