When he successfully reached Paris, Lindbergh became a world hero who would remain in the public eye for decades. Nearly a thousand people assembled at Roosevelt Field to see Lindbergh off on his historic flight.
Louis, in 21 hours and 40 minutes. The Spirit of St. Louis returned to the U. Charles Lindbergh flew a Great Circle route along the curvature of the earth rather than flying directly east over the Atlantic Ocean. This freed pilots from having to crank the gear up and down during takeoffs and landings. For greater passenger comfort, the DC-3 had a noise-deadening plastic insulation, and seats set in rubber to minimize vibrations. It was a fantastically popular airplane, and it helped attract many new travelers to flying.
Although planes such as the Boeing and the DC-3 represented significant advances in aircraft design, they had a major drawback. They could fly no higher than 10, feet, because people became dizzy and even fainted, due to the reduced levels of oxygen at higher altitudes. The airlines wanted to fly higher, to get above the air turbulence and storms common at lower altitudes. Motion sickness was a problem for many airline passengers, and an inhibiting factor to the industry's growth.
The breakthrough came at Boeing with the Stratoliner, a derivation of the B bomber introduced in and first flown by TWA.
It was the first pressurized aircraft, meaning that air was pumped into the aircraft as it gained altitude to maintain an atmosphere inside the cabin similar to the atmosphere that occurs naturally at lower altitudes. With its regulated air compressor, the seat Stratoliner could fly as high as 20, feet and reach speeds of miles per hour. Government decisions continued to prove as important to aviation's future as technological breakthroughs, and one of the most important aviation bills ever enacted by Congress was the Civil Aeronautics Act of Until that time, numerous government agencies and departments had a hand in aviation policy.
Airlines sometimes were pushed and pulled in several directions, and there was no central agency working for the long-term development of the industry.
All the airlines had been losing money, since the postal reforms in significantly reduced the amount they were paid for carrying the mail. The airlines wanted more rationalized government regulation, through an independent agency, and the Civil Aeronautics Act gave them what they needed.
It created the Civil Aeronautics Authority CAA and gave the new agency power to regulate airline fares, airmail rates, interline agreements, mergers and routes. Its mission was to preserve order in the industry, holding rates to reasonable levels while, at the same time nurturing the still financially-shaky airline industry, thereby encouraging the development of commercial air transportation. Congress created a separate agency - the Air Safety Board - to investigate accidents. These moves, coupled with the tremendous progress made on the technological side, put the industry on the road to success.
Aviation had an enormous impact on the course of World War II and the war had just as significant an impact on aviation. There were fewer than air transport aircraft in the United States when Hitler marched into Poland in By the end of the war, U. Most of the planes, of course, were fighters and bombers, but the importance of air transports to the war effort quickly became apparent as well.
Throughout the war, the airlines provided much needed airlift to keep troops and supplies moving, to the front and throughout the production chain back home. For the first time in their history, the airlines had far more business - for passengers as well as freight - than they could handle. Many of them also had opportunities to pioneer new routes, gaining an exposure that would give them a decidedly broader outlook at war's end.
While there were numerous advances in U. The major innovations of the wartime period - radar and jet engines - occurred in Europe. Isaac Newton was the first to theorize, in the 18th century, that a rearward-channeled explosion could propel a machine forward at a great rate of speed.
However, no one found a practical application for the theory until Frank Whittle, a British pilot, designed the first jet engine in Even then, widespread skepticism about the commercial viability of a jet prevented Whittle's design from being tested for several years. The Germans were the first to build and test a jet aircraft. Based on a design by Hans von Ohain, a student whose work was independent of Whittle's, it flew in , although not as well as the Germans had hoped.
It would take another five years for German scientists to perfect the design, by which time it was, fortunately, too late to affect the outcome of the war. Whittle also improved his jet engine during the war, and in he shipped an engine prototype to General Electric in the United States. America's first jet plane - the Bell P - was built the following year. Another technological development with a much greater impact on the war's outcome and later on commercial aviation was radar.
British scientists had been working on a device that could give them early warning of approaching enemy aircraft even before the war began, and by Britain had a line of radar transceivers along its east coast that could detect German aircraft the moment they took off from the Continent. British scientists also perfected the cathode ray oscilloscope, which produced map-type outlines of surrounding countryside and showed aircraft as a pulsing light.
Americans, meanwhile, found a way to distinguish between enemy aircraft and allied aircraft by installing transponders aboard the latter that signaled their identity to radar operators. Aviation was poised to advance rapidly following the war, in large part because of the development of jets, but there still were significant problems to overcome. In , a seat British-made jet, the Comet, flew from London to Johannesburg, South Africa, at speeds as high as miles per hour.
Two years later, the Comet's career ended abruptly following two back-to-back accidents in which the fuselage burst apart during flight - the result of metal fatigue. Most of the breakthroughs related to military aircraft that later were applied to the commercial sector. For example, Boeing employed a swept-back wing design for its B and B bombers to reduce drag and increase speed. Later, the design was incorporated into commercial jets, making them faster and thus more attractive to passengers.
The best example of military - civilian technology transfer was the jet tanker Boeing designed for the Air Force to refuel bombers in flight.
The tanker, the KC, was a huge success as a military plane, but even more successful when revamped and introduced, in , as the first U.
With a length of feet and four engines with 17, pounds of thrust each, the could carry up to passengers and travel at speeds of miles per hour. Its engines proved more reliable than piston-driven engines - producing less vibration, putting less stress on the plane's airframe and reducing maintenance expenses. They also burned kerosene, which cost half as much as the high-octane gasoline used in more traditional planes.
With the , first ordered and operated by Pan Am, all questions about the commercial feasibility of jets were answered. The Jet Age had arrived, and other airlines soon were lining up to buy the new aircraft. Following World War II, air travel soared, but with the industry's growth came new problems. In two aircraft collided over the Grand Canyon, killing people. The skies were getting too crowded for existing systems of aircraft separation, and Congress responded by passing the Federal Aviation Act of The agency was charged with establishing and running a broad air traffic control system, to maintain safe separation of all commercial aircraft through all phases of flight.
In addition, it assumed jurisdiction over all other aviation safety matters, such as the certification of aircraft designs, and airline training and maintenance programs. The Civil Aeronautics Board retained jurisdiction over economic matters, such as airline routes and rates. It was the first wide-body jet, with two aisles, a distinctive upper deck over the front section of the fuselage, and four engines.
With seating for as many as passengers, it was twice as big as any other Boeing jet and 80 percent bigger than the largest jet up until that time, the DC Recognizing the economies of scale to be gained from larger jets, other aircraft manufacturers quickly followed suit.
Douglas built its first wide-body, the DC, in , and only a month later, Lockheed flew its contender in the wide-body market, the L Both of these jets had three engines one under each wing and one on the tail and were smaller than the , seating about passengers. During the same period of time, efforts were underway in both the United States and Europe to build a supersonic commercial aircraft.
The Soviet Union was the first to succeed, testing the Tupolev in December of A consortium of West European aircraft manufacturers first flew the Concorde two months later and eventually produced a number of those fast, but small, jets for commercial service.
History Home. Aviation jobs. Learn more. Avjobs helps those seeking work to find aviation related job openings that match their skills and location while assisting hiring managers and recruiters in locating those seeking work. Then Tell a Friend. In turn, the aviation industry grew and the technology behind flight improved dramatically. By the end of the war, a group of war-hardened pilots—and planes that had been weapons of war—were ready to vie for the prize.
During his imprisonment, Alcock dreamed of crossing the Atlantic via plane. Once the war ended, he set about making his dream come true. His aspiration was shared by other aviators. Multiple teams of pilots and aircraft manufacturers vied for the prize, and failed again and again. In May , a group of Navy and Coast Guard airmen flew across the Atlantic in the NC-4, a seaplane that took three weeks, and multiple stops, to get across the ocean.
Another team backed by British aircraft company Handley Page wanted to beat Alcock and Brown, and shipped a plane to Newfoundland in preparation for the flight. Alcock and Brown were there, too, with a Vickers Vimy bomber that had been modified for transatlantic flight.
On June 14, , while the Handley Page team languished as its leaders conducted flight tests, Alcock and Brown started their flight attempt. It was a disaster.
The takeoff was bumpy and treacherous. Then the radio failed. Fog overwhelmed the pilots, making navigation—conducted by sextant—next to impossible. Soon, the plane was covered in ice. Sitting in an open cockpit, the men began to freeze. At times, Alcock lost control of the plane entirely, plunging toward the sea. At another, their engine stopped working, choked by ice. Blinded by the weather and uncertain of their exact location, the men flew and flew.
Fueled by sandwiches, coffee and whisky, they passed the time by singing and worrying about whether the punishing weather would destroy their fuel tanks. Finally, improbably, they realized they were over land. Rather, they nosedived the plane into a bog in Ireland.
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