When was flight commercialized

Do you want to comment on this article? You need to be signed in for this feature. How air travel has changed in every decade from the s to today Gallery View.

Expand View. From the early days of flight and the "golden age of travel", to modern-day budget airlines and the current regulations due to the COVID pandemic, air travel has changed a lot over the past century. Here, we take a journey through time to bring you the biggest milestones in commercial aviation history. Throughout the s and s, it became common for mail to be transported by air, and many airmail aircraft would also carry passengers.

One such airline was Western Air Express, which merged with Delta in The airline carried its first load of mail in April and was welcoming passengers by May of the same year — this first route was Salt Lake City to Los Angeles via Las Vegas. Life onboard a s aircraft was very different from that of the modern day.

Flights were a lavish affair reserved only for the richest members of society. Passengers had their every need attended to and were waited on with fine food and drink.

However, the ride itself wouldn't have been so comfortable. Planes travelled at a much lower altitude, so passengers were subjected to lots of noise, turbulence and long journey times. In-flight entertainment technology continued to improve too. This snap, taken in , shows passengers listening to a live radio broadcast of the annual London boat race between Oxford and Cambridge universities. Another commercial aviation milestone was reached in , when Qantas operated its first international passenger flight.

The service travelled from Brisbane to Singapore, where it was picked up by British-owned Imperial Airways. This journey would set the foundations for travel between Australia and the UK in the coming decades, and was a precursor to the iconic "Kangaroo Route". Commercial airlines did everything they could to make passengers feel comfortable.

Alongside the help of attentive staff, s passengers would be able to enjoy plush aircraft cabins worlds away from the no-frills set-up of the modern day. This Imperial Airways cabin, captured circa , boasted pillowy floral seats, patterned walls and curtains with decorative trim. This particular plane was generally used on a Paris—London route throughout this decade.

One s invention would seriously revolutionise commercial air travel. The Douglas DC-3 had its first flight in and raised the bar when it came to commercial airliners.

It was larger, faster and more comfortable than any model that had preceded it and it was soon snapped up by industry heavyweights such as Delta, TWA, American and United. A United Douglas DC-3 aircraft is pictured here cruising through the air. The s also saw some of the earliest commercial flights across the Atlantic.

Pan American Airways was one of the forerunners, transporting passengers over the Atlantic by The Yankee Clipper aircraft or "flying boat", which was used to undertake this journey, is pictured here in Calshot, Southampton, UK after a flight. Pan Am began operating its fleet of Boeing aircraft in the s. The Boeing was another model that propelled commercial aviation forwards, since it was the first to boast a pressurised cabin. This meant passengers as pictured onboard here circa could enjoy a comfortable ride at around 20, feet.

The model was also flown by TWA. Commercial air travel boomed through the s and, for the first time in history, more US passengers were travelling by air than train.

The s also ushered in the "jet age". Here, crowds are seen waving the aircraft off as it leaves London for Johannesburg, South Africa. The de Havilland DH Comet jet airliner was much faster than earlier piston aircraft, slicing hours off journey times and making the world smaller still.

The model could hold 36 passengers and, here, one traveller on the inaugural flight enjoys ample legroom and a slap-up meal with wine. However patrons' confidence in the aircraft model plummeted in the coming years as it suffered a series of crashes. The jet age was not over yet, though. In , a trip between the two cities, sitting on opposite sides of Tampa Bay, took two hours by steamship or from 4 to 12 hours by rail.

Traveling by automobile around the bay took about 20 hours. A flight would take about 20 minutes. Fansler tried to interest Tampa officials in the venture, but they turned him down.

He got a better reception in St. Petersburg, enticing several investors. Benoist arrived in St. Petersburg on Dec.

Jannus was already a popular figure in aviation. His dark, handsome looks and daring exploits made him the epitome of the romantic flyer. According to a biography by the Tony Jannus Distinguished Aviation Society , "once known as a fearless daredevil and admirer of women, running from angry fathers with pointed shotguns and dating movie stars, Jannus took risks in love and war. Jannus gave flying exhibitions, tested military planes, and flew long-distance airplanes and airboats.

He piloted the first tests of airborne machine guns. On March 1, , he carried Capt. Albert Berry aloft to make the first parachute jump from an airplane. The DC-1 had a more powerful engine and accommodations for two more passengers than did the More importantly, the airframe was designed so that the skin of the aircraft bore most of the stress on the plane during flight. There was no interior skeleton of metal spars, thus giving passengers more room than they had in the The DC-1 also was easier to fly.

It was equipped with the first automatic pilot and the first efficient wing flaps, for added lift during takeoff. However, for all its advancements, only one DC-1 was ever built. Douglas decided almost immediately to alter its design, adding 18 inches to its length so it could accommodate two more passengers. The new, longer version was called the DC-2 and it was a big success, but the best was still to come. Called the plane that changed the world, the DC-3 was the first aircraft to enable airlines to make money carrying passengers.

As a result, it quickly became the dominant aircraft in the United States, following its debut in with American Airlines which played a key role in its design. The DC-3 had 50 percent greater passenger capacity than the DC-2 21 seats versus 14 , yet cost only ten percent more to operate.

It also was considered a safer plane, built of an aluminum alloy stronger than materials previously used in aircraft construction. It had more powerful engines 1, horsepower versus horsepower for the DC-2 , and it could travel coast to coast in only 16 hours - a fast trip for that time. Another important improvement was the use of a hydraulic pump to lower and raise the landing gear. This freed pilots from having to crank the gear up and down during takeoffs and landings.

For greater passenger comfort, the DC-3 had a noise-deadening plastic insulation, and seats set in rubber to minimize vibrations. It was a fantastically popular airplane, and it helped attract many new travelers to flying. Although planes such as the Boeing and the DC-3 represented significant advances in aircraft design, they had a major drawback. They could fly no higher than 10, feet, because people became dizzy and even fainted, due to the reduced levels of oxygen at higher altitudes.

The airlines wanted to fly higher, to get above the air turbulence and storms common at lower altitudes. Motion sickness was a problem for many airline passengers, and an inhibiting factor to the industry's growth. The breakthrough came at Boeing with the Stratoliner, a derivation of the B bomber introduced in and first flown by TWA.

It was the first pressurized aircraft, meaning that air was pumped into the aircraft as it gained altitude to maintain an atmosphere inside the cabin similar to the atmosphere that occurs naturally at lower altitudes.

With its regulated air compressor, the seat Stratoliner could fly as high as 20, feet and reach speeds of miles per hour. Government decisions continued to prove as important to aviation's future as technological breakthroughs, and one of the most important aviation bills ever enacted by Congress was the Civil Aeronautics Act of Until that time, numerous government agencies and departments had a hand in aviation policy.

Airlines sometimes were pushed and pulled in several directions, and there was no central agency working for the long-term development of the industry. All the airlines had been losing money, since the postal reforms in significantly reduced the amount they were paid for carrying the mail. The airlines wanted more rationalized government regulation, through an independent agency, and the Civil Aeronautics Act gave them what they needed.

It created the Civil Aeronautics Authority CAA and gave the new agency power to regulate airline fares, airmail rates, interline agreements, mergers and routes. Its mission was to preserve order in the industry, holding rates to reasonable levels while, at the same time nurturing the still financially-shaky airline industry, thereby encouraging the development of commercial air transportation.

Congress created a separate agency - the Air Safety Board - to investigate accidents. These moves, coupled with the tremendous progress made on the technological side, put the industry on the road to success. Aviation had an enormous impact on the course of World War II and the war had just as significant an impact on aviation.

There were fewer than air transport aircraft in the United States when Hitler marched into Poland in By the end of the war, U. Most of the planes, of course, were fighters and bombers, but the importance of air transports to the war effort quickly became apparent as well. Throughout the war, the airlines provided much needed airlift to keep troops and supplies moving, to the front and throughout the production chain back home.

For the first time in their history, the airlines had far more business - for passengers as well as freight - than they could handle. Many of them also had opportunities to pioneer new routes, gaining an exposure that would give them a decidedly broader outlook at war's end. While there were numerous advances in U. The major innovations of the wartime period - radar and jet engines - occurred in Europe.

Isaac Newton was the first to theorize, in the 18th century, that a rearward-channeled explosion could propel a machine forward at a great rate of speed. However, no one found a practical application for the theory until Frank Whittle, a British pilot, designed the first jet engine in Even then, widespread skepticism about the commercial viability of a jet prevented Whittle's design from being tested for several years.

The Germans were the first to build and test a jet aircraft. Based on a design by Hans von Ohain, a student whose work was independent of Whittle's, it flew in , although not as well as the Germans had hoped. It would take another five years for German scientists to perfect the design, by which time it was, fortunately, too late to affect the outcome of the war.

Whittle also improved his jet engine during the war, and in he shipped an engine prototype to General Electric in the United States.

America's first jet plane - the Bell P - was built the following year. Another technological development with a much greater impact on the war's outcome and later on commercial aviation was radar. British scientists had been working on a device that could give them early warning of approaching enemy aircraft even before the war began, and by Britain had a line of radar transceivers along its east coast that could detect German aircraft the moment they took off from the Continent.

British scientists also perfected the cathode ray oscilloscope, which produced map-type outlines of surrounding countryside and showed aircraft as a pulsing light. Americans, meanwhile, found a way to distinguish between enemy aircraft and allied aircraft by installing transponders aboard the latter that signaled their identity to radar operators.

See the luggage pile activity to explore the many ways air travel affects everyday life. As flying became more popular and commonplace, the nature of the air travel experience began to change. By the end of the s, America's airlines were bringing a new level of speed, comfort, and efficiency to the traveling public. But as flying became commonplace and jet aircraft began to replace piston-engine airliners, the air travel experience began to change.

With the steady increase in passenger traffic, the level of personal service decreased. The stresses of air travel began to replace the thrill. Flying was no longer a novelty or an adventure; it was becoming a necessity.

With airplanes becoming faster and passenger numbers increasing, airlines discontinued their plush sleeper service by the s.