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biplane
Sign in to savethumb|First World War [[Sopwith Camel biplane]]
Wikidata facts
- Instance of
- wing configuration
- Subclass of
- multiplane
- Image
- Biplane wire.svg
Show 2 more facts
- different from
- tandem wing
- Commons category
- Biplanes
via Wikidata · CC0
~23 min read
Encyclopedic overview
13 sectionsContents
- Characteristics
- Advantages and disadvantages
- Stagger
- Bays
- Rigging
- History
- Ultralight aircraft
- Avian evolution
- See also
- References
- Citations
- Bibliography
- External links
thumb|First World War [[Sopwith Camel biplane]]
A biplane is a fixed-wing aircraft with two main wings stacked one above the other. The first powered, controlled aeroplane to fly, the Wright Flyer, used a biplane wing arrangement, as did many aircraft in the early years of aviation. While a biplane wing structure has a structural advantage over a monoplane, it produces more drag than a monoplane wing. Improved structural techniques, better materials and higher speeds made the biplane configuration obsolete for most purposes by the late 1930s.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “biplane” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.