# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
When we think about the Golden Age of Flying-the glory years of Pan Am and the Concorde in the 1950s and 1960s, before flight became cheap with the rise of the jumbo jet-we imagine a colorful, lavish era in which our every comfort and requirement is catered to. Gone are the inconveniences and annoyances of modern travel: the cramped seats, the dismissive stewardesses, the long security lines, and so on. Instead, we think of a vintage airline brochure come to life.

It might've cost you a month's salary to take a short flight.

But was it really so great to fly 50 years ago? To find out, we asked Guillaume de Syon, a professor at Pennsylvania's Albright College and an expert on aviation history. Although there were many benefits of flying in the 1950s and 1960s, de Syon says, the reality was far different than you might expect. In fact, once you know what flying during the so-called Golden Age was really like, you might prefer a jaunt on easyJet.

The first major distinction between the Golden Age of Flying and flying today was that it was significantly more expensive.

In the 21st century, air travel is relatively cheap, but in the 1950s, you could expect to pay 40% or more for the same ticket you buy today. A ticket on TWA in 1955 from Chicago to Phoenix, for example, cost $138 round-trip. Adjusted for inflation, that's $1,168. But that doesn't tell the whole story, because the average salary in the United States is higher than it was in the 1950s. That round-trip ticket between Chicago and Phoenix would cost the average person today a little more than 1% of his yearly income to purchase. Comparatively, the average person in the 1950s would pay up to 5% of his yearly salary for a chance to fly.

"Varying on the route, it was four to five times as expensive to fly in the Golden Age," de Syon says. "If you were a secretary, it might cost you a month's salary to take even a short flight."

So what did you get for paying five times as much for your plane ticket? A five times greater chance of being killed compared with jumping on a flight today.

"Statistically, there were a lot more plane crashes and flight accidents in the Golden Age of Flying," de Syon says.

A patch of turbulence 60 years ago could snap your neck.

These days, when you board a plane, you have a very good chance of landing safely on the other side. In fact, for every 100,000 hours that planes are in the air, there are only 1.33 fatalities. That makes flying one of the safest way to travel now, but in 1952, that number was 5.2 deaths per 100,000 hours, and this despite the fact that the number of passengers flying on American carriers has increased 42 times in the last 60 years. Less sophisticated flying technology was mostly to blame. "It wasn't safe to land in fog, so there were many crashes. Mid-air collisions were common," explains de Syon. "Engines dropped out of planes so often that they weren't even recorded as accidents if the other engine could land them safely."

You didn't just have to worry about crashing, though. Let's imagine a typical flight incident, where an airplane hits a patch of turbulence and drops 500 hundred feet. Today, it would be unusual for such an incident to do more than give people a scare, but 60 years ago, due to lower cabin ceilings and inferior seat belt designs, that same incident could snap your neck.

Even walking to the bathroom in a 1950s-era aircraft could be fatal.

There were other environmental factors that could hurt you too. In the Golden Age of Flying, there were glass dividers that separated first class from economy. These dividers looked nice, but could shatter and spray passengers during accidents or turbulence. Even walking to the bathroom in a 1950s-era aircraft could be fatal, as the plane interiors were not designed with safety in mind. Trip and you could find yourself landing on a sharp edge or jag of a chair or table. "In the 1950s, people were afraid to fly, and for good reason," de Syon says.

Once you get tired of looking out the window, flying is inherently boring: you're sealed in a droning metal tube for hours and expected to just sit there, staring at the back of the seat ahead of you, for hours. Yet today, we take for granted that we have access to a number of distractions from the monotonousness of travel. We have iPhones, iPads, Kindles, and Gameboys to distract us, and even if you forget your gadgets at home, you can watch a number of movies, or listen to music, or even play a video game on the screen in front of you, at least on most long-haul flights.

These distractions were not available in the Golden Age of Flying. In-flight movies did not become popular until the mid-1960s, and during a time when all portable music came over the radio, there wasn't even the option to plug in a pair of headphones and listen to music during your flight until 1985.

So what did people do instead? They wrote postcards.

"Back in the 1950s, you were handed postcards when you boarded a flight, which might have a picture of the plane or the meal you were going to be served printed on it," de Syon says.

The tradition at the time was that you would use your in-flight time to write people you knew on the ground, describing your flight. Once you ran out of postcards to write, there wasn't much to do. Magazines and newspapers were provided to passengers, and you could also read a book. Some airlines, like Air France, experimented with commissioning artists to create paintings to hang on the cabin walls for passengers to look at, but this didn't last long.

If you were lucky, the person sitting next to you might be a good conversationalist. Otherwise? You smoke and drank. Which brings us to our next point.

Unless you are a chain smoker, and the idea of being sealed up in an aquarium of secondhand smoke seems like a great way to spend eight hours, you'd likely find the experience of flying in the Golden Age of Flying pretty gross. You could smoke on flights and not just cigarettes: pipes and cigars were also encouraged. In fact, the only time people weren't allowed to smoke on airplanes was on the ground, because airlines were afraid that smoking might ignite refueling fumes.

People drank just to keep themselves entertained.

That's bad enough, but there was also a lot of alcoholism at 30,000 feet back in the 1950s and 1960s. To fly back then was to be served as much free booze as you could drink, and people tended to just drink to keep themselves entertained. "Memoirs written during the Golden Age of Flying are filled with lively accounts of drunken passengers," de Syon says. "People would just pour themselves scotch after scotch." Getting hammered was just a way to past the time.

The good news is such drinking did not tend to get violent: because there were far fewer passengers, the crowding that contributes to the alcoholic air rage of today didn't really exist. But that doesn't mean that people didn't pull out all the other stops on drunken behavior, such as stumbling down the aisle, molesting stewardesses, singing loudly, and-of course-profusely vomiting.

There's another unpleasant side of flight in the 1950s and 1960s that tends to be glossed over. "I think it's important to point out that in the Golden Age of Flying, only white people really flew," says de Syon. It was a racist age, and this is reflected even at 30,000 feet.

Part of the reason why so few minorities flew was simply economic. In 1950, the median income for an African-American male was just $1,471 per year. The average white male was paid nearly twice as much, and since air travel was such a luxury, few minorities could afford it.

Airlines would train their phone operators to try to identify the voices of African-Americans, then put them on certain flights.

"If you saw a black person at an airport during the Golden Age of Flying, they were almost definitely a porter, not a passenger," de Syon says.

Even if you could afford a ticket as a minority, though, there was a good chance you wouldn't be allowed into the same planes as white passengers.

"In the 1950s, some airlines would train their phone operators to try to identify the voices of African-Americans, then put them on certain flights and not others," de Syon says. "It wasn't until the late 1960s and 1970s that things started changing. It may have been the Golden Age of Flying, but it was also a very racist age."

None of this is to say that flying in the Golden Age of Flying was a totally negative experience. There were many real luxuries and comforts of flying that we have left behind today.

For one thing, airline security simply did not exist during the Golden Age of Flying. Compared to today, when airlines recommend getting to the airport three hours ahead of time to make sure you catch your flight, the recommendation of most Golden Age airlines seems positively quaint: you were guaranteed to make your flight even if you showed up just 30 minutes before.

The Golden Age of Flying was an era of sumptuous design.

Once onboard, the average passenger, even in economy, had plenty of legroom. In fact, business class today is spatially very similar to what economy used to be like, de Syon says. Once aboard, all service was complimentary. And because the stewardess-to-passenger ratio was so much higher back then than it is today, you could expect one to nearly instantly cater your every (non-salacious) need.

It should also be mentioned that the Golden Age of Flying was an era of sumptuous design, a time in which the flying experience-from the visual look of the cabin, to your stewardess's uniform, right down to the silverware-was imagined by some of the world's best designers.

Yet despite all of this, there are probably few who would really prefer to fly during the Golden Age of Flying. At best, it was like something out of Catch Me If You Can. At worst, flying during the Golden Age of Flying meant paying an exorbitant amount of money to lock yourself in a pneumatic tube full of smoke and vomit, where the only possible relief from the mind-numbing boredom of travel was the significantly greater prospect of your own death or dismemberment. Says de Syon: "The Golden Age of Flying was an age where very few of us could have flown, and when only slightly more of us would likely have wanted to."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
What It Was Really Like To Fly During The Golden Age Of Travel

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
When we think about the Golden Age of Flying-the glory years of Pan Am and the Concorde in the 1950s and 1960s, before flight became cheap with the rise of the jumbo jet-we imagine a colorful, lavish era in which our every comfort and requirement is catered to.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The A320's fly-by-wire technology was not only a way of improving flight controls and reducing weight. It enabled Airbus to take safety to a new level by introducing the flight envelope protection. Pilots flying the A320 were free to operate it as normal, but the flight envelope protection prevented the aircraft from performing manoeuvres outside its performance limits.

Fly-by-wire also firmly established the concept of commonality which is so central to the appeal to customers of Airbus aircraft. No matter how one aircraft varies in size or weight from another, fly-by-wire commonality allows the pilot to fly them in the same way because the computer "drives" the aircraft's flight controls. This leads to considerable reductions in the time and costs involved in training pilots and crew to operate them.

A further advantage which the A320 offered over its rivals was that its cabin was wider, enabling airlines to install more spacious seats with a wider aisle.

In June, 1981, at the Paris Air Show, Air France gave the A320 programme a huge boost by declaring its intention to buy 25 of the planned new aircraft, with an option on 25 more. Yet the A320 was not officially launched until March, 1984. Talks over funding and workshare agreements between Airbus partners were complex and prone to delay, conducted as they were against a backdrop of world recession and the effects of deregulation in the American airline industry. The number of A300 "whitetails" had again begun to build up in Toulouse as recession-hit customers cancelled orders. Nevertheless, when the A320 launch day finally arrived Airbus was able to announce an impressive portfolio of more than 80 firm orders from five launch customers. British Caledonian, then Britain's second largest airline and later to be taken over by British Airways, ordered seven A320s with three options, joining Air France, Air Inter, Cyprus Airways and Inex Adria of then Yugoslavia.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The A320's fly-by-wire technology was not only a way of improving flight controls and reducing weight. It enabled Airbus to take safety to a new level by introducing the flight envelope protection. Pilots flying the A320 were free to operate it as normal, but the flight envelope protection prevented the aircraft from performing manoeuvres outside its performance limits.

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Prior to the introduction of jets, most commercial airplanes were propeller driven, like the DC-3 pictured here. These planes had a limited cruising altitude - and experienced much more turbulence. NOAA Photo Library

Long lines at security checkpoints, tiny plastic cups of soda, small bags of pretzels, planes filled to capacity, fees attached to every amenity - all reflect the realities of 21st century commercial air travel. It's no wonder that many travelers have become nostalgic for the so-called "golden age" of air travel in the United States.

Duke University Libraries

During the 1950s, airlines promoted commercial air travel as glamorous: stewardesses served full meals on real china, airline seats were large (and frequently empty) with ample leg-room, and passengers always dressed well.

After jets were introduced in the late 1950s, passengers could travel to even the most distant locations at speeds unimaginable a mere decade before. An airline trip from New York to London that could take up to 15 hours in the early 1950s could be made in less than seven hours by the early 1960s.

But airline nostalgia can be tricky, and "golden ages" are seldom as idyllic as they seem.

Until the introduction of jets in 1958, most of the nation's commercial planes were propeller-driven aircraft, like the DC-4. Most of these planes were unpressurized, and with a maximum cruising altitude of 10,000 to 12,000 feet, they were unable to fly over bad weather. Delays were frequent, turbulence common, and air sickness bags often needed.

Harriet Baskas

Some planes were spacious and pressurized: the Boeing Stratocruiser, for example, could seat 50 first class passengers or 81 coach passengers compared to the DC-3's 21 passengers. It could cruise at 32,000 feet, which allowed Stratocruiser to fly above most bad weather it encountered. But only 56 of these planes were ever in service.

While the later DC-6 and DC-7 were pressurized, they still flew much lower than the soon-to-appear jets - 20,000 feet compared to 30,000 feet - and often encountered turbulence. The piston engines were bulky, complex and difficult to maintain, which contributed to frequent delays.

For much of this period, the old saying "Time to spare, go by air" still rang true.

Through the 1930s and into the 1940s, almost everyone flew first class. Airlines did encourage more people to fly in the 1950s and 1960s by introducing coach or tourist fares, but the savings were relative: less expensive than first class, but still pricey. In 1955, for example, so-called "bargain fares" from New York to Paris were the equivalent of just over $2,600 in 2014 dollars. Although the advent of jets did result in lower fares, the cost was still out of reach of most Americans. The most likely frequent flier was a white, male businessman traveling on his company's expense account, and in the 1960s, airlines - with young attractive stewardesses in short skirts - clearly catered to their most frequent flyers.

The demographics of travelers did begin to shift during this period. More women, more young people, and retirees began to fly; still, airline travel remained financially out-of-reach for most.

If it was a golden age, it only was for the very few.

People also forget that well into the 1960s, air travel was far more dangerous than it is today. In the 1950s and 1960s US airlines experienced at least a half dozen crashes per year - most leading to fatalities of all on board. People today may bemoan the crowded airplanes and lack of on-board amenities, but the number of fatalities per million miles flown has dropped dramatically since since the late 1970s, especially compared to the 1960s. Through at least the 1970s, airports even prominently featured kiosks selling flight insurance.

Mental Floss

And we can't forget hijackings. By the mid-1960s so many airplanes had been hijacked that "Take me to Cuba" became a punch line for stand-up comics. In 1971 D.B. Cooper - a hijacker who parachuted from a Boeing 727 after extorting $200,000 - might have been able to achieve folk hero status. But one reason US airline passengers today (generally) tolerate security checkpoints is that they want some kind of assurance that their aircraft will remain safe.

And if the previous examples don't dull the sheen of air travel's "golden age," remember: in-flight smoking was both permitted and encouraged.

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Longing for the 'golden age' of air travel? Be careful what you wish for

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Long lines at security checkpoints, tiny plastic cups of soda, small bags of pretzels, planes filled to capacity, fees attached to every amenity - all reflect the realities of 21st century commercial air travel. It's no wonder that many travelers have become nostalgic for the so-called "golden age" of air travel in the United States.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
When we think about the Golden Age of Flying-the glory years of Pan Am and the Concorde in the 1950s and 1960s, before flight became cheap with the rise of the jumbo jet-we imagine a colorful, lavish era in which our every comfort and requirement is catered to. Gone are the inconveniences and annoyances of modern travel: the cramped seats, the dismissive stewardesses, the long security lines, and so on. Instead, we think of a vintage airline brochure come to life.

It might've cost you a month's salary to take a short flight.

But was it really so great to fly 50 years ago? To find out, we asked Guillaume de Syon, a professor at Pennsylvania's Albright College and an expert on aviation history. Although there were many benefits of flying in the 1950s and 1960s, de Syon says, the reality was far different than you might expect. In fact, once you know what flying during the so-called Golden Age was really like, you might prefer a jaunt on easyJet.

The first major distinction between the Golden Age of Flying and flying today was that it was significantly more expensive.

In the 21st century, air travel is relatively cheap, but in the 1950s, you could expect to pay 40% or more for the same ticket you buy today. A ticket on TWA in 1955 from Chicago to Phoenix, for example, cost $138 round-trip. Adjusted for inflation, that's $1,168. But that doesn't tell the whole story, because the average salary in the United States is higher than it was in the 1950s. That round-trip ticket between Chicago and Phoenix would cost the average person today a little more than 1% of his yearly income to purchase. Comparatively, the average person in the 1950s would pay up to 5% of his yearly salary for a chance to fly.

"Varying on the route, it was four to five times as expensive to fly in the Golden Age," de Syon says. "If you were a secretary, it might cost you a month's salary to take even a short flight."

So what did you get for paying five times as much for your plane ticket? A five times greater chance of being killed compared with jumping on a flight today.

"Statistically, there were a lot more plane crashes and flight accidents in the Golden Age of Flying," de Syon says.

A patch of turbulence 60 years ago could snap your neck.

These days, when you board a plane, you have a very good chance of landing safely on the other side. In fact, for every 100,000 hours that planes are in the air, there are only 1.33 fatalities. That makes flying one of the safest way to travel now, but in 1952, that number was 5.2 deaths per 100,000 hours, and this despite the fact that the number of passengers flying on American carriers has increased 42 times in the last 60 years. Less sophisticated flying technology was mostly to blame. "It wasn't safe to land in fog, so there were many crashes. Mid-air collisions were common," explains de Syon. "Engines dropped out of planes so often that they weren't even recorded as accidents if the other engine could land them safely."

You didn't just have to worry about crashing, though. Let's imagine a typical flight incident, where an airplane hits a patch of turbulence and drops 500 hundred feet. Today, it would be unusual for such an incident to do more than give people a scare, but 60 years ago, due to lower cabin ceilings and inferior seat belt designs, that same incident could snap your neck.

Even walking to the bathroom in a 1950s-era aircraft could be fatal.

There were other environmental factors that could hurt you too. In the Golden Age of Flying, there were glass dividers that separated first class from economy. These dividers looked nice, but could shatter and spray passengers during accidents or turbulence. Even walking to the bathroom in a 1950s-era aircraft could be fatal, as the plane interiors were not designed with safety in mind. Trip and you could find yourself landing on a sharp edge or jag of a chair or table. "In the 1950s, people were afraid to fly, and for good reason," de Syon says.

Once you get tired of looking out the window, flying is inherently boring: you're sealed in a droning metal tube for hours and expected to just sit there, staring at the back of the seat ahead of you, for hours. Yet today, we take for granted that we have access to a number of distractions from the monotonousness of travel. We have iPhones, iPads, Kindles, and Gameboys to distract us, and even if you forget your gadgets at home, you can watch a number of movies, or listen to music, or even play a video game on the screen in front of you, at least on most long-haul flights.

These distractions were not available in the Golden Age of Flying. In-flight movies did not become popular until the mid-1960s, and during a time when all portable music came over the radio, there wasn't even the option to plug in a pair of headphones and listen to music during your flight until 1985.

So what did people do instead? They wrote postcards.

"Back in the 1950s, you were handed postcards when you boarded a flight, which might have a picture of the plane or the meal you were going to be served printed on it," de Syon says.

The tradition at the time was that you would use your in-flight time to write people you knew on the ground, describing your flight. Once you ran out of postcards to write, there wasn't much to do. Magazines and newspapers were provided to passengers, and you could also read a book. Some airlines, like Air France, experimented with commissioning artists to create paintings to hang on the cabin walls for passengers to look at, but this didn't last long.

If you were lucky, the person sitting next to you might be a good conversationalist. Otherwise? You smoke and drank. Which brings us to our next point.

Unless you are a chain smoker, and the idea of being sealed up in an aquarium of secondhand smoke seems like a great way to spend eight hours, you'd likely find the experience of flying in the Golden Age of Flying pretty gross. You could smoke on flights and not just cigarettes: pipes and cigars were also encouraged. In fact, the only time people weren't allowed to smoke on airplanes was on the ground, because airlines were afraid that smoking might ignite refueling fumes.

People drank just to keep themselves entertained.

That's bad enough, but there was also a lot of alcoholism at 30,000 feet back in the 1950s and 1960s. To fly back then was to be served as much free booze as you could drink, and people tended to just drink to keep themselves entertained. "Memoirs written during the Golden Age of Flying are filled with lively accounts of drunken passengers," de Syon says. "People would just pour themselves scotch after scotch." Getting hammered was just a way to past the time.

The good news is such drinking did not tend to get violent: because there were far fewer passengers, the crowding that contributes to the alcoholic air rage of today didn't really exist. But that doesn't mean that people didn't pull out all the other stops on drunken behavior, such as stumbling down the aisle, molesting stewardesses, singing loudly, and-of course-profusely vomiting.

There's another unpleasant side of flight in the 1950s and 1960s that tends to be glossed over. "I think it's important to point out that in the Golden Age of Flying, only white people really flew," says de Syon. It was a racist age, and this is reflected even at 30,000 feet.

Part of the reason why so few minorities flew was simply economic. In 1950, the median income for an African-American male was just $1,471 per year. The average white male was paid nearly twice as much, and since air travel was such a luxury, few minorities could afford it.

Airlines would train their phone operators to try to identify the voices of African-Americans, then put them on certain flights.

"If you saw a black person at an airport during the Golden Age of Flying, they were almost definitely a porter, not a passenger," de Syon says.

Even if you could afford a ticket as a minority, though, there was a good chance you wouldn't be allowed into the same planes as white passengers.

"In the 1950s, some airlines would train their phone operators to try to identify the voices of African-Americans, then put them on certain flights and not others," de Syon says. "It wasn't until the late 1960s and 1970s that things started changing. It may have been the Golden Age of Flying, but it was also a very racist age."

None of this is to say that flying in the Golden Age of Flying was a totally negative experience. There were many real luxuries and comforts of flying that we have left behind today.

For one thing, airline security simply did not exist during the Golden Age of Flying. Compared to today, when airlines recommend getting to the airport three hours ahead of time to make sure you catch your flight, the recommendation of most Golden Age airlines seems positively quaint: you were guaranteed to make your flight even if you showed up just 30 minutes before.

The Golden Age of Flying was an era of sumptuous design.

Once onboard, the average passenger, even in economy, had plenty of legroom. In fact, business class today is spatially very similar to what economy used to be like, de Syon says. Once aboard, all service was complimentary. And because the stewardess-to-passenger ratio was so much higher back then than it is today, you could expect one to nearly instantly cater your every (non-salacious) need.

It should also be mentioned that the Golden Age of Flying was an era of sumptuous design, a time in which the flying experience-from the visual look of the cabin, to your stewardess's uniform, right down to the silverware-was imagined by some of the world's best designers.

Yet despite all of this, there are probably few who would really prefer to fly during the Golden Age of Flying. At best, it was like something out of Catch Me If You Can. At worst, flying during the Golden Age of Flying meant paying an exorbitant amount of money to lock yourself in a pneumatic tube full of smoke and vomit, where the only possible relief from the mind-numbing boredom of travel was the significantly greater prospect of your own death or dismemberment. Says de Syon: "The Golden Age of Flying was an age where very few of us could have flown, and when only slightly more of us would likely have wanted to."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
What It Was Really Like To Fly During The Golden Age Of Travel

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
When we think about the Golden Age of Flying-the glory years of Pan Am and the Concorde in the 1950s and 1960s, before flight became cheap with the rise of the jumbo jet-we imagine a colorful, lavish era in which our every comfort and requirement is catered to.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
When we think about the Golden Age of Flying-the glory years of Pan Am and the Concorde in the 1950s and 1960s, before flight became cheap with the rise of the jumbo jet-we imagine a colorful, lavish era in which our every comfort and requirement is catered to. Gone are the inconveniences and annoyances of modern travel: the cramped seats, the dismissive stewardesses, the long security lines, and so on. Instead, we think of a vintage airline brochure come to life.

It might've cost you a month's salary to take a short flight.

But was it really so great to fly 50 years ago? To find out, we asked Guillaume de Syon, a professor at Pennsylvania's Albright College and an expert on aviation history. Although there were many benefits of flying in the 1950s and 1960s, de Syon says, the reality was far different than you might expect. In fact, once you know what flying during the so-called Golden Age was really like, you might prefer a jaunt on easyJet.

The first major distinction between the Golden Age of Flying and flying today was that it was significantly more expensive.

In the 21st century, air travel is relatively cheap, but in the 1950s, you could expect to pay 40% or more for the same ticket you buy today. A ticket on TWA in 1955 from Chicago to Phoenix, for example, cost $138 round-trip. Adjusted for inflation, that's $1,168. But that doesn't tell the whole story, because the average salary in the United States is higher than it was in the 1950s. That round-trip ticket between Chicago and Phoenix would cost the average person today a little more than 1% of his yearly income to purchase. Comparatively, the average person in the 1950s would pay up to 5% of his yearly salary for a chance to fly.

"Varying on the route, it was four to five times as expensive to fly in the Golden Age," de Syon says. "If you were a secretary, it might cost you a month's salary to take even a short flight."

So what did you get for paying five times as much for your plane ticket? A five times greater chance of being killed compared with jumping on a flight today.

"Statistically, there were a lot more plane crashes and flight accidents in the Golden Age of Flying," de Syon says.

A patch of turbulence 60 years ago could snap your neck.

These days, when you board a plane, you have a very good chance of landing safely on the other side. In fact, for every 100,000 hours that planes are in the air, there are only 1.33 fatalities. That makes flying one of the safest way to travel now, but in 1952, that number was 5.2 deaths per 100,000 hours, and this despite the fact that the number of passengers flying on American carriers has increased 42 times in the last 60 years. Less sophisticated flying technology was mostly to blame. "It wasn't safe to land in fog, so there were many crashes. Mid-air collisions were common," explains de Syon. "Engines dropped out of planes so often that they weren't even recorded as accidents if the other engine could land them safely."

You didn't just have to worry about crashing, though. Let's imagine a typical flight incident, where an airplane hits a patch of turbulence and drops 500 hundred feet. Today, it would be unusual for such an incident to do more than give people a scare, but 60 years ago, due to lower cabin ceilings and inferior seat belt designs, that same incident could snap your neck.

Even walking to the bathroom in a 1950s-era aircraft could be fatal.

There were other environmental factors that could hurt you too. In the Golden Age of Flying, there were glass dividers that separated first class from economy. These dividers looked nice, but could shatter and spray passengers during accidents or turbulence. Even walking to the bathroom in a 1950s-era aircraft could be fatal, as the plane interiors were not designed with safety in mind. Trip and you could find yourself landing on a sharp edge or jag of a chair or table. "In the 1950s, people were afraid to fly, and for good reason," de Syon says.

Once you get tired of looking out the window, flying is inherently boring: you're sealed in a droning metal tube for hours and expected to just sit there, staring at the back of the seat ahead of you, for hours. Yet today, we take for granted that we have access to a number of distractions from the monotonousness of travel. We have iPhones, iPads, Kindles, and Gameboys to distract us, and even if you forget your gadgets at home, you can watch a number of movies, or listen to music, or even play a video game on the screen in front of you, at least on most long-haul flights.

These distractions were not available in the Golden Age of Flying. In-flight movies did not become popular until the mid-1960s, and during a time when all portable music came over the radio, there wasn't even the option to plug in a pair of headphones and listen to music during your flight until 1985.

So what did people do instead? They wrote postcards.

"Back in the 1950s, you were handed postcards when you boarded a flight, which might have a picture of the plane or the meal you were going to be served printed on it," de Syon says.

The tradition at the time was that you would use your in-flight time to write people you knew on the ground, describing your flight. Once you ran out of postcards to write, there wasn't much to do. Magazines and newspapers were provided to passengers, and you could also read a book. Some airlines, like Air France, experimented with commissioning artists to create paintings to hang on the cabin walls for passengers to look at, but this didn't last long.

If you were lucky, the person sitting next to you might be a good conversationalist. Otherwise? You smoke and drank. Which brings us to our next point.

Unless you are a chain smoker, and the idea of being sealed up in an aquarium of secondhand smoke seems like a great way to spend eight hours, you'd likely find the experience of flying in the Golden Age of Flying pretty gross. You could smoke on flights and not just cigarettes: pipes and cigars were also encouraged. In fact, the only time people weren't allowed to smoke on airplanes was on the ground, because airlines were afraid that smoking might ignite refueling fumes.

People drank just to keep themselves entertained.

That's bad enough, but there was also a lot of alcoholism at 30,000 feet back in the 1950s and 1960s. To fly back then was to be served as much free booze as you could drink, and people tended to just drink to keep themselves entertained. "Memoirs written during the Golden Age of Flying are filled with lively accounts of drunken passengers," de Syon says. "People would just pour themselves scotch after scotch." Getting hammered was just a way to past the time.

The good news is such drinking did not tend to get violent: because there were far fewer passengers, the crowding that contributes to the alcoholic air rage of today didn't really exist. But that doesn't mean that people didn't pull out all the other stops on drunken behavior, such as stumbling down the aisle, molesting stewardesses, singing loudly, and-of course-profusely vomiting.

There's another unpleasant side of flight in the 1950s and 1960s that tends to be glossed over. "I think it's important to point out that in the Golden Age of Flying, only white people really flew," says de Syon. It was a racist age, and this is reflected even at 30,000 feet.

Part of the reason why so few minorities flew was simply economic. In 1950, the median income for an African-American male was just $1,471 per year. The average white male was paid nearly twice as much, and since air travel was such a luxury, few minorities could afford it.

Airlines would train their phone operators to try to identify the voices of African-Americans, then put them on certain flights.

"If you saw a black person at an airport during the Golden Age of Flying, they were almost definitely a porter, not a passenger," de Syon says.

Even if you could afford a ticket as a minority, though, there was a good chance you wouldn't be allowed into the same planes as white passengers.

"In the 1950s, some airlines would train their phone operators to try to identify the voices of African-Americans, then put them on certain flights and not others," de Syon says. "It wasn't until the late 1960s and 1970s that things started changing. It may have been the Golden Age of Flying, but it was also a very racist age."

None of this is to say that flying in the Golden Age of Flying was a totally negative experience. There were many real luxuries and comforts of flying that we have left behind today.

For one thing, airline security simply did not exist during the Golden Age of Flying. Compared to today, when airlines recommend getting to the airport three hours ahead of time to make sure you catch your flight, the recommendation of most Golden Age airlines seems positively quaint: you were guaranteed to make your flight even if you showed up just 30 minutes before.

The Golden Age of Flying was an era of sumptuous design.

Once onboard, the average passenger, even in economy, had plenty of legroom. In fact, business class today is spatially very similar to what economy used to be like, de Syon says. Once aboard, all service was complimentary. And because the stewardess-to-passenger ratio was so much higher back then than it is today, you could expect one to nearly instantly cater your every (non-salacious) need.

It should also be mentioned that the Golden Age of Flying was an era of sumptuous design, a time in which the flying experience-from the visual look of the cabin, to your stewardess's uniform, right down to the silverware-was imagined by some of the world's best designers.

Yet despite all of this, there are probably few who would really prefer to fly during the Golden Age of Flying. At best, it was like something out of Catch Me If You Can. At worst, flying during the Golden Age of Flying meant paying an exorbitant amount of money to lock yourself in a pneumatic tube full of smoke and vomit, where the only possible relief from the mind-numbing boredom of travel was the significantly greater prospect of your own death or dismemberment. Says de Syon: "The Golden Age of Flying was an age where very few of us could have flown, and when only slightly more of us would likely have wanted to."

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What It Was Really Like To Fly During The Golden Age Of Travel

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When we think about the Golden Age of Flying-the glory years of Pan Am and the Concorde in the 1950s and 1960s, before flight became cheap with the rise of the jumbo jet-we imagine a colorful, lavish era in which our every comfort and requirement is catered to.

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Not even a worldwide economic depression could derail the 'Golden Age of Flight' experienced throughout the 1920s.

There are a total of 52 Aircraft from 1920 to 1929 in the Military Factory. Entries are listed below in alphanumeric order (1-to-Z). Flag images indicative of country of origin and not necessarily the primary operator.

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There are a total of 52 Aircraft from 1920 to 1929 in the Military Factory. Entries are listed below in alphanumeric order (1-to-Z). Flag images indicative of country of origin and not necessarily the primary operator.

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Our scaled down museum operates seasonally. Please check our calendar for operating days & hours. Thank you for your support. Click here for our calendar.

The Golden Age of the '20s and '30s featured air celebrities-heroes and risk takers-in both human and aircraft form: the great racers, the record-breakers, and the advent of the airlines. Once the Golden Age dawned, there was no LOOKING BACK!!!

Please note: Some aircraft may not always be onsite.

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Our scaled down museum operates seasonally. Please check our calendar for operating days & hours. Thank you for your support. Click here for our calendar. The Golden Age of the '20s and '30s featured air celebrities-heroes and risk takers-in both human and aircraft form: the great racers, the record-breakers, and the advent of the airlines.

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One of the periods where aviation took some massive leaps in development was WW1. European governments invested big budgets for developing airplanes that would come out on top. Military aviation soon transformed from observation balloons to the first fighter planes. Let's take a look at how airplanes were used in WW1.

World War I was the first global conflict in world history, where aircraft were often used. Over time they became an effective weapon against an enemy army.

The aircraft used during the first war had an archaic and sometimes extravagant design. Due to the escalating war, aircraft builders were forced to react quickly to changes and improvements.

U.S. pilots in action during WWI. Captain "Eddie" Rickenbacker, known as the U.S. "Ace of Aces", conducts a bombing run over German lines.

War as The Engine of Progress

The First World War was a powerful driving force behind the development of aviation. Governments have provided significant funding to develop new aircraft models. These projects have also led to the development of many upgraded older models. Since then, airplane production has become a profitable business.
Related Articles:
At the beginning of the war, there was only one type of military warplane: the response or reconnaissance aircraft. At the end of the war, military aviation was divided into several groups: fighters, bombers, planes of attack, and so on. They varied in size, the number of engines, size of crew and installation of specific equipment: fire, bomber, navigation.

The most important developments in the design of military aircraft were in countries such as England, France, and Germany. Shortly thereafter, the United States and Italy joined. Russia took its seat due to weak industrialization.

Editorial Team De Havilland Airco DH-16

Hunter planes were initially used as scouts. Efficiency forced alternative use to prevent enemy aircraft from entering countries. Lighter and faster hunter and eavesdropper aircraft were on demand. However, this warplane needed firepower. In 1915, a French fighter pilot, Roland Garros was taken down behind enemy lines. This allowed the Germans to unveil the secrets behind French fighter planes. Subsequently, the "Fokker Fodder" aka "Fokker Scourge", appeared on the battlefield.

The warplane was designed by Dutch engineer Anthony Fokker. He installed the interrupter gear weapons synchronization on German warplanes. They were designed to discharge rapid-fire rounds directly behind the plane propellers without hitting them.

Editorial Team Fokker M5K-MG

Hunter's aircraft reduced the speed of the strike when the blade of the propeller lay in front of the weapon. At the same time, a second Russian pilot invented a synchronized machine gun. These synchronization systems have also been installed on French, Russian and English airplanes. They're the first fighter planes to arrive in fleets of multiple countries during the year 1916.
Related Articles:
Reconnaissance aircraft were very vulnerable at the time and rarely did. They needed powerful weapons to defend themselves against small but swift, aggressive hunters. Frenchman, Le Prieur realized the issue and integrated solid-fuel stick-guided missiles. It saw its first time in action during the battle of Verdun.

In the hunters, the French also installed mobile machine guns to prevent back attacks. This meant that the shooter was behind the pilot, and the screw that had existed before had ceased to exist. These planes also had increased their cargo capacity. Their main purpose was to bomb and escort military personnel by air.

Aircraft of World War I

Let's look at at World War I airplanes from their respective producer countries.

US Aircraft of WW1

We must bear in mind that, as a result of the country's subsequent intervention in the conflict, the US Air Force developed rather slowly. At the time of 1917, American aircraft development was lower than the other major countries involved in the war. At that time, the United States dropped bombers and hunters. The US Army used the aircraft solely for caller missions.

German Aircraft of WW1

We should consider that the German Air Force was the second-largest aircraft manufacturer in the First World War. The total number of their fleets reached about 230 aircraft. They were widely used for transport operations because they couldn't handle a lot more than that. However, we can not assume that most of their aircraft were outdated models.

During the war, however, the Germans were the first to modernize their aircraft fleet, allowing them to control the air in Western Europe in 1915 and 1916. The Germans, too, were the first to lead in an aerial bombing. Germany did not hesitate to use aircraft to bomb enemies at all. This strategy was effective and caused the feared air force branch of the Luftwaffe to form in 1939 during World War II.

Editorial Team German Albatros D.IIIs of Jagdstaffel 11 and Jagdstaffel 4 parked in a line at La Brayelle near Douai, France

Also Read:
Russian Aircraft of WW1

The Russian Empire had the largest fleet of warplanes in the world at the time of World War I's declaration: about 260 aircraft. However, the quality of Russian aircraft was much lower than in most other countries of the world. Airplane materials and modules were out of date, and aviation suffered at the start of the war.

Despite their size, their air fleets did not save the Russian empire from defeat in the war. Still, the most outdated, the situation worsened in 1916. It was then that the Italians and the Austrians built their fleets against Russia, and they were victorious.

During this period, due to financial difficulties, Russia could not produce enough new warplanes. Due to the imminent crisis, obsolete technology was not allowed to deal with serious developments. As a result, Russian aviation remained in the shadows.

Editorial Team operational B.E.2c of the RFC in 1916

British Aircraft of WW1

Britain was the first foreign country in the world to have chosen the aviation industry as its military branch. The British were waiting and experimenting with the events of WWI. In 1915, by waiting and watching the enemy, they managed to create the world's first hunter. In 1918, the British Air Force was the largest in the world and had over 3,000 aircraft.

The United Kingdom had already distributed its many warplanes for a variety of tasks. They include bombing, close air support, landing, destruction of enemy aircraft, etc. They were the founders of many tactics for the use of fighter planes; the rest followed. In this way, the United Kingdom greatly stimulated the development of aviation.

Editorial Team Bristol Scout C aircraft

Also Read:
French Aircraft of WW1

At the start of the war, French aviation was not the largest but was defined by its novelty and perfection. Until 1918, the French had used only hunters and almost the best reconnaissance aircraft in the world, but they had no bombers. The first bomber was first produced in 1918 and had no time to enter German cities: Kaiser Germany had surrendered earlier.

De Havilland Airco DH-4

Editorial Team Formation of Airco DH-4 in flight

One aircraft, in particular, was crucial to the success of modern airplanes. The English model had reached a speed of 190 km / h and could carry 250 kg of pumps. Also, the flight time of this fighter plane without landing was 4.5 hours and the altitude was 6000 m. The need to support ground forces and take high-altitude photographs in the air led to its arrival.

They used improved versions of conventional aircraft for this type of aviation. British aviation specialists installed metal-coated cabins, fuel tanks, and more powerful engines to increase capacity. The firepower of these warplanes consisted of two Lewis machine guns and two 230 lb bombs. They were all capable of firing hand grenades and bombs.

Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aviation_in_World_War_I
http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/fokker.htm
https://www.worldwar1centennial.org/1181-timeline-of-wwi-aviation-history-demo.html

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The Role Airplanes Played In World War 1 - Aircraft Compare

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One of the periods where aviation took some massive leaps in development was WW1. European governments invested big budgets for developing airplanes that would come out on top. Military aviation soon transformed from observation balloons to the first fighter planes. Let's take a look at how airplanes were used in...

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
One of the periods where aviation took some massive leaps in development was WW1. European governments invested big budgets for developing airplanes that would come out on top. Military aviation soon transformed from observation balloons to the first fighter planes. Let's take a look at how airplanes were used in WW1.

World War I was the first global conflict in world history, where aircraft were often used. Over time they became an effective weapon against an enemy army.

The aircraft used during the first war had an archaic and sometimes extravagant design. Due to the escalating war, aircraft builders were forced to react quickly to changes and improvements.

U.S. pilots in action during WWI. Captain "Eddie" Rickenbacker, known as the U.S. "Ace of Aces", conducts a bombing run over German lines.

War as The Engine of Progress

The First World War was a powerful driving force behind the development of aviation. Governments have provided significant funding to develop new aircraft models. These projects have also led to the development of many upgraded older models. Since then, airplane production has become a profitable business.
Related Articles:
At the beginning of the war, there was only one type of military warplane: the response or reconnaissance aircraft. At the end of the war, military aviation was divided into several groups: fighters, bombers, planes of attack, and so on. They varied in size, the number of engines, size of crew and installation of specific equipment: fire, bomber, navigation.

The most important developments in the design of military aircraft were in countries such as England, France, and Germany. Shortly thereafter, the United States and Italy joined. Russia took its seat due to weak industrialization.

Editorial Team De Havilland Airco DH-16

Hunter planes were initially used as scouts. Efficiency forced alternative use to prevent enemy aircraft from entering countries. Lighter and faster hunter and eavesdropper aircraft were on demand. However, this warplane needed firepower. In 1915, a French fighter pilot, Roland Garros was taken down behind enemy lines. This allowed the Germans to unveil the secrets behind French fighter planes. Subsequently, the "Fokker Fodder" aka "Fokker Scourge", appeared on the battlefield.

The warplane was designed by Dutch engineer Anthony Fokker. He installed the interrupter gear weapons synchronization on German warplanes. They were designed to discharge rapid-fire rounds directly behind the plane propellers without hitting them.

Editorial Team Fokker M5K-MG

Hunter's aircraft reduced the speed of the strike when the blade of the propeller lay in front of the weapon. At the same time, a second Russian pilot invented a synchronized machine gun. These synchronization systems have also been installed on French, Russian and English airplanes. They're the first fighter planes to arrive in fleets of multiple countries during the year 1916.
Related Articles:
Reconnaissance aircraft were very vulnerable at the time and rarely did. They needed powerful weapons to defend themselves against small but swift, aggressive hunters. Frenchman, Le Prieur realized the issue and integrated solid-fuel stick-guided missiles. It saw its first time in action during the battle of Verdun.

In the hunters, the French also installed mobile machine guns to prevent back attacks. This meant that the shooter was behind the pilot, and the screw that had existed before had ceased to exist. These planes also had increased their cargo capacity. Their main purpose was to bomb and escort military personnel by air.

Aircraft of World War I

Let's look at at World War I airplanes from their respective producer countries.

US Aircraft of WW1

We must bear in mind that, as a result of the country's subsequent intervention in the conflict, the US Air Force developed rather slowly. At the time of 1917, American aircraft development was lower than the other major countries involved in the war. At that time, the United States dropped bombers and hunters. The US Army used the aircraft solely for caller missions.

German Aircraft of WW1

We should consider that the German Air Force was the second-largest aircraft manufacturer in the First World War. The total number of their fleets reached about 230 aircraft. They were widely used for transport operations because they couldn't handle a lot more than that. However, we can not assume that most of their aircraft were outdated models.

During the war, however, the Germans were the first to modernize their aircraft fleet, allowing them to control the air in Western Europe in 1915 and 1916. The Germans, too, were the first to lead in an aerial bombing. Germany did not hesitate to use aircraft to bomb enemies at all. This strategy was effective and caused the feared air force branch of the Luftwaffe to form in 1939 during World War II.

Editorial Team German Albatros D.IIIs of Jagdstaffel 11 and Jagdstaffel 4 parked in a line at La Brayelle near Douai, France

Also Read:
Russian Aircraft of WW1

The Russian Empire had the largest fleet of warplanes in the world at the time of World War I's declaration: about 260 aircraft. However, the quality of Russian aircraft was much lower than in most other countries of the world. Airplane materials and modules were out of date, and aviation suffered at the start of the war.

Despite their size, their air fleets did not save the Russian empire from defeat in the war. Still, the most outdated, the situation worsened in 1916. It was then that the Italians and the Austrians built their fleets against Russia, and they were victorious.

During this period, due to financial difficulties, Russia could not produce enough new warplanes. Due to the imminent crisis, obsolete technology was not allowed to deal with serious developments. As a result, Russian aviation remained in the shadows.

Editorial Team operational B.E.2c of the RFC in 1916

British Aircraft of WW1

Britain was the first foreign country in the world to have chosen the aviation industry as its military branch. The British were waiting and experimenting with the events of WWI. In 1915, by waiting and watching the enemy, they managed to create the world's first hunter. In 1918, the British Air Force was the largest in the world and had over 3,000 aircraft.

The United Kingdom had already distributed its many warplanes for a variety of tasks. They include bombing, close air support, landing, destruction of enemy aircraft, etc. They were the founders of many tactics for the use of fighter planes; the rest followed. In this way, the United Kingdom greatly stimulated the development of aviation.

Editorial Team Bristol Scout C aircraft

Also Read:
French Aircraft of WW1

At the start of the war, French aviation was not the largest but was defined by its novelty and perfection. Until 1918, the French had used only hunters and almost the best reconnaissance aircraft in the world, but they had no bombers. The first bomber was first produced in 1918 and had no time to enter German cities: Kaiser Germany had surrendered earlier.

De Havilland Airco DH-4

Editorial Team Formation of Airco DH-4 in flight

One aircraft, in particular, was crucial to the success of modern airplanes. The English model had reached a speed of 190 km / h and could carry 250 kg of pumps. Also, the flight time of this fighter plane without landing was 4.5 hours and the altitude was 6000 m. The need to support ground forces and take high-altitude photographs in the air led to its arrival.

They used improved versions of conventional aircraft for this type of aviation. British aviation specialists installed metal-coated cabins, fuel tanks, and more powerful engines to increase capacity. The firepower of these warplanes consisted of two Lewis machine guns and two 230 lb bombs. They were all capable of firing hand grenades and bombs.

Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aviation_in_World_War_I
http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/fokker.htm
https://www.worldwar1centennial.org/1181-timeline-of-wwi-aviation-history-demo.html

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The Role Airplanes Played In World War 1 - Aircraft Compare

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One of the periods where aviation took some massive leaps in development was WW1. European governments invested big budgets for developing airplanes that would come out on top. Military aviation soon transformed from observation balloons to the first fighter planes. Let's take a look at how airplanes were used in...

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Prior to the introduction of jets, most commercial airplanes were propeller driven, like the DC-3 pictured here. These planes had a limited cruising altitude - and experienced much more turbulence. NOAA Photo Library

Long lines at security checkpoints, tiny plastic cups of soda, small bags of pretzels, planes filled to capacity, fees attached to every amenity - all reflect the realities of 21st century commercial air travel. It's no wonder that many travelers have become nostalgic for the so-called "golden age" of air travel in the United States.

Duke University Libraries

During the 1950s, airlines promoted commercial air travel as glamorous: stewardesses served full meals on real china, airline seats were large (and frequently empty) with ample leg-room, and passengers always dressed well.

After jets were introduced in the late 1950s, passengers could travel to even the most distant locations at speeds unimaginable a mere decade before. An airline trip from New York to London that could take up to 15 hours in the early 1950s could be made in less than seven hours by the early 1960s.

But airline nostalgia can be tricky, and "golden ages" are seldom as idyllic as they seem.

Until the introduction of jets in 1958, most of the nation's commercial planes were propeller-driven aircraft, like the DC-4. Most of these planes were unpressurized, and with a maximum cruising altitude of 10,000 to 12,000 feet, they were unable to fly over bad weather. Delays were frequent, turbulence common, and air sickness bags often needed.

Harriet Baskas

Some planes were spacious and pressurized: the Boeing Stratocruiser, for example, could seat 50 first class passengers or 81 coach passengers compared to the DC-3's 21 passengers. It could cruise at 32,000 feet, which allowed Stratocruiser to fly above most bad weather it encountered. But only 56 of these planes were ever in service.

While the later DC-6 and DC-7 were pressurized, they still flew much lower than the soon-to-appear jets - 20,000 feet compared to 30,000 feet - and often encountered turbulence. The piston engines were bulky, complex and difficult to maintain, which contributed to frequent delays.

For much of this period, the old saying "Time to spare, go by air" still rang true.

Through the 1930s and into the 1940s, almost everyone flew first class. Airlines did encourage more people to fly in the 1950s and 1960s by introducing coach or tourist fares, but the savings were relative: less expensive than first class, but still pricey. In 1955, for example, so-called "bargain fares" from New York to Paris were the equivalent of just over $2,600 in 2014 dollars. Although the advent of jets did result in lower fares, the cost was still out of reach of most Americans. The most likely frequent flier was a white, male businessman traveling on his company's expense account, and in the 1960s, airlines - with young attractive stewardesses in short skirts - clearly catered to their most frequent flyers.

The demographics of travelers did begin to shift during this period. More women, more young people, and retirees began to fly; still, airline travel remained financially out-of-reach for most.

If it was a golden age, it only was for the very few.

People also forget that well into the 1960s, air travel was far more dangerous than it is today. In the 1950s and 1960s US airlines experienced at least a half dozen crashes per year - most leading to fatalities of all on board. People today may bemoan the crowded airplanes and lack of on-board amenities, but the number of fatalities per million miles flown has dropped dramatically since since the late 1970s, especially compared to the 1960s. Through at least the 1970s, airports even prominently featured kiosks selling flight insurance.

Mental Floss

And we can't forget hijackings. By the mid-1960s so many airplanes had been hijacked that "Take me to Cuba" became a punch line for stand-up comics. In 1971 D.B. Cooper - a hijacker who parachuted from a Boeing 727 after extorting $200,000 - might have been able to achieve folk hero status. But one reason US airline passengers today (generally) tolerate security checkpoints is that they want some kind of assurance that their aircraft will remain safe.

And if the previous examples don't dull the sheen of air travel's "golden age," remember: in-flight smoking was both permitted and encouraged.

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Longing for the 'golden age' of air travel? Be careful what you wish for

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Long lines at security checkpoints, tiny plastic cups of soda, small bags of pretzels, planes filled to capacity, fees attached to every amenity - all reflect the realities of 21st century commercial air travel. It's no wonder that many travelers have become nostalgic for the so-called "golden age" of air travel in the United States.

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The First World War (1914-18) hastened the development of aeroplanes which were then in their infancy, so that by the early 1920's they were much more reliable and capable of flying longer distances and carrying heavier loads. This made possible the carrying of passengers and freight on a commercial basis.
New Planes, Dirigibles and Flight Records

The ability to travel long distances quickly but with relatively light loads meant that the earliest commercial freight services were mainly mail deliveries. To speed up mail deliveries the Post Office Department at one time considered putting flat roofs on Post Offices to act as landing strips.

Airplanes were initially built predominantly of lightweight materials like wood and canvas but continual developments in the aviation industry over the first decade of powered flight led to increasing use of metal parts and panels until complete all-metal airplanes became the norm. 4600 American airplanes were built in 1928 and 104 different planes were exhibited at an airshow, leading Henry Ford to predict that there would have to be consolidation within the industry.

Before the world war, planes were rare, and you were lucky if you had even seen one. In 1920 the English air force auctioned off 10,000 surplus airplanes and 30,000 aircraft engines, many of which had seen service in the world war. All of a sudden there were planes everywhere with aircraft manufacturers releasing new, bigger and better models every year.

Pilots who returned from the WW1 supported themselves by travelling all over the country visiting small towns and showing off their flying skills, as well as taking paying passengers for rides. A paddock or fair ground with sufficient distance to take off and land was sufficient for these early barn-stormers as they were referred to. Entrepreneurs would rent a landing strip, hire a pilot, get permits and then charge passengers $1 per minute of flying time.

It was only in 1927 that an airport terminal in the form of a waiting-room and ticket-office for airplane passengers, said to be the firstin the USA, was erected at the Ford Airport, at Dearborn, Michigan. By 1929 a few principal airports had passenger terminals with comfortable waiting-rooms, but most of the existing airports were nothing more than open fields.

The increased capabilities of 1920's planes also created the opportunity for daring men and women aviators to break and set aviation speed and distance records. They captured the imagination of the public who loved the flying machines and who followed their exploits, treating the pilots like royalty or movie stars. Crowds would be waiting to greet pilots after epic flights and huge street parades would be held in their honor where whole towns and cities turned out.

The use of airplanes facilitated aerial exploration and surveying of inhospitable areas like the Antarctic that were difficult to explore by traditional ground-based methods.In 1929 Commander Byrd was able to discover many previously unknown features of Antartica with his flights generating numerous aerial photographs for later analysis and mapping.

The first transatlantic flight had been done in stages by the crew of the NC-4 in May 1919, with the first non-stop flight made by Alcock and Brown in June 1919. Charles Lindbergh gained international fame as the first pilot to fly solo and non-stop across the Atlantic Ocean, flying from New York to Paris on May 20-May 21, 1927 in his single-engine airplane The Spirit of St. Louis, taking 33.5 hours for the trip. One of the early barn-stormers, Amelia Earhart, was the first female pilot to achieve many records such as crossing of the Atlantic and the English channel.

Airships (dirigibles) were commonly used in aviation at the same time as fixed wing aircraft and had much greater load carrying capacities than aircraft of the time. The first crossings of the Atlantic were made by airship in July 1919 by His Majesty's Airship R34 and crew when they flew from Scotland to New York and then back to England. By 1929, airship technology had advanced to the point that the first round-the-world flight was completed by the Graf Zeppelin in September and in October. Zeppelin airships were also used for the first commercial transatlantic service. Although there had been previous dirigible crashes, the age of the dirigible ended in 1937 with the terrible fire aboard the Zeppelin Hindenburg. People stopped using airships, despite the fact that most people on board survived.

Charles A. Lindbergh carved a place in Aviation history when he flew a tiny plane, "The Spirit of St Louis", from Long Island to Paris in 1927, to create the first non-stop solo transatlantic flight. Suddenly the world had become smaller. Lindbergh became an aviation consultant and campaigned for a World Air Code to overcome the difficulties of different regulations in each country, in order to facilitate international air-travel.

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The First World War (1914-18) hastened the development of aeroplanes which were then in their infancy, so that by the early 1920's they were much more reliable and capable of flying longer distances and carrying heavier loads. This made possible the carrying of passengers and freight on a commercial basis.

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The A320's fly-by-wire technology was not only a way of improving flight controls and reducing weight. It enabled Airbus to take safety to a new level by introducing the flight envelope protection. Pilots flying the A320 were free to operate it as normal, but the flight envelope protection prevented the aircraft from performing manoeuvres outside its performance limits.

Fly-by-wire also firmly established the concept of commonality which is so central to the appeal to customers of Airbus aircraft. No matter how one aircraft varies in size or weight from another, fly-by-wire commonality allows the pilot to fly them in the same way because the computer "drives" the aircraft's flight controls. This leads to considerable reductions in the time and costs involved in training pilots and crew to operate them.

A further advantage which the A320 offered over its rivals was that its cabin was wider, enabling airlines to install more spacious seats with a wider aisle.

In June, 1981, at the Paris Air Show, Air France gave the A320 programme a huge boost by declaring its intention to buy 25 of the planned new aircraft, with an option on 25 more. Yet the A320 was not officially launched until March, 1984. Talks over funding and workshare agreements between Airbus partners were complex and prone to delay, conducted as they were against a backdrop of world recession and the effects of deregulation in the American airline industry. The number of A300 "whitetails" had again begun to build up in Toulouse as recession-hit customers cancelled orders. Nevertheless, when the A320 launch day finally arrived Airbus was able to announce an impressive portfolio of more than 80 firm orders from five launch customers. British Caledonian, then Britain's second largest airline and later to be taken over by British Airways, ordered seven A320s with three options, joining Air France, Air Inter, Cyprus Airways and Inex Adria of then Yugoslavia.

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The A320's fly-by-wire technology was not only a way of improving flight controls and reducing weight. It enabled Airbus to take safety to a new level by introducing the flight envelope protection. Pilots flying the A320 were free to operate it as normal, but the flight envelope protection prevented the aircraft from performing manoeuvres outside its performance limits.

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-first flights
-Wright Brothers

https://airandspace.si.edu/exhibitions/wright-brothers/online/fly/1903/

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Wright 1900 Aircraft

Glenn
Research
Center

This page shows a computer drawing of the Wright brothers' 1900 aircraft. This aircraft was flown repeatedly at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, during the fall of 1900, mostly as a kite but also as a piloted glider. Research had directed the Wright brothers to Kitty Hawk because of the constant strong winds which their kite required and it was remote, so they would not be bothered by curious crowds of people. The location also had hills for launching the glider if the windspeed was low and abundant sand to soften crash landings.

Their main concern was to learn how to control the forces on an aircraft. Others who had thought it more important to fly first and figure out control later had died in crashes. The Wright brothers used the 1900 aircraft to learn the fundamentals of aerodynamics. You can learn the same things in the same way by flying your own kite or glider. It's fun!

You can study the design of the 1900 aircraft by changing the view using the buttons at the bottom of this JavaScript program.

The Wright brothers had observed that soaring birds twist their wings to change direction. The brothers had successfully done the same thing in Dayton in 1899 by twisting the wings of a small kite. In 1900, the brothers decided to test this idea on an aircraft that was large enough to carry a man. The pilot could control the roll of the aircraft by using a foot pedal. The pedal was connected to wires which pulled on the wing tips and warped, or twisted, the wing. Warping produces unequal forces on the wings which would roll the aircraft. The 1900 aircraft was relatively large as you can tell by comparing with the size of the pilot. The aircraft had two wings covered by a tightly woven material called "sateen". Each wing had a seventeen foot span and a five foot chord. Four foot struts separated the wings and a stabilizer was mounted on the front of the aircraft which had no tail. Without the pilot the 1900 craft weighed about fifty pounds. In 1900, glider pilots usually flew in a vertical position. The Wright brothers correctly understood that this produced a lot of aerodynamic drag that would slow a glider down. They chose instead to streamline their aircraft by having the pilot lie horizontal on the lower wing.

Here is a photo taken in 1900 of the actual aircraft flying at Kitty Hawk as a kite.

All wings have a natural tendency to flip tail over nose because of the pressure distribution around the wing. To prevent their aircraft from flipping, the Wright brothers attached a horizontal stabilizer to the front of the aircraft. A stabilizer at the front of an aircraft is called a canard after the French word for "duck", since a duck has a bulge around its neck. On later models the shape of the stabilizer was varied by the pilot to provide pitch (up and down) control. But on the 1900 aircraft they fixed the stabilizer in place and just tested the wing warping. They found it too confusing at this early juncture to simultaneously provide both pitch and roll control. On the 1901 aircraft, they would begin experiments on simultaneous control.

For three weeks they flew their craft as a kite, using chain as weight to simulate a pilot and operating the controls by cable from the ground. Then they decided to test the craft as a glider, with Wilbur as pilot. Launching from a dune hill on a very windy day, he made about a dozen glides, some lasting as much as 20 seconds and covering up to 400 feet, longer than a football field! Altogether he spent about 2 minutes in the air. Even though this was the only day that season with winds strong enough to carry a pilot, they showed that wing warping was a success. Lessons learned on the 1900 aircraft were incorporated on all of the later Wright aircraft.

Replica

To celebrate the Centennial of Flight in 2003, many people around the country have built full scale replicas of the Wright 1900. The 6th grade students of the Orono Middle School from Orono, Maine, have donated a full scale model of the aircraft to NASA to share with other students.

Activities:

You can build your own model of the 1900 Wright aircraft using a styrofoam meat tray and some toothpicks. Plans for this model are available with step by step instructions. The final model looks like this:
Navigation..

Re-Living the Wright Way

Beginner's Guide to Aeronautics

NASA Home Page

http://www.nasa.gov

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Wright 1900 Aircraft Glenn Research Center This page shows a computer drawing of the Wright brothers' 1900 aircraft. This aircraft was flown repeatedly at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, during the fall of 1900, mostly as a kite but also as a piloted glider.

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Site content ©2003- MilitaryFactory.com, All Rights Reserved. The "Military Factory" name and MilitaryFactory.com logo are registered ® U.S. trademarks protected by all applicable domestic and international intellectual property laws. All written content, illustrations, and photography are unique to this website (unless where indicated) and not for reuse/reproduction in any form.

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