Aircraft Design Firsts

Introduction

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Table

Date	Milestone	Aircraft	Identity
	First aircraft designed as a turboprop	Varga RMI-1 X/H
	First aircraft to fly	Wright Flyer
	First turbojet	Heinkel He 178
	First turboprop aircraft to fly	Gloster Meteor
	First turboshaft helicopter	Kaman K-225
	First four engine aircraft	Sikorsky Russky Vityaz
	First supersonic transport	Tupolev Tu-144
	First practical helicopter	Focke-Wulf Fw 61
	First mass produced helicopter	Sikorsky R-4
	First widebody airliner	Boeing 747
	First commercial jet airliner	Vickers Type 618 Nene-Viking
	First commercial jet airliner to enter service	de Havilland Comet
	First operational jet fighter	Messerschmitt Me 262
	First pressurized aircraft	Airco DH.9A
	First pressurized airliner	Renard R.35
	First pressurized airliner to enter service	Boeing 307
	First business jet	Lockheed JetStar
	First light business jet	Learjet 23
	First jet bomber	Arado 234
	First airplane to takeoff and land on a ship	Curtiss Model D
	First production airplane	Santos-Dumont Demoiselle
	First all metal aircraft	A Vlaicu III
	First practical all metal aircraft	Junkers J 1
	First production turboprop	Vickers Viscount
	First seaplane	Fabre Hydravion
	First production seaplane	Felixstowe F.2
	First jet seaplane	Saunders-Roe SR.A/1
	First tandem rotor helicopter	P-V Engineering Forum XHRP-X
	First intermeshing rotor helicopter	Flettner Fl 265
	First coaxial rotor helicopter	D'Ascanio-Trojani D'AT3
	First all fly-by-wire aircraft	Lunar Landing Training Vehicle
	First all digital fly-by-wire aircraft	Vought F-8 Crusader
	First fly-by-wire commercial airliner	Aérospatiale/BAC Concorde
	First digital fly-by-wire commercial airliner	Airbus A320
	First production fly-by-optics aircraft	Kawasaki P-1
	First aircraft with radar	Avro Anson
	First multi-engine aircraft with variable pitch propellers	Zeppelin-Staaken R.VI
	First aircraft with a supercharged engine	Zeppelin-Staaken R.VI
	First aircraft with an ejection seat	Heinkel 280
	First aircraft with an enclosed cockpit	Avro Type F
	First aircraft with a variable pitch propeller	British Army Dirigible No 1/Nulli Secundus
	First aircraft with a constant speed propeller	Gloster Grebe
	First aircraft with retractable landing gear	Wiencziers Renneindecker
	First rocket powered aircraft	Lippisch Ente
	First purpose built rocket powered aircraft	Opel RAK.1
	First solely liquid fueled rocket powered aircraft	Heinkel He 176
	First airplane with a turbocharged engine	LePere LUSAC-11
	First airplane to carry an air-to-air rocket	Nieuport 11
	First airplane to carry an air-to-air missile	Fock-Wulf Fw 190
	First production fighter to be equipped for in flight refueling	Republic F-84 Thunderjet
	First airplane with variable sweep wings	Westland-Hill Pterodactyl IV
	First production airplane with variable sweep wings	General Dynamics F-111 Aardvark
	First airplane with an afterburner	Gloster Meteor I
	First airplane with a high bypass turbofan engine	Lockheed C-5 Galaxy
	First production airplane with a turbofan engine	Handley Page Victor B.2
	First airplane with folding wings	Short S.41
	First aircraft with a two stage supercharger	Grumman F4F-3 Wildcat
	First aircraft with an autopilot	Curtiss C-2
	First jet aircraft with thrust vectoring	Gloster Meteor
	First aircraft with a supercharged engine to enter service	Armstrong Whitworth Siskin IIIA
	First airplane with jet engine thrust reversers	Vickers Wellington
	First airplane with push-pull configuration	Fokker K.I
	First airplane with an operational air-to-air radar	Bristol Blenheim
	First production civil airplane with a fully supercritical wing	Dassault Falcon 50
	First airplane with a supercritical wing	North American T-2 Buckeye