If you're imagining a plane full of Brits ready to sample Paris' baguettes and cheese, think again -- it was a pretty small aircraft with limited, but intriguing, cargo.
Weather conditions were apparently not particularly favorable, but the aircraft was greeted with enthusiasm by reporters and photographers upon landing in Le Bourget. Later, flights on the service held up to 14 passengers. Hot on the heels of the Brits, in Dutch airline KLM started flying aircraft between London and Amsterdam, and commercial aviation grew intermittently in the next few decades.
Still, it wasn't until after the Second World War, Rolls Royce historian Peter Collins tells CNN Travel, that there was a "mindset change" that led to people embracing flying as a commonplace mode of transport. Correction: This story has been updated to show the Alcock-Brown flight occurred in He became a barnstormer, doing aerial shows across the country, and eventually joined the Robertson Aircraft Corporation, to transport mail between St.
Louis and Chicago. In planning his trans-Atlantic voyage, Lindbergh daringly decided to fly by himself, without a navigator, so he could carry more fuel. His plane, the Spirit of St. Louis, was slightly less than 28 feet in length, with a wingspan of 46 feet. It carried gallons of gasoline, which comprised half its takeoff weight. There was too little room in the cramped cockpit for navigating by the stars, so Lindbergh flew by dead reckoning.
He divided maps from his local library into thirty-three mile segments, noting the heading he would follow as he flew each segment. When he first sighted the coast of Ireland, he was almost exactly on the route he had plotted, and he landed several hours later, with 80 gallons of fuel to spare. Lindbergh's greatest enemy on his journey was fatigue. The trip took an exhausting 33 hours, 29 minutes and 30 seconds, but he managed to keep awake by sticking his head out the window to inhale cold air, by holding his eyelids open, and by constantly reminding himself that if he fell asleep he would perish.
In addition, he had a slight instability built into his airplane that helped keep him focused and awake. Lindbergh landed at Le Bourget Field, outside of Paris, at p.
Paris time on May Word of his flight preceded him and a large crowd of Parisians rushed out to the airfield to see him and his little plane.
There was no question about the magnitude of what he had accomplished. The Air Age had arrived. In , Postmaster General Walter Brown pushed for legislation that would have another major impact on the development of commercial aviation.
Known as the Watres Act after one of its chief sponsors, Rep. Laurence H. Watres of Pennsylvania , it authorized the Post Office to enter into longer-term contracts for airmail, with rates based on space or volume, rather than weight. In addition, the act authorized the Post Office to consolidate airmail routes, where it was in the national interest to do so. Brown believed the changes would promote larger, stronger airlines, as well as more coast-to-coast and nighttime service.
Immediately after Congress approved the act, Brown held a series of meetings in Washington to discuss the new contracts. The meetings were later dubbed the Spoils Conference because Brown gave them little publicity and directly invited only a handful of people from the larger airlines. He designated three transcontinental mail routes and made it clear that he wanted only one company operating each service rather than a number of small airlines handing the mail off to one another.
His actions brought political trouble that resulted in major changes to the system two years later. Following the Democratic landslide in the election of , some of the smaller airlines began complaining to news reporters and politicians that they had been unfairly denied airmail contracts by Brown.
One reporter discovered that a major contract had been awarded to an airline whose bid was three times higher than a rival bid from a smaller airline. Congressional hearings followed, chaired by Sen. Hugo Black of Alabama, and by the scandal had reached such proportions as to prompt President Franklin Roosevelt to cancel all mail contracts and turn mail deliveries over to the Army. The decision was a mistake. The Army pilots were unfamiliar with the mail routes, and the weather at the time they took over the deliveries, February , was terrible.
There were a number of accidents as the pilots flew practice runs and began carrying the mail, leading to newspaper headlines that forced President Roosevelt to retreat from his plan only a month after he had turned the mail over to the Army.
By means of the Air Mail Act of , the government once again returned airmail transportation to the private sector, but it did so under a new set of rules that would have a significant impact on the industry.
Bidding was structured to be more competitive, and former contract holders were not allowed to bid at all, so many companies were reorganized. The result was a more even distribution of the government's mail business and lower mail rates that forced airlines and aircraft manufacturers to pay more attention to the development of the passenger side of the business.
The entire industry was now reorganized and refocused. For the airlines to attract passengers away from the railroads, they needed both larger and faster airplanes. They also needed safer airplanes. Accidents, such as the one in that killed Notre Dame Football Coach Knute Rockne along with six others, kept people from flying.
Aircraft manufacturers responded to the challenge. There were so many improvements to aircraft in the s that many believe it was the most innovative period in aviation history. Air-cooled engines replaced water-cooled engines, reducing weight and making larger and faster planes possible. Cockpit instruments also improved, with better altimeters, airspeed indicators, rate-of-climb indicators, compasses, and the introduction of artificial horizon, which showed pilots the attitude of the aircraft relative to the ground - important for flying in reduced visibility.
Another development of enormous importance to aviation was radio. Aviation and radio developed almost in lock step. Marconi sent his first message across the Atlantic on the airwaves just two years before the Wright Brothers?
By World War I, some pilots were taking radios up in the air with them so they could communicate with people on the ground. The airlines followed suit after the war, using radio to transmit weather information from the ground to their pilots, so they could avoid storms. An even more significant development, however, was the realization that radio could be used as an aid to navigation when visibility was poor and visual navigation aids, such as beacons, were useless.
Once technical problems were worked out, the Department of Commerce constructed 83 radio beacons across the country. They became fully operational in , automatically transmitting directional beams, or tracks, that pilots could follow to their destination. Marker beacons came next, allowing pilots to locate airports in poor visibility. The first air traffic control tower was established in at what is now Newark International Airport in New Jersey.
Boeing built what generally is considered the first modern passenger airliner, the Boeing It was unveiled in , and United Air Lines promptly bought 60 of them. Based on a low-wing, twin-engine bomber with retractable landing gear built for the military, the accommodated 10 passengers and cruised at miles per hour. Its cabin was insulated, to reduce engine noise levels inside the plane, and it featured such amenities as upholstered seats and a hot water heater to make flying more comfortable to passengers.
Eventually, Boeing also gave the variable-pitch propellers, that reduced takeoff distances, increased the rate of climb, and boosted cruising speeds. Not to be outdone by United, TWA went searching for an alternative to the and eventually found what it wanted from the Douglas Aircraft Company. Its DC-1 incorporated Boeing's innovations and improved upon many of them.
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. This photo from 1 June shows out-of-service planes at Berlin-Brandenburg Airport. For passengers choosing to fly, airport experiences looked rather different around the world.
Protocols and restrictions have varied from airport to airport, and from airline to airline, over recent months, but have typically involved mandatory face coverings, contactless check-ins and fewer open airport facilities.
Passengers have been getting used to new onboard experiences too. Depending on the airline — and in efforts to reduce touch points and contact between staff and passengers — changes have extended to a lack of inflight meals or trolley services, and the reduction of little luxuries like in-flight magazines, blankets and the like. Masks are still mandatory on most flights too, while some carriers have been blocking middle seats to allow passengers more space.
With vaccine programmes being rolled out around the world, international borders are beginning to open. Want more? Read on for the world's best airport lounges. Around the world, testing and vaccines are building bridges between destinations. 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. The Boeing jet airliner, which was introduced later in the decade, was larger and even more economical than its predecessor, and would enjoy much more commercial success. Pan American Airways began a regular service with this aircraft in and the model would remain in civil operation right up until This photograph shows crew embarking on a test flight with Pan Am back in Though commercial aviation was developing at an alarming rate, it hadn't quite opened up to the masses yet.
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