Other prizes, for distance and speed records, also drove plqnes forwards. Construction of the first Zeppelin airship began in in a floating assembly hall on Lake Constance in the Bay of Manzell, Friedrichshafen. January—February Air combat tactics and doctrines took advantage. They almost doubled the size of the elevator and rudder and moved when were jet planes first used pdf about twice the distance from the iet. For greater passenger comfort, the DC-3 had a noise-deadening plastic insulation, and seats set in rubber to minimize vibrations. American Airlines opened domestic jet service with its own s in January

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 When Were Jet Planes First Used To 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.

The pilot who sparked all of this attention had dropped out of engineering school at the University of Wisconsin to learn how to fly. 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.

In the s, engineers began experimenting with a new way of powering an aircraft, the jet engine. In the simplest type, the turbojet, air is sucked in the front of the engine, squeezed, then sprayed with fuel and set on fire.

Today, most military planes, almost all airliners, and many small business planes are powered by jet engines. The Gloster Meteor was an early jet fighter. The Meteor was the first jet to be made in large numbers. Nearly 4, were built, and it was sold to many air forces. The one shown here is a prototype test plane. The Meteor was a single-seat fighter. On many earlier fighters, the cockpit was over the wings or even slightly behind them.

The Meteor had straight wings, like propeller-driven planes of the time. Later jets had swept-back wings.

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