Page 179 - Berkshire Encyclopedia Of World History Vol I - Abraham to Coal

64 berkshire encyclopedia of world history

The saying “Getting there is half the fun” became obsolete with
the advent of commercial airlines. • Henry J. Tillman

them the sheer number of airplanes produced for military by the systems revolution, are the next step—aircraft that
use, and their capabilities. Both the Americans and the fly autonomously or are controlled by a pilot on the
British, for example, regularly sent more than a thousand ground.
bombers on a single mission, each carrying several tons Computers, once rare, are now almost ubiquitous on
of bombs. The Boeing B-29 had a range approaching modern aircraft, controlling or monitoring nearly every-
6,500 kilometers and bomb payload of 10 tons. Even thing related to flight. Linked to a network of satellites in
fighters could fly nearly 2,000 kilometers with addi- the Global Positioning System (GPS), they enable one to
tional fuel tanks. navigate with remarkable precision and locate oneself
With its extensive wartime use, the airplane’s reliabil- anywhere in the world within a few meters or less.A net-
ity ceased to be a major concern.Additionally, since most work of satellites provides the GPS, enabling one to nav-
aircraft in the period had flown from land-based airfields, igate with remarkable precision and locate oneself
new airports dotted the land.These new airports, coupled anywhere in the world within a few meters or less.
with improved engines and greater endurance, spelled the
end of the era of flying boats, once the mainstay of inter- Commercial Aviation
national airlines. Following the end of World War II the British had the
greatest technological lead with turbine engines.Their De
Postwar Aviation Havilland DH 106 Comet entered service in 1952, the
Of the wartime developments, the turbine engine has had world’s first pure jet airliner.That decade saw a number
the greatest impact, for it dramatically increased the of other jet airliners come to market as well,including the
speed at which aircraft can fly. But researchers found that SovietTupolevTu-104,the Boeing 707,the Douglas DC-
as airplanes approached the speed of sound (Mach 1) 8,and the Sud Aviation Caravelle. Unlike its competitors,
they encountered compressibility. As an airplane ap- the twin-engine Caravelle was built with an entirely new
proaches Mach 1 it compresses the air in front of it, cre- idea in mind—short-distance flights between smaller
ating shock waves that cause a number of problems, chief cities,rather than long-distance and even intercontinental
among them control. A swept wing, with an angle of 35 flights that best suited the larger, four-engine aircraft.The
degrees or more, delayed this compression and reduced Caravelle pioneered an entire category of commercial
the control problems. aircraft—the short-haul airliner.In all this,flying remained
an exclusive, expensive, and fairly uncommon activity.
Technological Developments Economy of scale forced a gradual change, however, and
Flying at supersonic speeds—exceeding Mach 1—was commercial airliners grew in size or squeezed more seats
the holy grail of the aviation community. Solving the con- into the same space, lowering ticket prices. Once luxuri-
trol issues associated with compressibility enabled the ous machines resembling first-class rail cars in their
X-1 to exceed Mach 1, in 1947. This success led to true accommodations, airliners increasingly mimicked buses.
supersonic aircraft, almost all of which were and are built This change was typified by the Boeing 747, the largest
for military use.Two different types of supersonic airlin- airliner available in 1970, which was so large it had two
ers were built, but they proved too expensive to remain decks.
in service.
With the maturation of the airplane’s shape and Social Impact
power, the next major development was the systems rev- In 1927 Charles Lindbergh flew from New York to Paris,
olution: the advent of computerized control of aircraft claiming the Orteig Prize offered for the first nonstop
and their systems in place of direct human and mechan- flight between the two cities. Lindbergh’s impact was far
ical control. Unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs, enabled from simple record setting: His success convinced many