What if plane/jet/rocket technology was invented earlier

I am curious to know if there any notable events that could have sped up the invention/use of planes, jets, rockets. Transport technologies in general.

Earlier we talked about Leonardo Davinci making great leaps, but many deemed this unlikely.
https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=66103

What about other early attempts at flight or designs that got made, anyone know more about these guys?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_flying_machines#Table_of_flying_machines

This is for a story I am working on here.
https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=159355
 
I could be wrong, but if you have the know how on the aerodynamics for an aircraft (early aircraft, cause it takes a long time to get to jet), you may start looking into feasible ways to make the metal work next, so that technology comes earlier too, if possible.
 
There are claims of steam powered projectiles back in 400 b.c.

[SIZE=-1]"a Greek named Archytas who lived in the city of Tarentum, now a part of southern Italy. Somewhere around the year 400 B.C., mystified and amused the citizens of Tarentum by flying a pigeon made of wood. Escaping steam propelled the bird suspended on wires. The pigeon used the action-reaction principle, which was not stated as a scientific law until the 17th century.[/SIZE] [SIZE=-1]About three hundred years after the pigeon, another Greek, Hero of Alexandria, invented a similar rocket-like device called an aeolipile. It, too, used steam as a propulsive gas."[/SIZE]


[SIZE=-1]then you have the [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]old Chinese legend that reported the use of rockets as a means of transportation.[/SIZE]


[SIZE=-1]Wan-Hu sat himself on the chair and gave the command to light the rockets. Forty-seven rocket assistants, each armed with torches, rushed forward to light the fuses. In a moment, there was a tremendous roar accompanied by billowing clouds of smoke. When the smoke cleared, Wan-Hu and his flying chair were gone.[/SIZE]


[SIZE=-1]Suppose gunpowder flight is highly unlikely.
[/SIZE]
 
Flight itself can be done when you can make a balloon. Which of course is why the Chinese invented manned flight. Flight useful for more than observation/signalling is a whole other kettle of fish.

Essentially, until you get a working industrial complex you are stuck with balloons (held prisoner by the wind) and rocket powered devices (that usually kill the rider). Even then all you can build are blimps, which have tremendous limitations.

Heavier-than-air flight requires a high quality engine, and can't be moved to an earlier date without moving forward a huge host of other technologies. It actually developed very quickly once the engine technology was there.

Honestly, though, you can build workable gliders - and mechanically driven launchers for them - with late-Medieval tech. Gliders are probably the thing to do if you want a lot guys flying about much earlier in history.
 
Ideas are one thing. The materials aka metalurgy is something else. Never mind the metalworking technology needed.

The critical path is the Kroll process for extracting titanium, 1946. You get jets and rockets to the extent you can speed it up. For a single POD, you might gain 10 or 20 years.

To do any better, you would need to speed up the entire time line of science and technology in the 19th century and before.
 
How much earlier do you need flight to be advanced? If the first plane flew in 1898-9 then they could be used in the Russo-Japanese war in 1904 for observation and their development kick-started from then rather than 1914.
 
Well I am curious to know just how fast it could have advanced, moving events before 1900 or after, to the extent that rocket racing could be a popular sport by the 1980's.

Lack of safety or more safety tests to speed up advancements.

If the Himmelstrummer (jet pack) was finished for ww2?
https://www.alternatehistory.com/disc...d.php?t=159166

So jet technology got an earlier start?

Basically so advanced that eventually it could lead to a "Wipeout" like race.
https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?p=3422396#post3422396
 
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