Aviation 1.0
Depending on how one wants to look at things, aviation history looks back somewhere around two thousand years. From sticking bird feathers on the fragile human and jumping off towers. From Greek mythology and the legend of Icarus' fateful journey too close to the sun. The early kites of China from the 5th Century BC have been said to be the first man-made aircraft. Then, the Renaissance designs of da Vinci. All early indications of mankind's interest in flight.
The balloons of the Montgolfier brothers, assisted by the discovery of hydrogen gas drove 18th Century development, including the first crewed flight. Balloon development continued with blimps and eventually culminating as the dirigible airships, the Zeppelins. The early rigid Zeppelin flew, albeit not without issues, in July 1900.
Sir George Cayley set the seeds of the heavier than air aeroplane, defining the 'modern' 'plane in 1846. Cayley considered aerodynamics, the modern 'configuration' of fixed-wing, fuselage and tail and included the first formal identification of the vector forces leading to what we know today as necessary for controlled flight. He also influenced the invention of gliders, which Lilienthal and Chanute continued and became known for. While pretenders were challenging the milestone by a couple of years, it is generally (although not entirely) accepted the Wright Brothers, after a lot of trial and error, are synonymous with the first controlled flight on December 17, 1903.
Aviation 1.0 was almost entirely about proving powered, and controlled flight was possible.
Aviation 2.0
If aviation 1.0 was all about seeing what was possible, Aviation 2.0 was about exploiting it.
Although military exploitation of the air has an ancient history, the next phase of aviation development took it to the next level, and it continues to develop, now, toward space. The commercial aviation industry has been a (perhaps unintended) flow-on beneficiary. Technologies that developed as a result of global arms races found their way into the nascent industry and continue to benefit it today. Consider the reliance placed on satellite navigation.
Aviation 2.0 started slowly, literally. In January 1914, Tony Jannus took a single passenger on a 34-kilometre flight that took a bit over 20 minutes (about 55kts for those wondering). In 1914, the numbers associated with the aviation industry today would have seemed like science fiction fantasy, even though science fiction did not come into the common lexicon until the 1920s. Today, aircraft can carry over 500 passengers at speeds ten times that of Jannus's flight and at altitudes around 800 times as high, give or take. On the 100th anniversary of Jannus' single-passenger flight, the aviation industry carried 8.5 million passengers - that day!
Not without its problems, financially and structurally, since its slow, laborious beginnings 50 feet over Tampa Bay in Florida, the industry has weathered quite a few external shocks along the way. Whether it collectively learned anything from them is debatable as COVID-19 recedes into the rearview mirror, only to be replaced by something even more profound and long-term—the environment. As unprecedented as these challenges are, the industry has always managed to climb out of these problems and resume a trajectory of growth that no one on that chilly January day would foresee.
Updated-30 Apr 2024
As we and others foretold, the aviation industry has overcome the pandemic, almost—but not quite—regaining its pre-COVID traffic globally. However, whether it has emerged as a more resilient version of itself remains to be seen. It is regaining the growth trends that existed before the COVID-19 shock and is again becoming the victim of its success, where growing overcrowding in the sky continues to build pressure on airline bottom lines the world over. Will the industry be ready?
To see what it'll take, jump to Aviation 3.0
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