At the beginning of manned flight, aircraft needed some length of ground run in order to take off and fly. The Wrights took under 60 ft, and with a wing loading of 1.47 lb/sq ft and a CL max of approximately 0.9 they achieved first manned flight.

Time went on, and man grew more familiar with the hazards of increased take-off length and take-off speed. His growing knowledge of aerodynamics allowed him to increase the CL max values on wings. These facts combined to allow him to use increased wing loadings to improve his flight efficiency in terms of payload, cruise speed and range. The following graphs show the growth of these characteristics.