We all know the story of Icarus, the boy who flew to close to the sun and melted his wax wings in Ancient Greek mythology. People have wanted to fly for thousands of years. Many consider the prolific British engineer Sir George Cayley to be one of the most important people in the history of aeronautics as it was he who designed the first actual model of an aeroplane. It was a British man, Sir Frank Whittle, who is credited with single handedly invented the turbojet engine! From the first aircraft they produced, to the impressive array of military aircraft and bombers and the incredible productions today the British have always played a very important role in the aeronautic industry. As early as 1912, British firm Vickers were experimenting with machine gun carrying aircraft and it was World War I when aircraft were used on such a large scale for the first time. Skip forward to World War II and we had produced incredible bomber planes such as the Hawker Hurricane and Supermarine Spitfire. 1969 saw the first flight of Concorde, a turbojet-powered supersonic passenger airline enter service. It was developed by British Aircraft Corporation and Aerospatiale under an Anglo-French treaty. With the advances in technology, we are now in the designers' golden age and witness the production of incredible engineering feats such as the Airbus A380, a double deck wide body four engine jet airliner jointly developed by European countries including the United Kingdom.
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