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At the same time as people were experimenting with lighter than air craft such as the zeppelin, others were building heavier than air craft, called aeroplanes. In the United States the Wright brothers flew a plane a few hundred yards. At the same time, or perhaps even earlier, a New Zealand man named Richard Pearce designed, built and flew a plane. Some early planes had two wings, and were called biplanes. (In fact some even had three!) The engines weren't very powerful, so they couldn't fly fast. The wings were made of wooden struts, covered with canvas. If you left your plane parked in a field with cows, you could come back and find they had chewed your plane to bits! |
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By the time of World War I (1914 to 1918) planes had become quite a bit more advanced. Both sides in the war used planes to fly over and look at what troops were doing on the other side, and to drop bombs. When two planes attacked each other it was called a dog fight. |
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