Aviation since 1903
On 17 December 1903, Orville and Wilbur
Wright made a decision that forever changed the world – to fly the first
powered aircraft.
On that day Orville flew an aircraft
created by them in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. The flight lasted 12 seconds and
covered 120 feet. Three more flights were made that day with Wilbur, Orville’s
brother completing the record flight lasting 59 seconds over a distance of 852
feet. That flight marked the beginning of aviation in the world.
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| wright flyer |
Miracle
of Aviation in the world today
Since 1903, aviation has transformed the
world. It has become a weapon of defence and a weapon of mass destruction in
times of war. It served the military during first and Second World War in terms
of logistics and mail delivery. Today, military aviation has gone beyond the
use of biplanes and bombers to the use of sophisticated hi speed fighter jets
and stealth bombers. Drones are now in use.
On January 1 1914, Abram C Pheil, a former mayor of St. Petersburg,
Florida became the first passenger to fly commercially and that 23 minute
journey from St. Petersburg to Tampa marked the birth of the world airline
industry. Since the first commercial flight, aviation has transformed the
world. It has reunited loved ones, connected cultures, allowed people to dream
of a bigger and brighter future and turned it to a reality.
Today over 3bn passengers and 50 million
cargoes reach their destination through the wonder of flight and it has helped
in supporting 57 million jobs and 2.2tn in economic activities.
Air travel has made the world smaller, open
up new activities for tourism, business, study and human connection. The
potential of aviation to keep driving the economic and social change is
unlimited. Aviation contributes a substantial percentage to countries GDP.
Air travel has now become more entertaining
and glamorous. You don’t have to sit on board an aircraft for six to 12 hours
without seeing anything. The advent of In-flight entertainment has changed air
travel dramatically.
As a result of the evolution airplanes,
travel hours as been reduced. Passenger traffic has increased; flying has been
made less stressful for pilots. This is because airplanes have transformed from
the era of biplanes to the era of tail draggers or normal airplanes with piston
engines to the era of jet powered aircraft. During the advent of piston engine
airplanes it could take long hours to two days to reach your destination if you
are flying internationally. But the advent of jet aircraft has reduced travel
time drastically. The advent of glass cockpit with the fly-by-wire technology
has made flying less stressful for pilots compared to flying airplanes with
analogue cockpits. However, overreliance on automated systems in modern
airplanes today can spell disaster as witnessed in Airfrance Flight 447 and
Asiana Flight 214. It makes pilots quite lazy.
Challenges
Economic downturn as a result of rise in
oil prices and drop in passenger traffic has led to the closure of many
airlines. Despite the economic challenges airlines are now embracing mergers. A
lot has to be done in respect of aviation security since the 9/11 attack on the
US as there are still incident of attacks on some airports.
The mystery behind the disappearance of
Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 has not been resolved and the downing of Malaysian
Airlines flight 17 is still under investigation. The disappearance of MH370 has
raised the issue as to how to track missing airplanes.
In Africa, bad government policies, heavy
taxes and the fact that the airline industry has not been completely deregulated are factors
that are working against the growth of the African airline industry (I will
discuss the issues with the African airline industry later)
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| 9M-MRO...the ill fated aircraft that flew as Flight 370 copyright planespotters.net |
Conclusion
It can be seen that aviation has gone far
since 1903 with changes in technology and increase in passenger traffic. Though
safety standards have improved over the years, a lot needs to be done to make
missing airplanes easy to locate. African aviation industry is in need of
serious over hauling.
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