World's Greatest Aviation Innovations

[Njaco]

If it comes to first to fly, theres this......

 

[Marcel]

It was even a manned flight:

 

[Old Wizard]

I think they forgot another very important one.

The Variable Pitch Propellor.

It is probably not the single most greatest innovation (not with jet engine and instrument flight, etc.), but it greatly effected performance during the prop era.

You might add the further variation of reverse pitch for faster braking [even reverse movement].
Then there's thrust reversers for jet engines.

 

[HoHun]

If it comes to first to fly, theres this......

...

 

[drgondog]

The entire field of electonics applied to the airframe industry - from R-Nav to GPS to egt/cht/epr sensors, to thermoclouples, to CAD to computer models such as NASTRAN to VSAero and flight simulators.

Make mistakes that are caught by the models, improve on the design, learn to fly w/o burning fuel, control an aircraft without a pilots, etc, etc.

 

[Velius]

Nobody has mentioned the helicopter yet. It can hover, take off/land in an area the size of a small parking lot, and is more practical than the airplane VTOLS. These uses have been incorporated into almost every role in civil and military aviation.

 

[D.James]

raising the dead here... just surprised it wasn't mentioned
I'd have to throw monocouque stressed skin construction into the mix.

 

[timshatz]

For me, it's simple.

The Parachute. Performs the same service as an eraser on a pencil.