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airplane: Quick Facts

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Facts

Also Known As aeroplane • plane

Photos and Videos

Air New Zealand Limited
Supermarine Spitfire
F-86
A labeled photo of a commercial airplane in flight, identifying key parts including the cockpit, fuselage, wing, jet engine, vertical stabilizer, and horizontal stabilizer.
turbojet
flight simulator
A colorful Ameriquest Soaring Dream airship with bold geometric patterns flies above Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, with the baseball field and stands visible below.
Searcher UAV
Uncrewed aerial vehicle (UAV)
White glider aircraft seen from above, flying over a landscape of green fields and trees with autumn foliage.
A side view of an airplane in flight with large green arrows pointing up, down, forward, and backward to illustrate the forces acting on the plane.
Learn how airplanes fly
Watch the “Gossamer Albatross” the first human-powered plane crossing the English Channel in 1979
Witness the designing and construction of an Airbus A350 aircraft
NASA's innovations in preventing bug-strike impacts on planes
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Related Topics and References

Topics
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Key People

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Orville Wright
American aviator
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Wilbur Wright
American aviator
Charles Lindbergh
Charles Lindbergh
American aviator
A photograph of Igor Sikorsky holding a model aircraft.
Igor Sikorsky
American engineer
Howard Hughes, wearing a flight suit and goggles, sits in the cockpit of an airplane, looking toward the camera.
Howard Hughes
American manufacturer, aviator, and film producer
Portrait of Amelia Earhart smiling, wearing a collared shirt and jacket.
Amelia Earhart
American aviator
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Olive Ann Beech
American business executive
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Louise McPhetridge Thaden
American aviator
Jacqueline Cochran
Jacqueline Cochran
American pilot
Watch the “Gossamer Albatross” the first human-powered plane crossing the English Channel in 1979
Paul Beattie MacCready
American aeronautical engineer
Clément Ader.
Clément Ader
French engineer and inventor
Andrey N. Tupolev, Soviet aircraft designer, 1968.
Andrey Nikolayevich Tupolev
Soviet aircraft designer
Louis Blériot standing before his Type XI monoplane, which he flew across the English Channel on July 25, 1909.
Louis Blériot
French aviator
V-22
Richard Ten Eyck
American industrial designer
John Knudsen Northrop, American aeronautical designer, 1949.
John Knudsen Northrop
American engineer
Alberto Santos-Dumont, 1931.
Alberto Santos-Dumont
Brazilian aviator
Focke-Wulf Fw 190, German fighter plane of World War II.
Kurt Tank
German aircraft designer and test pilot
Bell Jet Ranger 206-B
Charles Wilfred Butler
American industrial designer
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Charles Lanier Lawrance
American aeronautical engineer
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Hanna Reitsch
German aviator

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