An aircraft with two main wings stacked one above the other, typically one above and one below the fuselage.
From 'bi-' (two) and 'plane' (aircraft). Emerged in early 20th-century aviation when the Wright brothers and contemporaries experimented with multiple wings for lift.
The Wright brothers' famous aircraft were biplanes because early aviators discovered that two wings generated more lift than one, even though the extra weight and drag made them slower—a trade-off that dominated aviation design until around 1930.
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