war the British Gloster Meteor entered service but never saw action – top airspeeds of aircraft for that era went as high as 1,, with the early July 1944 unofficial record flight of the German Me 163B V18 rocket fighter prototype. Postwar In October 1947, the Bell X-1 was the first aircraft to exceed the speed of sound. In 1948–49, aircraft transported supplies during the Berlin Blockade. New aircraft types, such as the B-52, were produced during the Cold War. The first jet airliner, the de Havilland Comet, was introduced in 1952, followed by the Soviet Tupolev Tu-104 in 1956. The Boeing 707, the first widely successful commercial jet, was in commercial service for more than 50 years, from 1958 to 2010. The Boeing 747 was the world's biggest passenger aircraft from 1970 until it was surpassed by the Airbus A380 in 2005. Classes of fixed-wing aircraft Airplane/aeroplane An airplane (also known as an aeroplane or simply a plane) is a powered fixed-wing aircraft that is propelled forward by thrust from a jet engine or propeller. Planes come in a variety of sizes, shapes, and wing configurations. The broad spectrum of uses for planes includes recreation, transportation of goods and people, military, and research. Seaplane A seaplane is a fixed-wing aircraft capable of taking off and landing (alighting) on water. Seaplanes that can also operate from dry land are a subclass called amphibian aircraft. These aircraft were sometimes called hydroplanes. Seaplanes and amphibians are usually divided into two categories based on their technological characteristics: floatplanes and flying boats. A floatplane is similar in overall design to a land-based airplane, with a generally unmodified fuselage from as compared to its landplane version, except that the wheels at the base of the undercarriage are replaced by floats, allowing the craft to operate from water rather than from dry land. A flying boat is a seaplane with a watertight hull forming the lower (ventral) areas of its fuselage, resting directly on the water's surface. It differs from a float plane as it does not need additional floats for buoyancy, although it may have small underwing floats or fuselage-mount sponsons to stabilize it on the water. Large seaplanes are usually flying boats, with most classic amphibian aircraft designs using some form of flying-boat design for their fuselage/hull. Powered gliders Many forms of glider (see below) may be modified by adding a small power plant.