OUR AVIATION MUSEUM

For many years now, our magazine has been publishing materials on the history of technology, illustrated with precise colorful images of combat vehicles and small arms of the Great Patriotic War, sailing ships and modern vessels, cars and steam locomotives.

From the construction of a full-size airplane, carried out by A. Mozhaisky, there was only one step left to controlled flight.

Europeans turned out to be capable students of the overseas "touring performers"—the Wright brothers. Carrying out orders from the famous car racer Henri Farman, the firm "Voisin Brothers" built him several successful airplanes.

In 1914, the aeroplane was far from being in a state of full combat readiness. In an attempt to turn their unarmed aircraft into fighters against enemy planes, the most daring and skilled pilots resorted to ramming.

At the end of 1918, not far from Paris, where the Seine makes a bend reminiscent of the river’s curve in the French capital, a grand construction project unfolded.

"A new and undoubtedly very promising chapter has begun in the history of dynamic aeronautics: a new type of aeroplane — the hydro-aeroplane — has proven its viability and entered the path of development",

In 1917, designer Hugo Junkers built his first all-metal monoplane, which became the basis for an entire family of single-wing aircraft made of “flying metal” — duralumin.

It turns out that although the first-ever “Air Steam Transport Company,” which planned to carry “mail, cargo, and passengers from one place to another” on heavier-than-air flying machines, was officially registered by the British Parliament as early as 1843, it took almost 70 years before an aeroplane lifted into the air not only itself and the pilot, but also passengers.

When on April 1, 1913, English subscribers unfolded the pages of the “Daily Mail,” it seemed to them that the highlight of the issue—the speech by the British Lord of the Press, Northcliffe—was too far-fetched even for an April Fools’ joke.