GAME CHANGERS

摘要

Aviation is full of firsts-first flight, first dogfight, first crossing of this or that, first jet, first widebody. And some firsts are debatable. New Zealanders still insist that secretive savant Richard Pearse beat the Wright brothers into the air by almost nine months, and many Italians remain convinced that Caproni's 1940 Campini N.I ducted-fan blowtorch was the world's first jet. Many first flights also never quite manage to set the bar for what is to follow. De Havilland Comet diehards will forever argue that it was the world's first jetliner, which it was, but the sweptwing, podded-engine airliners that are still being built to this day sprang from a Boeing design. Heinrich Focke and Gerd Achgelis inar-guably built and flew the world's first helicopter, but four years later Igor Sikorsky flew an innovative design that turned then-configuration into a dead end. Here, then, are our choices for the 15 aircraft that have had-and continue to have-the greatest effect on the future of flight.