Introduction to Early Aviation - Term Paper Example

 Introduction to Early Aviation The aviation industry of the world is one of the biggest business sectors with its history rooted to more than 2000 years. It will be crucial to state that various people have been responsible for the development of this particular sector since then, one way or the other; either through the advancement of the flight techniques or the invention of new and advanced flights or making expeditions in faraway places where roadways or waterways failed to explore (Stimson, 2014). A. First Flights 1. Passengers. When assessing the historic developments of the aviation industry, the first flight identified to have ever fled was a short hop. It was the first airline of the world developed and engineered by the Great Wright Brothers on the fourteenth day of May in the year 1908. The first passenger of the world’s first airline was Mr. Charlie Furnas. He flew with the Wright Brothers, Wilbur Wright and Orville Wright at Kitty Hawk. The passenger and the Wright Brothers flew for four minutes covering an area of 4506 yards. Though no amount was paid to the Wright Brothers by the first passengers, it was still officially regarded as the first flight ever flown in the history of aviation industry of the world. This was also regarded as the birth of the commercial aviation (Stimson, 2014). B. First Company 1. History of Tampa Based Company. Later, in the year 1914, a group of four visionaries provided and combined their efforts to arrange the very first schedule of the first commercial airline flight. The first schedule of a commercial flight was arranged in between ‘St. Petersburg-Tampa Airboat Line’, which was to provide services to people all across the Tampa Bay, Florida. Notably, this first schedule of the commercial airline was funded and organised by Percival Fansler. The first commercial flight was conducted by the airboat of Thomas Benoist’s, which was piloted by Tony Jannus (Voxy, 2013). II. Contract Mail Act of 1925 It is apparent from the above section that the first flight flew in the year 1908 and the first commercial flight was flown in the year 1914 across the Tampa Bay in Florida. However, it is also crucial to depict that nearly after 11 years from the emergence of the commercial flights, legal authority took their control on this particular sector with the application of the ‘Contract Air Mail Act’ in the year 1925. Observably, during the mid-1920s, government extensively implemented the airmail services for receiving and delivering letters with a rate of nearly 14 million deliveries per year. However, after the comprehensive establishment of the airmail services, the government decided to transfer the governance of the airmail services to the private sector through competitive bidding. This move of the government was administered by the legislative authority known as the ‘Contract Air Mail Act of 1925’, which was also regarded as the Kelly Act after its chief representative ‘Clyde Kelly of Pennsylvania’ (Avjobs, n.d.). A. Profit in Moving Mail The ‘Contract Air Mail Act of 1925’ officially authorised the alignment of the general domestic airmail to that of the commercial airmail services or carriers. The act also enabled to set rates on the airmail services for the companies that were involved with carrying mails. According to Clyde Kelly, the act was mainly developed towards ensuring the expansion of the airmail services without inducing extra burden on the taxpayers in the country. This approach of the government was largely intended towards the development and initiation of a commercial aviation industry in the US. Critics often considered this particular initiative as one of the major steps toward the development of a private airline industry within the US. The moving of the mail from the government to the private sector was also deemed to have considerable impacts on the profit earning trends of this particular sector. As per the contract offered to the private companies with regard to the mail services, the companies were then observed to acquire income directly from the customers, which was earlier acquired from the post offices (Avjobs, n.d.). B. Competition Among Companies The initial five contracts of the government, as per the ‘Contract Air Mail Act of 1925’ was acquired by major players like ‘Varney Air Lines’, ‘Western Air Express’, ‘Colonial Air Transport’ and ‘Robertson Aircraft Corporation'. There was stiff competition among the companies to acquire the final contracts (Avjobs, n.d.). C. International mail routes Owing to the privatisation of the mailing services, the governments of various countries were eager to expand the routes of the airmail carriers and operate it in a wider scale to be able to carry more and more passengers. With an aim to fulfil the requirement of government to create longer international routes, companies began to merge both through backward integration and forward integration, and expand their operations to a larger scale. Companies also emerged with special promotional plans, which again contributed to the overall expansion of the operations of the overall sector. Furthermore, in the year 1930, regulatory authority developed plans of different companies operating in different sectors within the aviation sector, which also ensured the expansion of mail routes. All these aspects, worked towards the formation and the expansion of international mail routes. III. Technological Advances The role of technology has been quite extensive in all possible business sectors. Contextually, the aviation sector of the world also has an extensive use of technology right from the days of the history. Technology has always been the major functioning for the operations of the aviation sector. Observably, the industry has been involved with the implementation of advanced technologies for decades (Avjobs, n.d.). A. Bigger Aircraft It has been noted that with the advent of technology, companies in the aviation sector of the world seek to develop bigger aircrafts. The government also, as per the Contract Mail Act of 1925, began to instruct companies in the privatised aviation sector to buy larger planes to be able to carry more and more passengers, with a goal that it would ultimately expand the operational activities in a wider extent along with impacting the profitability of the sector in a favourable manner (Linden, 2002). 1. Pre WWII aircraft. It is deemed that the trend of operating with bigger has emerged post the Second World War as prior to that period the existence of bigger carriers was quite marginal. Prior to that of the Second World War, the commercial aviation industry was quite slow to gather momentum owing to the aspect that people were quite reluctant towards riding a flying machine, which were most used for shipping mails principally. With the implementation of advanced technologies during that period, companies were able to come with more trustworthy designs. After winning the airmail contract in the year 1926. Henry Ford, an automobile manufacturer, began to involve in aircraft manufacturing, which further stimulated the production of first all-metal planes, made primarily from a new metal named duralumin. During that time, Henry Ford focused more on the quality of the aircraft rather than its size and volume. It will be crucial to mention that the metal aircraft made by Mr. Ford was only 12 seated and therefore, were quite small in their sizes. During that period, the manufacturer was also very much concerned about enhancing safety of the airplanes along with working towards augmenting their speed upto a major extent rather than building their capacity as future transport systems. In this regard, manufactures came up with the trend of replacing Water-cooled engines with that of the Air-cooled engines in order to reduce the weight of aircrafts and increase their speed to a considerable extent (Linden, 2002; Avjobs, n.d.). 2. Post WWII aircraft. As described in the previous section of the discussion, the need and the demand for bigger aircrafts gathered momentum just after the Second World War not only amid commercial sectors, but also amid the various national military forces. With the increase in the number of customers, companies thus became more concerned towards expanding their operations by carrying more and more passengers and also in driving technology innovation to aid modern warfare through aerial combatants. This brought to the emergence of Boeing 747, one of the biggest aircrafts of that period. Pan Am Airline Company was the first company to purchase this large size model, which was more than 80% bigger in comparison to the existing jet model i.e. DC-8 (Linden, 2002; Avjobs, n.d.). Owing to the benefit of economies of scale of this aircraft, other companies also followed the footsteps of Pan Am and sought to reach out for bigger aircrafts. This encouraged Douglas Aircraft Company to build the DC-10 model. It was later accompanied with the emergence of L-1011 model aircrafts, which were quite similar to Boeing series in terms of size. This marked the emergence of bigger aircrafts in an extensive through the implementation of advanced technology (Linden, 2002; Avjobs, n.d.). B. Efficient Propulsion 1. Higher octane fuel. Speed of the aircrafts was another concern that was highly focused by the companies while designing aircrafts in the early days. It is deemed that high octane gasoline fuels were used in aircrafts in the early days in order to operate the aircrafts. Prior to that, kerosene was also seen to extensively use as a fuel in aircrafts, principally owing to the fact that its cost was quite less in comparison to high octane gasoline. However, with the passage of time and the development of technology, new aircrafts emerged including the Jet engines and Boeing series, which required high performance fuel along with greater efficiency to ensure maximum benefit in monetary terms for companies operating in the airline sector. This further aroused the need for high octane fuel in the aviation sector (Altfeld, 2010). 2. Propeller vs. Jet engine. Aircrafts that implemented propellers as one of their primary devices for propulsion were large in numbers, despite of the fact that it created limits and barriers to its increase speed. Notably, the aircrafts drove by piston engines get their thrust from the propeller of the engine. However, there are few piston engine aircrafts that derive some of their thrust from engine's exhaust gases. Additionally, some of the aircrafts (i.e. the hybrid kinds) used piston engines to drive the jet, which further enables them to get the primary thrust. It will be crucial to mention that all sorts of airplanes, before the World War II, implemented piston engines to drive their propellers. Hence, it is apparent that all flights, prior to 1944, were necessarily propeller aircrafts. However, with the advancement of technology in jet engine technology, during and after the World War II, further threatened the existence of propellers. Apart from that, the fact that the limits and barriers in propeller engines were not encountered in jet aircrafts further encouraged the engineers to use the newly developed jet engines. Jet engines, mainly including the turbojets, were thus extensively implemented in the aviation sector (Sharp, 2012; Altfeld, 2010). IV. Modern era commercial aviation A. New government agencies 1. Modernizing aviation law. In the modern day practices, various aviation agencies have been taking active participation for the implementation of an advanced aviation law, which is developed in a more precise and specific form to maintain consistency and suffice the flexibility requirements of the current aviation industry framework. Among those agencies, International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) is one of the primes, which has been promoting safety and security during the air journey. ICAO, as a specialized agency of the United Nations, provides safety and operates for the development of international aviation in the entire world. The major responsibility of this organization is to set the regulations for safety and security of the airlines along with the provision of environmental protection through the development and preservation of a well-structured operations management framework in the aviation sector. In the current scenario, ICAO has developed over 10,000 standards and regulations, which further promotes for the safety and security of the industry stakeholders along with the assuring better response towards environmental protection. These standards have brought about a new trend in the world of aviation industries through the development of a particular framework of air transportation, which stresses on the economic policy. ICAO has also determined the minimization of the negative effects caused by the aviation towards the environment. ICAO, being an agency of UN, adheres to all the environmental protection policies by the aviation activities. In accordance to the regulations and standards set by ICAO, it serves to the vision of achieving the sustainable growth in the aviation industry. In the similar manner, it holds the mission of forming regulations to develop aviation capacity to its members of aviation industry (International Civil Aviation Organization, n.d.). B. Commercial Aviation Alliances In the recent days, competition in the airline sectors has brought about a new trend of alliance, wherein two of the airline companies merge together to gain competitive position in the global market (Abeyratne, 2000). An ‘aviation alliance’ is an agreement between two of the airline companies wherein they share similar objectives and work for the purpose of similar goals (Tugores-Garcia, 2012). Most of the airlines enter into alliances with another airline company to extract numerous advantages such as providing wide variety of services to the passengers, expansion of air routes and enhancing the quality of services. The other reason for airline alliances is to obtain a strong competitive position in the era of changing technology. One of the notified alliances in the modern day is the global Star Alliance in Latin America. Recently, the entry of Avianca-Taca and Copa Airlines into Star Alliance had helped it to expand its route connections throughout the American continent along with huge variety of services to its passengers. It has been also able to attract a substantial rise in the number of passengers through the introduction of various offers in the cost of travelling. Apart from these benefits, Avianca-Taca and Copa Airlines have been providing its member airlines with increased purchasing power along with the advantages from effective promotion of synergies. Therefore, it can be concluded that aviation alliances serve the purpose of solving the risk of competition and attaining a strong competitive position in the national as well as the global market in the modern aviation industry (Association of Caribbean States, 2012). V. Conclusion Apparently, the aviation sector of the world has a long and a unique history of development and gradual changes. Initiated in the period of 1920s, with the first flight by the Wright brothers, the industry has now become one of the biggest and the most commercially successful sectors of the world. The industry has been noted to implement various noteworthy technologies in the process of its development over the last 100 years approximately. The industry became commercialised with the approach undertaken by the US government to privatise the airmail services through competitive bidding. This approach of the government not only ensured commercialisation of the aviation sector but also guaranteed its commendable growth to a certain degree, which continued till the modern era. Observably, prior to that of the Second World War, companies were mostly concerned towards the formation of safer aircrafts. However, after the Second World War companies became more and more attracted towards getting bigger aircrafts for them to carry more passengers at a time, with an expectation to increase the profitability of their operations. Hence, to conclude the discussion, it can be ascertained that the aviation industry has seen rapid and noteworthy changes over the last few decades as it stands at a commendable position in the global arena in context to the modern day scenario. References Association of Caribbean States. (2012). Overall view of alliances in air transport in Latin America. Retrieved from http://www.acs-aec.org/index.php?q=transport/overall-view-of-alliances-in-air-transport-in-latin-america Abeyratne, R. I. R. (2000). Strategic alliances of airlines and their consequences. Journal of Air Transportation World Wide, 5 (2), 55-71. Avjobs. (n.d.). History of aviation - first flights. Retrieved from http://www.avjobs.com/history/ Altfeld, H-H. (2010). Commercial aircraft projects: managing the development of highly complex products. London: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. International Civil Aviation Organization. (n.d.). ICAO Strategic Objectives 2014-2016. Retrieved from http://www.icao.int/about-icao/Pages/Strategic-Objectives.aspx. Linden, F. R. V. D. (2002). Airlines and air mail: the post office and the birth of the commercial aviation industry. United States: University Press of Kentucky. Stimson, R. (2014). World’s first airline passenger. 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