An airplane is a powered flying machine with wings and engines that carries people and cargo through the air. When you look up and see a jet trail stretching across the sky, you're watching an airplane cruise at speeds up to 600 miles per hour, high above the clouds.

The invention of the airplane in 1903 by Orville and Wilbur Wright transformed human civilization. Before airplanes, crossing an ocean meant weeks on a ship. Traveling from New York to California required days by train. Now airplanes make those journeys in hours. Modern passenger jets can carry hundreds of people across continents, while cargo planes move packages and supplies around the world overnight.

Airplanes work by using their engines to push forward while their wings generate lift, the upward force that keeps them in the air. As an airplane moves forward, air flowing over the curved top of its wings creates lower pressure above than below, helping pull the plane upward. Pilots control the airplane using flaps, rudders, and other moving surfaces on the wings and tail.

People sometimes call them planes for short, or use the word aircraft to describe airplanes, helicopters, and other flying vehicles together.