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BY NAVKALA ROY. DESIGNED AND ILLUSTRATED BY SUBIR ROY

Flying machine designed byLeonardo da Vinci (1505)

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I.... ····and now I :'. AI. ..

Wright brothers-inventorsof powered flight (1903)

..and takes off...

Icarus-from Greek -= Man's first attempt at flying

mythology - (1020 A.D.)=

An idea takes shape...

Airship (1852)

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Garuda-Indian mythological

bird

I Hot-air balloon (1783) 1_

Up above the world so highLike a big bird in the sky....

It's so unreal. At the same time sofascinating. This gigantic bird that man

has invented-the aeroplane.Unlike an automobile, a train or a ship, it

breaks all barriers as it speeds along,sometimes faster than the speed of sound,across the limitless sky.

To man, the aeroplane was a symbol offreedom. In ancient Hindu mythology it wasGaruda-the great celestial bird who is saidto have 'mocked the wind with hisfleetness.' And in Greece it was Icarus whois supposed to have risen from the earth onwings of wax and flown until he came soclose to the sun that his wings melted.

Perhaps it had always been man's secretdesire to compete with the birds. To glidegracefully in the air. To break free from theearth. To soar over the mountains and theseas. The aeroplane is in fact, a dream cometrue.

Try try again

Many daring men tried to construct wingsfor themselves before the plane wasinvented. One such was Oliver ofMalmesbury, an English monk. He wore apair of thin wooden wings across hisshoulders, fixed a steering to his heels andwent flap, flap from the tower of MalmesburyAbbey, till he flopped right down and almostbroke his crown! But that did not stop othersfrom trying. Infact, it was try, try again thatfinally worked. One person who contributedto the theory of flight is Leonardo da Vinci.What's a painter got to do with planes? Well,Leonardo's designs showed that muscle­power was not sufficient to fly. It neededcertain mechanical devices before fHghtcould be possible.

But even this suggestion was of no helpto anyone for about 450 years. No one couldimagine that one day it would be possible toget off the ground and stay there.

Up goes the balloon

Fancy travelling in a balloon. It seems asremote as travelling on a magic carpet. Yet,the first time that man left the ground by acraft, he sat in a basket attached to aballoon. Bigger than the ones you play withof course!

Two Frenchmen, the Montgolfierbrothers, made this possible.

One day, sitting by the fireside, theynoticed little pieces of burned paper risingin the air. 'If only we could trap enough ofthat gas produced by the bu rning fire', theythought, 'then we could use it to lift evenmen off the ground'.

T. ontgol.r ot· Ir alloon

To begin with they held a small silk bagover an indoor fire, open end downward.Then they let go. It rose quickly to theceiling.

In September 1783 they invited the Kingand Queen of France to a demonstration oftheir craft in the palace garden. For thisoccasion they buttoned together some linenpanels and made a huge balloon, 38 feet indiameter. They lined it with paper to make itairtight. Then they filled it out with a gasfrom a fire of wool and straw and releasedit. The balloon, believe it or not, went upto aheight of more than 1,800 metres before itlanded a kilometre or so from its take-offpoint.

The Montgolfiers became heroesinstantly. After all they had created the firstaerial vehicle.

The first successful human flight in aballoon was from Paris In 1783.

Ballooning soon became a sport and aspectacle all over the world.

Sir George Cayley, an Englishman, triedto improve on the balloon by suggestingthe use of a streamlined gas-bag. Heintroduced steam driven propellers forsteering it. But it was not until 1850 thatsuch a craft was built. It was called anairship.

Two people associated with airships are aBrazilian, Alberto Santos Dumont and aGerman, Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin.But airships, as it turned out, were slow andthe hydrogen gas which made them floatcaught fire easily.

In 1937 the huge transatlantic airship'Hindenburg' exploded in flames over NewYork. With this ended the life of airships.

The airship 'Hindenburg' had a diningroom 4.5 metres by 15 metres for her 70passengers. The classic Hindenburg lunchover the Atlantic was-Indian swallows'nest soup, caviar and Rhine Salmon, lobs­ter, saddle of venison, fruit and cheese.

Tho e magnificent boy

The brains behind the more familiarheavier-than-air aeroplane that we seetoday were two boys-Wilbur and OrvilleWright. They weren't extraordinary. Justpersistent and dedicated. One day theirfather brought home a toy aeroplane. Itwas made of bamboo, cork and paper anddriven by rubber bands. But it flew.

Wilbur and Orville, when they saw it,were determined to be the first men to fly. Itwas this determination that led them tobuild a flyin,g machine in their bicycle shop.

Then, instead of holidaying in summer,they toddled off to Kitty Hawk-a desertedseacoast in North Carolina-to experimentwith their craft. After thousands of trials anderrors they were able to glide this machinemade of sticks and cloth, controlling bothup and down as well as sidewaysmovement. Then they fitted an internalcombustion engine and two propellers to it.

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flyer-I- the world'. fir.t powered flight

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12 seconds that changed the world

On December 17, 1903 dawned the bigday. The two brothers took their machine,Flyer I, to the same sandy beach, Kitty Hawk.Both brothers were bachelors because, asOrville said, they couldn't "support a wifeas well as an aeroplane".

Orville lay flat on the lower wing ready toguide the machine, while Wilbur started it.

The engine came alive. The propellersspun. The plane shook. It rolled down thebeach. Then suddenly it was up in the air. Itbobbed up and down. It swayed a little fromside to side. But the important thing wasthat it flew. It flew a distance of 36 metres in12 seconds before it came down in thesand. They were the most momentous 12seconds in the history of powered flight.

Man had learnt to fly. First a few hundredfeet, then several miles, then across theNorth Sea, then over the Atlantic Ocean andthen round the world.

Puss moth

Flight to Bombay

October 15, 1932. Twenty-nine years afterthe Wright brothers had created arevolution in the field of transport. At breakof day in Karachi, a light single-enginedaircraft spinned into life. It swung into theair and took wing almost instantly. It washeading for Bombay.

At the controls was the strapping 28year-old pilot,J.R.D. Tata. The aircraft hewas flying was a Puss Moth,a wooden planewith fabric covering, except for the frontportion of the cabin door pillars and the

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engine mounts which were of tubular steel.He carried no passengers, only mail,

because his plane was not big enough forboth.

Nervous he must have been. But alsovery very proud. For, as he brought in theplane to land at Juhu, in Bombay, he knewhe would be making history. That was theday that changed the face of the Indian sky.

J.R.D. Tata brought to India the adventureof flying; the advantages of this remarkableinvention. We've come a long way since.From the Puss Moth, the Leopard Moth, theDH-86, the DH-89 and the Stintson to themore familiar Dakota, Viking, Skymaster,Constellation, Super Constellation, Boeing707 and now the Boeing 747 and the Airbus.Tata Airlines is now Air India.

Air-India is one of the oldest airlines in theworld.

The aeroplane today

In just over eighty years aeroplanes havedeveloped from frail curios to machines wecan't do without in the field of transport,communication and defence. Every secondone aircraft is taking off or landingsomewhere in the world.

In 1927, it took Lindbergh, a 25-year-oldAmerican, 33 hours and 29 minutes to flyfrom New York to Paris. Today we havesupersonic transport (SST) that travelstwice as fast as the speed of sound and jets

. across the Atlantic Ocean in just threehours. Flying at a speed of 2150 km/h, it cancarry over a hundred people.

Aside from carrying passengers and mailacross the world, aeroplanes are also goodfreight carriers. A single Boeing 747FJumbo jet can carry as much cargo in a yearas was conveyed by all the world's airlinestogether in 1939.

We also have fighter planes which have

How does this huge object, someweighing 320 tons fly so gracefully in thesky and manage to stay up there for so longalmost as if it were part of God's creation.

Lift, thrust and drag. These are thefundamentals of flight. All three areinvisible, yet this is what man has devotedmany, many years to, in order to get anobject that is heavier than air up in theclouds.

A Qiant in the s y

Supersonic Jet

the ability to go 'zang'! This means that theplane will suddenly dart sideways, gostraight up or straight down withoutchanging wing or nose position. The Harriercan take-off and land vertically. It can landin rough counrty without runways, or on the .... ~I¥"f---------------_deck of a ship. "l",,~

These are just some of the recent , ~ The world's first airmail flight was flownadvances in aviation technology. A new in In~ia on February 18, 1911, .when .~r.

generation of longer winged, fuel efficient Henri Pequet',a Frenchman, earned mall In

jetliners is waiting to take-off, a ~~mber, bl-plane fro~ Allahabad to

Th 'II' "t' Y t II k Nalnl Junction, some 9.6 kilometres away.n mg I IS. e we a seem to ta eflying for granted today.

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How does it go up?

Lift-the most important part offlying­comes from the flow of air around thewings of the aeroplane. Lift is what pushesthe wing up.

It was a Swiss scientist, Daniel Bernoulli,who discovered that "in any moving fluidthe pressure is lowest where the speed isgreatest. The air about us acts like a fluidand if we can increase the speed of air overa surface, such as a wing, the pressureshould decrease and the wing should rise."

This principle can be applied to an aero­plane as well.

If you walk up to an aircraft and look at itcarefully you'll notice that the upper surfaceof the wing is generally curved while the

Flow of air over curved wing (aerofoil) lifts the plane

lower part is straight.Now, if you walk up to a bird-that may

not be as easy as walking up to an aircraft­you'll see that its wings too are curved ontop while the bottom is straight.

It is this shape, called the aerofoil, thathelps to lift the plane and keep it up. Inorder to understand why this is so, we haveto know a bit about airflow.

The air that goes over the top of the wingwill act differently than the air that goesunder the wing. As the air has to travel a

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1. Paste here 2. Push knitting needle in centre 3. Blow 4. Cross section of a wing 5. Air

greater distance over the top part of thewing, which is curved, it will travel at afaster speed. The air that goes under thewing will flow along a straight line. Intravelling farther the layer of air on top ofthe wing thins out.

All along the top of the wing, therefore,there is low pressure and along the bottomthere is a thick layer of air. When there'smore air under the wing than on top onlyone thing can happen. The air underneathpushes the wing up, up and away.

To understand this better here's what youcan do. Take a piece of stiff paper about 15

centimetres by 20 centimetres. Roll it overand paste the 15 centimetre ends as shown.Push in a knitting needle in the centre.

Hold the paper up by the knitting needleand blow hard on it. (See diagram) You willfind the paper is being pushed up. This isthe result of lift caused by the shape of thepaper.

The air that you blow on the paper flowsaround it. Some of it goes along the lowersurface to the back. But some flows on topand then to the back. There is a greaterpressure of air underneath and thus thepaper is pushed up.

The plane's best friend and worst enemy

Air may seem like nothing, yet it is there.It has force, it has power. It can push. It canpull. It has density. It can act and react.

Without air a plane cannot fly. Yet, if manhad not learnt to overcome the 'obstacles'in the air he would not have been able to fly.

1. Lift 2. Thrust 3. Drag 4. Weight

A great big push

A plane is standing on the ground waitingto take-off. There is air all around, but whatthe plane needs in order to get off theground, is thrust, or a big push, whichcreates the necessary flow of air around thewmgs.

This comes from the engine in a jetaircraft. In a propeller-driven plane, that is aplane with huge fans-the push comes fromthe propellers.

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The engine at work

1. Air intake 2. Propeller blades

pull air backward

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As in motor car,an aircraft needs anengine. The only difference is that anaircraft engine is much bigger and stronger.Often a plane has more than one engine.

Fuel runs the engine of an aeroplane, butunlike a motor car it does not send power tothe wheels. Instead it turns the propeller. Ina jet the engine works differently, as we willsee later.

Aircraft tyres are filled with nitrogen, notair. This means that there is no oxygen inthem. So in case of an accident there isless chance of the tyre catching fire.

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What a drag

Drag is what the plane has to fightagainst. It is the resistance an aircraftexperiences when passing through the air.To overcome drag, the plane uses thrust.

Every moving object tends to slow downbecause of drag. It could be the drag ofwater, the drag of air, or friction on roads orrails. This drag force can also slow down asatellite, until it falls to the ground.Incidentally, studies show that even themoon is affected by drag.

Aircraft today are more streamlined sothat there is less resistance from the air.

When thrust and lift are stronger thandrag, the plane rises.

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Watch-out it's the propeller

The aeroplane propeller is like a big fan. Ithas blades that are curved. These blades cutthrough the air, and also pull the airbackward. This air then pushes theaeroplane forward.

If you were to be standing behind theplane when the propeller is turning, watchout. You would probably be blown off. Sogreat is the force generated.

Issac Newton worked out how thishappens long before the propeller drivenplane was invented. He proved that actionand reaction are equal and opposite.

When the propeller pushes air backwardit is action. The reaction pushes thepropeller forward and being a part of theaeroplane it helps in carrying the planeforward.

The jet-age

Before the 2nd world war all aeroplaneshad propellers. The first planes with jetengines were used in the war.

The jet engine draws in air at the front.This air is forced into a chamber by blades.Here it is mixed with fuel. The mixtureburns. The burned gases shoot out from thejet pipe at high speed and whoosh ... theplane shoots forward.

The principle is the same as in a propellerdriven plane. There is a force pushing 2

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1. Cockpit 2. Nose wheel 3. Front passenger door 4. Wings(also serve as fuel tanks) 5. lIeron 6. Under carriage7 Horizol'ta stabil zer 8. Elevator . Rudder '0. Vertical fin

'1. Freight hold (b n ath the p ssenger deck)

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ahead in the jet that is exactly equal to theforce of the gases gushing out of the backend.

You can prove this by blowing up aballoon with air as far as it will go. Thenhold the end tightly so that no air escapes.

When the balloon is closed theimprisoned air presses the inside of theballoon in all directions. Similarly theballoon presses on the enclosed air withequal pressure and in opposite direction.

When you let go, the air is forced out ofthe opening. But there is another force,exerted by the air in the balloon upon the

balloon's inner surface. This force is equalto the force pushing the air out, but itsdirection is opposite. That is why theballoon flies off in the direction opposite tothat of the stream of air coming out of theballoon and goes shooting across the room.

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The inside story

Now that we know how a plane gets offthe ground and are reasonably sure of itstaying up there, let us board a Jumbo Jetand see what goes on insIde. t the aIrport

Boarding a plane by the way is not aseasy as getting into a car. And that is whyflying is an event for a lot of people eventoday.

An airport never sleeps. At any time of theday or night it's bustling with activity.

International airports usually have theirdeparture and arrivals separate, so that thepassengers don't get mixed up.

When you arrive at an airport you showyour ticket and have your baggage weighedfirst, for you are allowed a limited amount.

International flight passengers must

show their passports to the passport officer.Once all that is clear, you are requested toproceed to a particular gate number for asecurity check. From here you can eitherwalk straight on to the waiting plane or goby bus if the plane is a long way from theterminal.

A Jumbo jet is so big that the first everflight by the Wright brothers in 1903 couldhave been made in the length of itspassenger cabin.

Checking-in Passport Clearance Secu rity check

SECURITYCHECK

To the plane

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3

1. Seat belt 2. Fold-down table 3. Adjustable seat-back

4. Light 5. Air-vent 6. Window

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The toilets in an aircraft are expensivebecause of the complex plumbing system.The power for heating the water has to betaken from a generator whirling at manythousands of revolutions per minute. Theflush is electric. The water is taken out byheavy suction and finally streams out ofthe aircraft in a 933.3 km/h stream. It turnsInto ice instantly.

On board

At last you are on board. You are taken toyour seat. It's a comfortable armchair whichcan be straightened when you want to lookout of the window and pushed back whenyou wish to have a nap. A jumbo is knownas a 'wide bodied' jet. The passengers sit upto ten abreast. The luggage hold is beneaththe passenger deck.

1. Captain s seat 2. Rudder pedals 3 Control column

4 Compass 5. Clock 6. Air speed indicator 7 Radio

altimeter 8. Pressure altimeter 9. Engine switches

The cockpit

Right up in front, in the cockpit, sit themost important people, the captain and thecrew.

The pilot checks in 90 minutes beforetake-off, and goes through the flight plan,that is, maps, checklists, certificates ofairworthiness and so on. Most flight plansare now worked out by a computer. Thecrew then examines the aircraft by taking awalk round it. Among other things like foodand drinks for over 300 people, about159,110 litres of fuel are being pumped intothe aircraft.

In the cockpit the pilot's first check is tosee that all switches are off. Aircraftswitches, unlike other switches, are downfor off and up for on.

Then he reads the log-book to see whatprevious pilots have noted. All pilots keep adiary of every flight, called a log.

There are over 50 pre-flight checks that

the captain and first officer go through oneby one. The captain sits in the left hand seat.The first officer or copilot sits on the rightand behind them facing sideways is theflight engineer.

They have before them a mass of dialsand instruments which would makeanyone's head whirl and you wonder howthey can remember what is what whenflying the plane. Yet, for a pilot it is theeasiest thing in the world.

Some of the important instrumentsstrewn before him include the air-speedindicator which tells you how fast the planeis travelling; the compass which shows thedirection the plane is travelling in; thealtimeter which tells you how high theplane is from the ground; the attitude gyrowhich indicates the plane's position inrelation to the horizon; the turn-and-bankindicator which tells you whether the planeis flying straight; the vertical-speedindicator which shows the rate at which the

1. The pilot 2 The co-pilot 3. The engineer

plane is climbing or descending in relationto the ground; the chronometer which is aperfectly accurate clock and so on.

Inside the control tower

Fasten your seat-belts

Far across the airfield is a brightly paintedtower-a kind of light house for aeroplanes.The men who work inside this control tower

tell the pilot by radio, when to take off andwhen to land. The captain first asks forpermission to move slowly or 'taxi' to therunway.

Then, the engines are started. In a jumbojet there are four engines. The plane 'taxis'to take-off position.

You fasten your seat belts. The count­down begins.

The captain and the first-officer push thefou r throttle handles. The throttle helps toincrease the speed of the engine.

"V," says co-pilot. That is the first speed,V standing for velocity. The plane racesdown the runway.

In a few seconds the plane reaches VS,(the lift-off speed).

"Rotate," says the co-pilot. The enginenow sounds like a 100 lions roaring.

The captain pulls back the control columnand the nose lifts off the ground.

"V2" calls out the co-pilot, the climbingspeed, and you're in the air!

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You get a funny feeling in your stomach.Grrr .... Clunk! The wheels go up. Higher

and higher you go, until automobiles on theroads look like dinky cars and people likeants.

Bubbles pop in your ears. You swallowand they go away.

Suddenly you can't see anything. Theplane is in a cloud.

And suddenly it's sunshine again. Thistime the plane is above the clouds. It hasbecome a part of the sky. A different worldwhich is beautiful and serene.

•

Some of the smoothest flying in theworld is said to be had over the Arctic. Themost dangerous is said to be in the'Bermuda Triangle'. Legend has it thataircraft and ships travelling in the Bermu­da Triangle are snatched away by aninexplicable force.

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OVlng In th blu

A plane can move in almost any direction.It can be tilted up or down, turned right orleft. To make this possible certain deviceson the edges of the wings and tail are used.These are called control surfaces and theyinclude elevators, rudder and ailerons. Theyare operated by pedals at the pilot's feetand by the control column.

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Finding its way

A plane can lose its way just as easily as acar. A single air current is enough to pull theplane off course, and that is why it is sonecessary to watch the compass and manyother instruments to make sure that theplane is keeping to the right course. Radiocontact with special transmitters set up nearairports help the most.

Even better are networks of special radiosending stations that have been set up inmany parts of the world. A pilot with a radiothat can tune in to these stations can tellexactly where he is at any moment of hisflight.

, Rudder 2. Elevator 3. Horizontal stabll zerG-------------------

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1. Elevator 2. Downward force on tail 3. Nose comes up

3 -....,

2

1. Aileron down 2. Aileron movements make plane bank3. Plane banks causing it to turn 4. Aileron up 5. The pilotmoves the rudder slightly to balance the turn.

Banana peel in the sky

When the plane's nose swings from left toright it is known as yaw. The long tail, thevertical fin of the plane, has a broad metalmovable piece called the rudder.

The pilot has only to press the right pedalat his feet and the rudder moves to the

right. The air rushing past hits the rudderand pushes the tail to the left. This helps toturn the plane to the right. If the pilot didn'tuse these controls and turned the plane justlike that it would skid like a car sometimesdoes. So you see the sky too has its bananapeels!

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Yawing

•••••••• •••

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Pitching a plane

When the nose of a plane moves up anddown it is known as pitching. This iscontrolled by elevators-horizontal movableparts of the aeroplane's tail.

To take the plane up the pilot pulls thecontrol column back. This moves theelevators up. Air flowing across the

Pitching

•• • •• •• •••••••

elevators forces the tail down and nose up.So the plane climbs.

To descend the opposite is done. Thepilot pushes the control column. Thismoves the elevators down. The tail movesup and the nose goes down.

One wrong move on the part of the pilotcan lead to disaster.

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Rolling in the air

When one wing goes up or down inrelation to the other the plane is said to berolling.

To control this the wings have ailerons.These move in opposite directions. If theright aileron is up the left one will be down.The aircraft will then 'bank' towards theaileron that is up. So if the left aileron is upthe plane will not roll to the right.

We've tried to tell you as briefly aspossible some of the things involved inflying a plane. It is a highly technicaloperation and extremely challenging aswell. Perhaps one of these days you too willbe up there, at the controls.

Roiling

King Khaled of Saudi Arabia has ordereda £21 million 747 executive jet. The planewill have a room with a throne and ahospital section with satellite communica­tions to a hospital in Cleveland.

Th . urn ov r

Bejewelled. Sparkling. Twinkling with thestars. Playing hide and seek with the clouds.Almost reluctant to leave the skies she'swedded to-a plane landing at night is afascinating sight.

Gently and so gracefully she slopes downthe dark skies, the left wing tipped with ared light, the right with a green one.

Slowly but surely the plane comes furtherdown towards the air ort. But what' .jam in the air! /

There are too -=m=-a~n::y~pT:1a:::n:::e;::;s:-:w~a;;-nt+;I"n-;;;g""Tfto--~

land at the same time. When this happensthe traffic controller 'stacks' them.

What a come down! To be queueing up inthe same sky where she roamed so freely

minutes ago.Starting, from the bottom of the 'stack'

the planes are given permission to land oneby one.

The pilot recognizes his destination bytwo powerful lights called beacons. Soonthe runway lights come into view.

Using control surfaces the pilot brings the

plane down so gently that you barely knowyou've landed.

The journey is over and soon you'rehome. For the plane, however, life is aseries of 'touch and go's'. No sooner doesshe touch ground than she is spruced uponce more. Then off she goes to the skieswhere she belongs.

This book, one of a series of informationbooks, introduces the child to the aeroplane.It explains how it flies and how it came to be.

Published by Children's Book Trust, Nehru House,

Website: www.childrensbooktrust.com 788170112990I,