It is the 21st century and it has been over a century since we have become familiar with the term airplane or aeroplane. Since its inception, it has turned out to be one of the most outstanding gifts of modern science. It has revolutionized communication as well as warfare all across the globe. Millions of people use airplanes as standard mode of transport around the globe and almost all the countries have an active air force as part of their armed forces. Most of us have a basic idea about airplanes.

However, there are still a lot of lesser known facts about airplanes that are interesting enough to grab attention. Some of these interesting facts about airplanes are as follows:

The earliest proto-types of an airplane can be traced back to the antiquity. It has been claimed that Archytus, in ancient Greece, built the first flight. The device was self-propelled and is said to have flown 200 metres approximately. Abbas Ibn Firnas and Elimer of Malmesbury of the 9th and the 11th century respectively, is also said to have experimented with devices that could fly, but these were mostly gliders.

The first modern proto-type was used by Sir George Cayley in 1799. The device had systems for flight, propulsion and control.

Just 3 years after the experiments conducted by the Wright brothers, acknowledged as the first flight, Alberto Santos Dumont successfully launched a flight without the assistance of a catapult, the first time in the history of aviation.

The first operational jet aircraft in the history of aviation was used for military purposes during the Second World War and it was designed by the Germans. It was known as Heinkel He 178.

The Boeing 747, the biggest passenger aircraft till 2005, was first introduced in 1958. It has recently been replaced as the biggest passenger airplane by Airbus A380.

The Boeing 747, one of the most common models of airplanes in the world, has six million different parts. This particular aircraft is used in public transportation as well cargo transport. Each engine of this particular airplane weighs almost 9500 pounds.

Atlanta, Georgia in the USA boasts of the busiest airport in the world. The Hartsfield-Jackson Airport in Atlanta records 970,000 flight movements per year. In 2012, it was visited by 95 million passengers.

Transportation via airplanes is 10 times safer than travelling via bus or via railways. This can be asserted on the basis of the number of casualties that each of these modes of transport have witnessed over the years.

The speed of a Boeing 747 airplane is approximately 950 km per hour.

The first jet airliner was de Havilland Comet. It was introduced in the year 1952.

These are only a few interesting facts about the most important mode of transportation of the modern world. Airplanes have virtually reduced the distance between two parts of the world and hence it is the one of the most revolutionary gifts of science to the modern world which one can think as of today.