When was jet air travel invented

His first passenger was ex-St. Petersburg Mayor A. Pheil, who made the mile trip in 23 minutes, a considerable improvement over the two-hour trip by boat. After operating two flights a day for four months, the company folded with the end of the winter tourist season. These and other early flights were headline events, but commercial aviation was very slow to catch on with the general public, most of whom were afraid to ride in the new flying machines.

Improvements in aircraft design also were slow. However, with the advent of World War I, the military value of aircraft was quickly recognized and production increased significantly to meet the soaring demand for planes from governments on both sides of the Atlantic. Most significant was the development of more powerful motors, enabling aircraft to reach speeds of up to miles per hour, more than twice the speed of pre-war aircraft.

Increased power also made larger aircraft possible. At the same time, the war was bad for commercial aviation in several respects. It focused all design and production efforts on building military aircraft.

In the public's mind, flying became associated with bombing runs, surveillance and aerial dogfights. In addition, there was such a large surplus of planes at the end of the war that the demand for new production was almost nonexistent for several years - and many aircraft builders went bankrupt. Some European countries, such as Great Britain and France, nurtured commercial aviation by starting air service over the English Channel.

However, nothing similar occurred in the United States, where there were no such natural obstacles isolating major cities and where railroads could transport people almost as fast as an airplane, and in considerably more comfort. The salvation of the U.

By , the U. With a large number of war-surplus aircraft in hand, the Post Office set its sights on a far more ambitious goal - transcontinental air service.

It opened the first segment, between Chicago and Cleveland, on May 15, and completed the air route on September 8, , when the most difficult part of the route, the Rocky Mountains, was spanned. Airplanes still could not fly at night when the service first began, so the mail was handed off to trains at the end of each day. Nonetheless, by using airplanes the Post Office was able to shave 22 hours off coast-to-coast mail deliveries.

In , the Army deployed rotating beacons in a line between Columbus and Dayton, Ohio, a distance of about 80 miles.

The beacons, visible to pilots at second intervals, made it possible to fly the route at night. Mail then could be delivered across the continent in as little as 29 hours eastbound and 34 hours westbound - prevailing winds from west to east accounted for the difference which was at least two days less than it took by train.

By the mids, the Post Office mail fleet was flying 2. However, the government had no intention of continuing airmail service on its own. Traditionally, the Post Office had used private companies for the transportation of mail.

So, once the feasibility of airmail was firmly established and airline facilities were in place, the government moved to transfer airmail service to the private sector, by way of competitive bids. The legislative authority for the move was the Contract Air Mail Act of , commonly referred to as the Kelly Act after its chief sponsor, Rep.

Clyde Kelly of Pennsylvania. This was the first major step toward the creation of a private U. Robertson would become part of the Universal Aviation Corporation, which in turn would merge with Colonial, Southern Air Transport and others, to form American Airways, predecessor of American Airlines. Juan Trippe, one of the original partners in Colonial, later pioneered international air travel with Pan Am - a carrier he founded in to transport mail between Key West, Florida, and Havana, Cuba.

Pitcairn Aviation, yet another Curtiss subsidiary that got its start transporting mail, would become Eastern Air Transport, predecessor of Eastern Air Lines. Dwight Morrow, a senior partner in J. Morgan's bank, and later the father-in-law of Charles Lindbergh, was named chairman. The board heard testimony from 99 people, and on November 30, , submitted its report to President Coolidge. The report was wide-ranging, but its key recommendation was that the government should set standards for civil aviation and that the standards should be set outside of the military.

Congress adopted the recommendations of the Morrow Board almost to the letter in the Air Commerce Act of The legislation authorized the Secretary of Commerce to designate air routes, to develop air navigation systems, to license pilots and aircraft, and to investigate accidents.

The act brought the government into commercial aviation as regulator of the private airlines spawned by the Kelly Act of the previous year. Congress also adopted the board's recommendation for airmail contracting, by amending the Kelly Act to change the method of compensation for airmail services. Instead of paying carriers a percentage of the postage paid, the government would pay them according to the weight of the mail. Henry Ford, the automobile manufacturer, was also among the early successful bidders for airmail contracts, winning the right, in , to carry mail from Chicago to Detroit and Cleveland aboard planes his company already was using to transport spare parts for his automobile assembly plants.

More importantly, he jumped into aircraft manufacturing, and in , produced the Ford Trimotor, commonly referred to as the Tin Goose. It was one of the first all-metal planes, made of a new material, duralumin, which was almost as light as aluminum but twice as strong. It also was the first plane designed primarily to carry passengers rather than mail. The Ford Trimotor had 12 passenger seats; a cabin high enough for a passenger to walk down the aisle without stooping; and room for a "stewardess," or flight attendant, the first of whom were nurses, hired by United in to serve meals and assist airsick passengers.

The Tin Goose's three engines made it possible to fly higher and faster up to miles per hour , and its sturdy appearance, combined with the Ford name, had a reassuring effect on the public's perception of flying. However, it was another event, in , that brought unprecedented public attention to aviation and helped secure the industry's future as a major mode of transportation. At a. It was the first trans-Atlantic non-stop flight in an airplane, and its effect on both Lindbergh and aviation was enormous.

Lindbergh became an instant American hero. Aviation became a more established industry, attracting millions of private investment dollars almost overnight, as well as the support of millions of Americans. To charter is to rent out the entire aircraft. It became a particularly popular method across the North Atlantic, within Europe, and also between Europe and Africa.

Air Charter services also influenced the pricing behavior of scheduled carriers. When commercial air travel was still young and fresh, flying was a novelty experience characterized by luxury.

The Interwar years are often referred to as the Golden Age of Aviation , marking the progressive shift from wood-and-fabric biplanes to streamlined metal monoplanes. Meals were fine dining experiences, leg room was plenty and the services were upscale. But as the industry moved away from exclusivity to a more mass market platform, the planes and experiences themselves changed.

Technological expansion changed everything. By the mids, about million passengers had traveled via jet. Post-war aircraft eventually became larger, faster, and could fly for greater distances. And after several decades, aircraft advances and the growth of the aviation industry brought us very much where we are today.

Flying isn't so exclusive anymore--air travel has been brought to the masses. Which is a great thing, really. Later, Redman and James would appear with Elliot Roosevelt, son of President Roosevelt, as Elliot would receive the honor of being the ,th passenger flying from Los Angeles via Western Air Express on that same route.

See below. Redman and Tomlinson staggered out of the plane to stretch their legs and would have been forgiven if they had refused to reboard; for a good portion of the trip they had flown through a dust storm, and both passengers were pale from fatigue and nervousness. But they also were game, and three hours later climbed more or less jauntily out of the M-2, waving to the crowd of photographers and reporters gathered at Vail Field to record the arrival.

Upon completion of the inaugural flight, a certificate signed by the pilot Jimmy James was presented. The certificate shown below confirms Redman as the first official passenger , as well as recording details of the flight including maximum altitude reached 12, feet , the maximum speed mph , total flying time 8 hours , and Contract Air Mail Route No. Certificate confirming Mr. Part of the BirthofAviation.

For as mentioned there were a few early airboat ventures that did sell tickets for airtravel prior to Yet they would all end in bankruptcy, most going out of business shortly after their inception see First U.

Passenger Airlines. Helped by the Guggenheim grant, along with the infrasture and other innovations spawned by the model airline experiment over the next few years, Western would not only avoid bankruptcy but would go on to become an industry giant. Of course, the Guggenheim fund that helped fuel this success was never intended to provide an economic advantage to any one airline in particular, but rather to buoy the entire industry — and that is indeed what it did.

The success of the model airline experiment would not only benefit Western but would in effect usher in the beginning of sustainable economic progress for all U. One innovation of lasting impact achieved by the model airline would be the first weather reporting for passenger airplanes. The five-person committee, all of whom would achieve prominence in meteorology and two of whom would become chiefs of the Weather Bureau, recommended that the Guggenheim Fund equip a section of the airway system with weather reporting systems to prove the feasibility of such a system.

Ultimately, it was decided to carry this out along the Western Air Express model air line route, resulting in an initial twenty-two reporting stations connected via telephone to Los Angeles and San Francisco, and soon later more would be added.

These would serve all airmen, not just those of Western Air Express. This project, involving collaboration from the Department of Commerce and the Weather Bureau, as well as the army, would add great benefit not only in economy of operation but also in safety.

Formerly a pilot did not know what was ahead, now he knows and is prepared. During its yearlong test, not a single weather-related accident occurred. The Weather Bureau took over the weather reporting service officially on July 1, , and the service eventually spread nationwide. Even though mail revenues still constituted the majority of income, and profitability solely from passenger service was still a few years away, the public relations impact, the technological advancements, and the lessons learned as a result of the model airline experiment would greatly facilitate eventual realization of profitability in the industry.

Though there would be many ups and downs in the years to come, [ N 3 ] Western Air Express and the rest of the budding airline industry in America had positioned themselves on arguably the first path to sound economic success in the world of commercial aviation.

America was officially on its way to emerging as a global leader. As Tom D. British and French air services carried sixty-five hundred passengers between London and Paris in , with the three British operations carrying perhaps three times as many passengers as their French counterparts. At the same time, actual revenues amounted to only 17 percent of total costs. Unlike every other country, where heavy government subsidies are devoted to the development and advancement of air transport aircraft, private enterprise in the United States, the individual operator, must carry this entire burden.

When C. Grey, the editor of the English aeronautical journal Flight , arrived in New York in January to gauge the state of aeronautics in the United States. Not so much the calm before the storm, but rather the slump before the boom. With less than 6, airline passengers in the United States recorded in , this would grow to approximately , in , and a decade later this number would be approximately one million passengers.

In the past five years passengers carried on domestic and foreign airlines under the American flag have increased from , in to nearly 1,, in The U.

It may also be said that an even brighter future yet awaits it. In fact, by the year following the upcoming centennial of that inaugural passenger flight of Western Air Express , the FAA projects air travel demand in the U. At the same time, the real birth of commercial aviation is not merely a story of a landmark flight or even that of a handful of pioneers and philanthropists. It is the story of a nation. In order to make possible the conditions for success, many pieces needed to come together.

And this would involve one of the greatest collaborative efforts in all of human history. Glines writes in an article published in the the November edition of Aviation History magazine:.

The United States clearly was in the doldrums so far as aviation was concerned. By contrast, a year after the armistice, Britain and France were operating scheduled flights between London and Paris. And even the Russians, as far back as , had a four-engine airliner designed by Igor Sikorsky that boasted an enclosed cockpit and passenger cabin, electric lights and a washroom. Shortened or lengthened days or nights upset natural body rhythms and made sleeping difficult.

Although later dubbed "jet lag," this was first experienced after long-distance trips on fast piston-engine and turboprop airliners. The arrival of nonstop transcontinental service meant that major league baseball was no longer restricted to cities within a day's train ride, but could expand into new markets west of the Mississippi. Even before the move, the Dodgers had acquired a Convair for their use.

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