INTRODUCTION

More than any other form of transport, aircraft have revolutionized
commercial travel, making the world a much smaller place. Within a
few decades of the pioneering flight of the Wright brothers, passengers
could make long-haul flights as a matter of routine. Today's civil aircraft cancarry just one or many hundreds of passengers, and a wide range of
cargoes, representing a remarkable diversity in aviation technology.
At 10 am on New Year's Day, 1914, a Benoist XIV -flying boat flown by Antony
Jannus, an instructor pilot with the Benoist Aircraft Company, took off from St
Peters burg, Florida. With him was a solitary passenger, the Mayor of St
Peters burg. Twenty three minutes later, at the end of a 35km (22 mile)
over water flight across Tampa Bay, Jannus alighted, having inaugurated the
first scheduled, aerial passenger service in the world.
The St Peters burg and Tampa Air boat Line, as the service became known,
operated for nearly four months, with the aircraft making two round trips per
day. The fare was $5, provided the passenger weighed no more than 91kg
(200lb). Heavier people were charged extra, During its short career, the Air boat
Line covered some 17,700km (11,000 miles), only 22 -flights were canceled
through bad weather or other reasons, and the total number of passengers
carried was 1205.
By 1918, only 15 years after the Wright brothers had made their historic
flight at Kitty Hawk, aviation was no longer in its infancy. The demands of
total war had turned the aircraft into a killing machine of awesome potential.
On the other hand, apart from limited ventures like the Tannpa Air boat Line -
which had ceased to operate because it was not economically viable - the
aircraft's usefulness as a source of commercial revenue had yet to be explored;
and in this context the obstacles seemed almost insurmountable. Commercial
aircraft had to have range, speed and adequate capacity; they had to be able
to fly in all kinds of climatic conditions; and they had to transport their
payloads efficiently, and in safety.
At the end of World War I, no such aircraft existed. Yet a mere decade later,
a new generation of airliners was already plying the embryonic air routes of
the world, while new and exciting machines capable of spanning the world's
great oceans were on the drawing boards. It was one of mankind's greatest
technological triumphs, and would not have been possible without the
courage and determination of a relatively small band of men: the aircrews, the
managers of the world's pioneer airlines, and the financiers who were
prepared to stake fortunes on such an unknown quantity.

THE DAWN OF COMMERCIAL AVIATION

Ironically, the first regular, commercial air service after World War I was
inaugurated in a defeated Germany. It began on 5 February 1919, when
aircraft of Deutsche Luft-Reederei started carrying mail, newspapers and
passengers between Berlin-Johannisthal and Weimar on a regular, daily
schedule. DLR, which had been formed the previous year, had rapidly risen to
prominence among the spattering of fledgling aviation companies that had
emerged in Germany after the Armistice; and its expansion was rapid. In March
1919, it inaugurated a second service, between Berlin and Hamburg, and
opened a third route to Warnemunde in April. By mid-1920, the DLR fleet
comprised 71 single-engined aircraft, almost all of them ex-military types such
as the LVG and AEG, and 13 twin-engined Friedrichshafen FF45 and GIIIA
machines, the latter capable of carrying up to six passengers as well as two
crew, mail and cargo. In August that year, in co-operation with KLM and DDL,the Dutch and Danish airlines, the airline inaugurated its first international
route from Malnm to Amsterdam, via WamemOnde, Hamburg and Bremen.
The organization of Germany's early air services was a world apart from the
situation pertaining in France, which had been both the cradle and hub of civil
aviation before the 1914-18 war. After the war, although the widespread
destruction of surface communication led to the rapid establishment of airmailservices, involving half a dozen companies, France's attitude towards civil
aviation was shaped, in essence, by the past. Prior to 1914, France's aviators
and aircraft constructors were world leaders, and her air aces global legends by
1918. Consequently, the actions of those responsible for furthering French
aviation during the years that followed were, in essence, shaped by a profound
desire to recapture former glories. Everything, it appeared, was devoted to the
creation of more heroes, with huge funds allocated to record-breaking
attempts by intrepid young men in stripped-down, ex-military machines; there
was no attempt at coordinating civil flying, as there was in Germany and
elsewhere. Not until the formation of Air France, in 1933, would order begin
to emerge from the confusion that attended France's post-World War I civil aviation industry, even though, in the interim, French airmen achieved
amazing successes in long-range, pioneer flights to Africa, the Far East and
Latin America. Yet it took French commercial aviation a long time to recover
from the wasteful diversification of the 15 years immediately following World
War 1. One consequence of the lack of a coherent civil-aviation program
and a shortage of financial support was that French designers tended to concentrate on the development o-f short- and medium-capacity aircraft. Large,
commercial designs rarely received government backing, although when such
aircraft proved successful, French governments were not slow to exploit them
for propaganda purposes. When the big, six-engined flying boat Lieutenent de
Vaisseau Paris flew the Atlantic via the Azores on 30 August 1938, for example,
much was made of the event; yet no appreciable payload was carried, and, in
any case, the British, Americans and Germans had already done it.
In these three countries, the impetus behind the development of long-range,commercial air -transport was -the carriage of mail. The British government, in
particular, had been quick to recognize the aircraft's potential as a means of communication across the routes of its vast empire. As early as 1925, the
decision had been made that responsibility -for the carriage of mail to the Middle East and India should pass from the Royal Air Force to the newly
established Imperial Airways. However, the scheme had been slow to start
because o-f a lack of suitable equipment; the aircraft types that then formed
the fleet of Imperial Airways would not stand up to the rigors of continual
operation over long distances in tropical climates. What was needed was an
entirely new type, specifically designed for long-range operations. The
machine that was to fulfill this need was the de Havilland DH66 Hercules.
Other purpose-built, commercial designs quickly followed, eventually
culminating in the types that symbolized Britain's long-range, commercial air
operations in the 1930s: the Handley Page HP42 and the magnificent Short
'C class flying boats.
Yet, behind all this growing commercial success in the two decades following
the end of Word War I, all the major air arms of the world took part in record-
breaking exercises that pushed range, endurance, altitude and speed to the
limits of known technology. Such exercises were to have a profound effect on
the development of future aircraft, both military and civil, some of which were
directly descended from machines produced solely for record-breaking purposes.

TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATION

In the early days, the US Navy was at the forefront of range and endurance
flying. On 27 May 1919, a Curtiss NC-4 flying boat became the first to make a
transatlantic flight, from Newfoundland to Lisbon via the Azores. Yet, just
under three weeks later, the honor of making the first non-stop, transatlantic
crossing fell to two RAF officers. Captain John Alcock and Lieutenant Arthur
Whitten Brown, who completed the journey in a converted Vickers Vimy
bomber. On 6 July 1919, the British military rigid airship R34 completed the
first non-stop, east-west flight. But it was the US Navy that, in 1924,
successfully completed the first round-the-world flight, using Douglas DT-2
biplanes that were externally similar to those in service as torpedo-bombers.
Apart from bringing well-deserved honor to their crews, this epic voyage
brought home a number of lessons that were to make their mark on the
design of future aircraft and equipment. One such lesson was that wood and
fabric were far from suitable materials for use in hot and humid conditions;
another was that the flight would not have been possible without massive
support and organization, with US warships carrying spares, fuel and
technicians positioned along the route. Logistical support of long-range air
operations was something the Americans would come to excel at over the
next 20 years.


The key to the whole problem of improving all-round aircraft performance
was the aero-engine, and in this respect the record-breaking efforts of the
1920s produced an important spin-off. For much of that decade, it seemed,
the French and Americans, whose high-performance aircraft virtually swept
the trophy board, had established a commanding lead; but these successes
spurred leading British aero-engine manufacturers into reappraising their
engine design philosophy. From three firms in particular, Rolls-Royce, Bristol
and Napier, came a new generation of powerful aero-engines that would
change the face of British aviation, both commercial and military. In
Germany, aero-engine development would not gain momentum until the
early 1930s when the facade of disarmament was stripped away, and massive
funds were diverted to the industry.
By the late 1930s, the invention that would revolutionize air travel, the jet
engine, was beginning to take shape. In 1937, when Frank Whittle tested
the first turbojet designed specifically to power an aircraft, the reaction
engine was still a novelty; less than a decade later, it was a practicality,
having been blooded in action in World War II in Germany's Me 262 and
Britain's Gloster Meteor. In 1952, the British Overseas Airways Corporation
inaugurated the world's first jet airliner services, using the de Havilland
Comet. Unfortunately, this venture was curtailed following a series of fatal
accidents, attributed, eventually, to structural fatigue. Despite this setback,
it was a 'stretched' version of the Comet, the Mk 4, that inaugurated the
first fare-paying jet service across the Atlantic in October 1957, some three
weeks before its US rival, the Boeing 707. The Russians, meanwhile, had
begun their own scheduled jet airliner services in September 1956, with the
Tupolev Tu-104, and in 1959, France entered the running with the Sud-
Aviation Caravelle.
Aero-engine developments generated other success stories in the 1950s. At
the forefront was the Vickers Viscount, powered by the revolutionary Rolls-
Royce Dart turboprop. The turboprop, which was both economical and
efficient, was the engine destined to power future generations of short- and
medium-haul 'feeder' airliners operating at medium level, far below the
altitudes at which the turbojet engine is at its most effective. And the
turbojet has given way to the powerful and more fuel-efficient turbofan, the
engine that today powers jet airliners of all sizes the world over. The advent
of the turbofan, together with new construction materials, made it possible
for aircraft designers to take the next step up the technological ladder: the
development of the 'wide-body' airliner, with its much-increased seating
capacity. The first in the field was the Boeing 747, followed by the Lockheed
TriStar and the McDonnell Douglas DC10 - all-American in origin, but soon to
be challenged by the European Airbus.

SUPERSONIC FLIGHT AND BEYOND

In the 1950s and 1960s, considerable thought was given to the development
o-f supersonic transports -for long-range airline services. Seen as an irrelevance
by many, commercial supersonic flight has not been an economic success.
Only two supersonic transports (SSTs) have seen service. The first was Russia's
Tu-144, a technological and commercial disaster; and the other the Angio-
French Concorde, a technological success that was beginning to be
commercially viable only after a quarter of a century of operation.
But the notion of supersonic passenger flight is by no means dead.
Advanced SSTs are still being studied, as are hypersonic, sub-orbital
transports, which, skimming the upper reaches of the atmosphere, would be
capable of circumnavigating half the globe in 30 minutes. The technology to
build such creations, a mixture of aircraft and spacecraft, is here today; they
may be a reality tomorrow. They are part of an an ongoing quest, the fruits
of which are already visible throughout the world today, in the vapour trails
of the great jetliners as they carve their way through the stratosphere, six
miles and more above the earth. And it should never be forgotten that in
the shadow of those contrails fly the ghosts of airliners of times long past,
and of the gallant pioneers who flew them.