powered flight
Engine-driven aerial travel
Powered flight is sustained aerial travel using an engine or motor rather than gliding, wind currents, or lighter-than-air buoyancy.
The term usually refers to heavier-than-air craft—airplanes and helicopters—distinguished from balloons and unpowered gliders.
The Wright brothers achieved the first powered flight in 1903.
- airplanePowered flying machine
- fuselageAircraft's central structure
- control surfacesMovable parts directing aircraft
- propellerRotating blades creating thrust
- helicopterRotary-wing aircraft
lift · thrust · ornithopter · engine · Kitty Hawk · Wright Flyer · aviation · aerodynamics · wind tunnel · jet · Wright brothers · takeoff · altitude · landing · runway · rocket · airborne · rotor
- flightflying, fly, aviation, aircraft, airplane
- spaceflightlaunch, astronaut, spacecraft, liftoff, orbit
- Aviation HistoryWright Brothers, Wright Flyer, Wright brothers, Kitty Hawk, aviation pioneers
- Early AviationWright brothers, Wright Flyer, Kitty Hawk, Orville Wright, Wilbur Wright
- bird anatomybeak, feathers, wings, tail feathers, wing feathers
- spacecraft maneuversburn, docking, deorbit, rendezvous, gravity assist
powered flightgliding
Engineless aerial movement
soaring · ballooning · free flight · paragliding · hang gliding
powered flightflightlessness
Inability to fly
ground transportation · grounded · earthbound · walking · driving
powered flightgrounded
Stable and realistic
earthbound · stationary · static · tethered · landlocked