Aviation History Trivia

It took humanity thousands of years of watching birds before anyone figured out how to join them, and once the Wright brothers cracked it in 1903, aviation went from a twelve-second hop to supersonic travel in less than seventy years. This quiz covers the pilots, planes, and milestones that got us off the ground.

From Kitty Hawk to the Sound Barrier

The Wright Flyer's first flight covered less distance than the wingspan of a modern jumbo jet, but it proved powered flight was possible. From there, progress moved fast: Lindbergh crossed the Atlantic alone in 1927, Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier in the Bell X-1 in 1947, and by 1976 the Concorde was carrying passengers faster than the speed of sound.

• The Wright brothers' 1903 flight lasted just 12 seconds and covered about 120 feet.
• Lindbergh's Spirit of St. Louis crossed the Atlantic in roughly 33.5 hours.
• NASA, founded in 1958, grew directly out of Cold War competition in aerospace research.

Breaking Barriers in the Cockpit

Aviation's early decades also opened doors that had been firmly shut. Amelia Earhart became the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic, while Bessie Coleman, denied training in the United States because of her race and gender, learned to fly in France and became the first African American and Native American woman to earn a pilot's license.