Category AVIATION &ТНЕ ROLE OF GOVERNMENT

On February 22, 1921, the first attempt at a through, continuous transcontinental airmail ser­vice was made. The plan called for a westbound plane to leave New York to fly the initial segment of the route to San Francisco, and an eastbound plane to leave San Francisco initiating the first segment to New York. (See Figure 10-9.) The trip each way would be sequentially flown by fresh airplanes and pilots, like the Pony Express, handing off the mail at predetermined points along the route. Two aircraft were assigned to begin at each end of the route.

The first airplane to leave New York dis­continued shortly after take off. The second plane flew to Chicago but was grounded due to weather. The first plane out of San Francisco crashed in Nevada, but the second plane made

it to Reno, and 12 hours after leaving San Fran­cisco, the mail arrived in Cheyenne. Another plane took the mail on to North Platte, Nebraska, and there it was turned over to the next segment airmail pilot, Jack Knight.

A combination of ground personnel and volunteers built bonfires along Jack’s route, which was to be traversed at night, and he made it to Omaha, his segment complete, by 1:00 a. m. There he learned that the plane scheduled to meet him in Omaha had not left Chicago due to weather. He volunteered to continue, armed only with an automobile road map to guide him over unknown terrain, a landscape he had never flown. This part of the country is chilly in February, and this night was accompanied by cold, ice, and snow, along with the low clouds that produce snow. He was unable to land at Des Moines, Iowa, as planned. He continued to Iowa City, and arriving, searched for the airport that was unlighted because the ground crew had left for the evening, believing that no sane person would fly in the prevailing conditions. A lone employee at the airfield heard his engine, lit a flare and watched as Jack Knight glided in with an empty gas tank. After refueling and accept­ing a quick cup of coffee, Knight gamely flew on to Chicago, finally landing at Checkerboard Field at 8:40 a. m. From there, the mail relay was continued to New York and, when the results were announced, the mail had been successfully carried coast to coast in slightly more than 24 hours.

The best that the Post Office had been able to do up to that time using the railroads was a transcontinental transit of three days. The experi­mental policy of flying the mail during daylight hours and handing the mail off to the railroads at night had only marginally improved savings in time, and was generally considered to be not cost effective. But with the grand experiment of February 21, 1921, it was now clear that flying the mails for the entire route could be done.

The success of this first attempt caused Con­gress to favorably consider appropriations sought by the Post Office, granting a splendid sum for that time, $1,250,000, for airmail extensions. Paul Henderson, who became Second Assistant Postmaster General in 1922, was committed to the Otto Praeger principle that the mail could be flown. But it was clear that the mail had to be flown both night and day, and that bonfires as a means of nighttime navigation probably had only the most limited of possibilities.

The Black-McKellar Act, passed by Congress in June 1934, codified the arrangements for the award of airmail contracts made in April 1934 (see Figure 14-1), and repealed the pow­ers and prerogative of the Postmaster General as established in the Watres Act. Competitive bid­ding was reinstated. The newly named airlines bid on the routes. Airline executives involved in the Brown meetings were prohibited from occupying positions of authority in the new airlines. The vertical structure of the airlines

and manufacturing companies was prohibited. United Aircraft and Transport, for example, was dismantled and its operations split three ways:

• Boeing took over all operating properties in the West;

• All eastern United States’ functions were assumed by United Aircraft Corporation (today known as United Technologies), run by Rentschler;

• Finally the airline itself, United Air Lines, became a separate and independent entity.

The air carrier industry was reorganized under the Act by separating oversight and regula­tory authority among: [10]

2, The Interstate Commerce Commission, which would establish reasonable rates through competitive bidding oversight;

3, The Department of Commerce, which through the Bureau of Air Commerce would attend to safety.

Ultimately, the effect of the Act would be to divest the other large airline operations from their holding companies. Aviation Corporation (AVCO) divested itself of American Airlines, now to be run by C. R. Smith as an independent corporation. North American Aviation (NAA), a complex and diverse entity, was the parent of both TWA and Eastern Air Transport, and had substantial manufacturing interests. NAA first sold off TWA, which was then run by Jack Frye, a pilot’s pilot. In due course, Eddie Rickenbacker cobbled together Wall Street financing to the tune
of some 3.5 million dollars and bought out the Eastern Air Lines interest. Thus, all of the Big Four were positioned independently for the advent of commercial air transportation and the first comprehensive federal regulation of it.

Pan American, meanwhile, had been unaf­fected by the so-called Brown scandal and still had its airmail contracts awarded under the For­eign Airmail Act of 1928 by the Postmaster Gen­eral. The Brown philosophy that the international airmail business should not compete with the domestic airmail business, and vice versa, was intact. The international trade routes that had emerged from the Brown era were not in the least affected by the new law, nor by anything that Black had done, and Pan American was set to become the premier airline of all.

«To put your life in danger from time to time. . . breeds a saneness in dealing with day-to-day trivialities, w

Nevil Shute, Slide Rule: The Autobiography of an Engineer

he last of the big airliners mounting recipro­cating engines on their wings were stretched versions of the airliners that had gone before. The DC-6 and the DC-7 were from the DC-4 model with various refinements to go along with the increase in length, breadth, and power. The Super Constellation was 19 feet longer than the original. With increased length came additional seating and with more seating came more revenue. Range was extended so that nonstop service was possible— not only coast-to-coast but transatlantic.

The DC-6 was launched in coast-to-coast service on April 27, 1947, with one stop en route for fuel. United advertised its service as ten hours total. (See Figure 19-1.) TWA’s Constellations could do about the same, advertised as ten hours, ten minutes.

Boeing, a late entry to the new postwar aircraft building party, in 1948 introduced the double-decked B-377 Stratocruiser, a four – engine landplane larger than either the DC-6 or

Constellation and designed with an emphasis on luxury reminiscent of the Pan Am Clippers. The airplane featured two decks with a cock­tail lounge with leather seating located below, accessible by a curved stairway, and with a honeymoon suite in the aft section. Take off per­formance in the Stratocruiser was marginal, with the DC-6 routinely outperforming it, but it was bigger and faster at 340 miles per hour than any other airliner. It was also expensive, costing over $1.5 million, and its high operation costs did not help matters. It had engine problems (the P&W Wasp Major had 112 spark plugs in 28 cylinders and delivered 3,500 horsepower) and the propel­lers had a tendency to go flying off on their own. Still, these airplanes were the ultimate in passen­ger comfort. New York to London was a pleasant affair of 12 hours duration, including cocktails, a five-course dinner, a good night’s sleep, and plenty of attention. But the Stratocruiser had the worst safety record of the postwar big planes; six were involved in fatal crashes with the loss of 108 passengers and 28 crew. United unloaded their Stratocruisers early; Northwest kept theirs for years. In the end, the airlines seemed glad to see them go. Figure 19-2 pictures the Boeing 377, the Constellation 049, and the DC-4.

The DC-7 proved to be the first true trans­atlantic airplane, flying either west or east with a full load. With it, Pan American regained its leadership position over TWA, which was flying the Super Constellation. The DC-7 had engines that were reaching the limits of reciprocating – engine power possibilities. With four Wright turbo-compound engines providing 3,250 horse­power, each weighing over 3,500 pounds, engine maintenance was a problem; American Airlines reported 10 engine failures a day on average. Westbound DC-7 service to the Pacific coast was advertised as nonstop, but with headwinds the advertised flying time of seven and one-half hours was often missed. Eastbound, American was able to adhere to its scheduled arrivals. The DC-7 made the first nonstop transatlantic cross­ing in 1957.

But the strain was showing; the limits of the reciprocating engine had been reached. It was time for the jet age.

The Center was named for Oklahoma Sena­tor Mike Monroney, who was instrumental in securing passage of the Federal Aviation Act of 1958. The Center is the repository for all aircraft registration, documents of title to air­craft, and lien recordations on United States aircraft (the Aircraft Registry). The Airman Records Branch contains the records pertain­ing to every person issued a certificate by the FAA. It is the home of the FAA Academy, the training center for air traffic controllers, air safety inspectors, and other personnel. The Cen­ter also houses the Civil Aeromedical Institute (САМІ), which conducts research on various aspects of aviation safety, with an emphasis on human factors. САМІ specialists conduct tests on smoke toxicity, aircraft seats and restraint systems, air traffic controller selection and train­ing methods, and the effects of fatigue, age, work, and rest schedules for АТС personnel. Teaching activities at САМІ include the training of pilots in water and arctic survival techniques and the sharing of the latest research in avia­tion medicine with designated Aviation Medical Examiners.

William J. Hughes Technical Center

Research and development programs are con­ducted at the Technical Center located just outside Atlantic City, N. J., on a former Navy airfield. Activities conducted at the Center include test and evaluation in air traffic control, communications, navigation, airports, and air­craft safety and security. The Center strives to develop innovative systems and concepts, new equipment and software, and modifications of existing systems.

Education

The FAA supports a large effort in the aviation community directed toward education of the flying public and the public at large. Periodic publications, such as the Advisory Circulars and Service Bulletins, and safety seminars for pilots, instructors, mechanics, and others reach out to all certificated airmen in an effort to facilitate improvements in all aspects of avia­tion safety.

Funding

Responsibility for distribution of federal grants under the Airport Improvement Program is assumed by the FAA under the Airport and Air­way Development Act.

ills to deregulate airline service were sub­mitted to Congress by both the Ford Admin­istration and Senator Kennedy. In April 1975, hearings began on these bills before the Senate Aviation Subcommittee chaired by Nevada Dem­ocrat Howard Cannon. Support for the airline deregulation bill came from many quarters and from both sides of the aisle. Republican President Ford supported it, as did Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and Senator Strom Thurmond (R-SC). Democrats from Kennedy (D-MA) to presiden­tial candidate Jimmy Carter supported it.

But the airline industry as a group was strongly against it. The most vehement oppo­nents of deregulation were the weaker and less financially strong airlines, like Eastern, Ameri­can, and TWA. Under regulation they had pro­tection of their most profitable routes, and they feared deregulation would unleash competitive vultures to take away their only lifeline to sus­tainability. Most local service providers opposed deregulation because they feared that the trunk lines would take over their most dense and profit­able routes.

Democratic Congressman Elliott Levitas (D-GA), using procedural tricks and Congressio­nal rules, stalled the bill in Congress specifically for Delta Airlines, whose principal office was in

Atlanta, for a period of time. He added to the bill the provision for terminating the authority of the CAB, thereby ending its existence, which many believed would kill the legislation. It didn’t.

The airline industry remained solidly opposed to deregulation until the hearings in the spring of 1977, when for the first time United Airlines split from the carrier group. United CEO Richard Ferris came from the hotel industry, not the airlines, and some said that his conver­sion to the need for deregulation was the result of a failure to understand the workings of air transportation. But there were other support­ers, including the intrastate carriers, particularly Southwest, which with deregulation could break forth from the confines of Texas to challenge the airline industry country-wide. Hughes Airwest and Frontier Airlines were two local service providers who favored deregulation. Then there were the commuters, who wanted to be free of the CAB-imposed limitation of 30-seat aircraft; they supported the bill.

Labor groups were opposed to the proposed law, fearing new airlines would hire nonunion labor, thereby reducing wages and threatening job security and favorable work rules. Com­mercial banks and insurance companies, which provided capital and loans to the air carrier
industry and aircraft manufacturers, opposed the law. These companies lived according to well-established amortization and annuity tables that predicted future performance based on past experience. Nobody could say with any reason­able certainty exactly what would happen under a deregulated airline industry.

Missing in all of the debate was any articula­tion of a national public policy for air transpor­tation in the United States. Most industrialized countries had integrated public transportation systems that included rail, highway, and air. These foreign transportation systems were pri­marily owned and operated by their governments at taxpayer expense as a function of national pride and necessity.

In the United States, there was no coherent national transportation policy. With the excep­tion of the air transportation and maritime infra­structure and the national highway system, the United States relied on private enterprise and local municipalities to furnish its transportation services needs.

The closest thing to a national air transporta­tion policy that existed in the United States was the Civil Aeronautics Act of 1938, as adminis­tered by the CAB. But this statute was enacted primarily to protect the airlines from destruc­tive competition and to promote safety and popular acceptance of air travel. As national policy, it was probably time for a change, but very little was heard in the Kennedy hearings about national policy; rather, the subject focused on anecdotal evidence of overpricing, ineffi­ciencies, lack of capacity, and governmental mismanagement.

Carter had been elected president in 1976, and by early 1977 he began appointing people to head various affected agencies who shared his views on deregulation. To the ICC he appointed deregulator George Stafford as Chairman. To the CAB he appointed Alfred Kahn, the author of Economics of Regulation, to replace Robson. Carter went at deregulation across the board, pushing bills to deregulate the railroads, motor carriers, moving companies, and the gas industry.

Even before passage of the Airline Deregu­lation Act, Kahn attacked regulation of the air­lines in order to create, in his words, “something as close to total deregulation as the (existing) law will permit, to be achieved as quickly as pos­sible.”[13] He told his staff that they “were going to get the airline eggs so scrambled that no one was ever going to be able to unscramble them.”2

Carter continued to push the airline deregula­tion bill. In April 1978, the Senate passed the bill 83 to 9. In the House of Representatives, Carter enlisted the powerful Speaker of the House, Tip O’Neill, to corral votes from undecided Represen­tatives. By 1978, the relaxed administration of the CAB initiated by Robson and Kahn showed (1) a decline in fares for the first time since 1966, (2) an expansion of air traffic at a rate faster than in the preceding 10 years, and (3) the highest carrier profitability in 10 years. All this had been achieved even while the rate of inflation steadily rose.

Based on these results observed during the spring and summer of 1978, and on the growing support of leaders of both political parties, opposi­tion to the deregulation of the airlines virtually van­ished. The deregulation bills passed both Houses.

On October 28, 1978, Carter signed the Act into law. The Airline Deregulation Act (ADA) amends the Federal Aviation Act of 1958, stating as its purpose “to encourage, develop, and attain an air transportation system which relies on com­petitive market forces to determine the quality, variety, and price of air services.” The Act com­pletely changed the economic foundation for the domestic airline industry and provided for its full implementation over the course of a four-year period. It provided, among other things:

1. For the phase-out of the CAB and its author­ity over domestic routes and fares,

2. For the phase-out of existing economic reg­ulations formerly constituting barriers to competition,

3. Safeguards for the protection of air carrier service to small communities,

4. For the facilitation of entry of air carriers into new markets, and

5. For certain protection of airline employ­ees who may be adversely affected by the results of the Act.

CAB route authority was scheduled to end on December 31, 1981, and rate authority was set to terminate on December 31, 1983. The CAB itself was mandated to cease to exist as of the close of business on December 31, 1984.

This policy of fixing specific termination dates, laddered out into the near future, was to allow the airlines time to develop responses to the changes caused by the Act. The spe­cific provisions for airline guidance during the CAB phase-out period included the following changes: 1

Because of the speed that the Board began to confer new authority, within a year of the passage of the Act certificated lines were able to serve virtually any route they wished. New entries were also granted during this time, although not as quickly as route authority.

The Board arranged a series of meetings throughout the country to address the needs of small communities to facilitate the transition of service mandated by the local service subsidy program and the new essential air service pro­gram mandated by the ADA.

Although the Act was designed to offer tem­porary federal payments to airline employees adversely affected by the Act (see 7 above), this provision of the Act was never implemented. This was due to the inability of the government to make any objective determination as to the cause of job losses or dislocations among air­line employees, given the simultaneous onset of the Act, fast-rising fuel prices, and the resulting recession that began in the early 1980s.

Transition from a regulated to an unregu­lated economic airline environment proved dif­ficult in two particular areas: fares and mergers. Prior law of the Supreme Court had exempted the airlines from compliance with the antitrust laws (the Sherman Antitrust Act and the Clayton Act) that governed other commercial enterprises in the United States. Instead, antitrust oversight and enforcement of the airlines had been conferred on the CAB. This authority had been consistently exercised for over 40 years in the airline industry.

The liberalization of CAB practices that began in the 1970s continued during the phase­out of CAB authority in the early 1980s. There were charges of price-fixing among the airlines as they raised fares and rates almost in lockstep due to the doubling of jet fuel prices between 1979 and 1980. Mergers were approved during this time that most certainly would not have been approved under prior CAB practice.

Upon the demise of CAB authority, airlines became subject to the same antitrust laws as all other commercial business with enforcement jurisdiction initially residing in the Department of Transportation.3

With deregulation in place, there was no longer any requirement to secure from the CAB certificates of convenience and necessity before commencing service on a route. No longer were there artificial barriers to entry into the previ­ously exclusive airline carrier club, nor was there any requirement to secure approval from the CAB for rate increases.

When deregulation became law, all of the pent-up competitive instincts of airline bosses were suddenly unleashed. Like adolescents let loose on a first unsupervised journey away from home, excesses might have been expected. The choices of how to proceed were practi­cally unlimited. Unbridled optimism coupled with a fear of being left behind in the race to gain position on their competitors spurred frenzied activity of all sorts, and not a few miscalculations.

From the early to mid 19th century, to the Wright brothers’ success in 1903, controllable flight of “heavier than air” craft was a preoccupation throughout the civilized world among dreamers, engineers, and assorted tinkerers. The sketches and writings of Leonardo da Vinci in 1505 were the only known serious, theoretical treat­ment of the subject of flight until the publication in 1810 of a series of articles by the Englishman Sir George Cayley.

Today, Cayley is considered to be the founder of the science of aerodynamics because of his pioneering experiments with wing design and the effects of lift and drag, and his formula­tions concerning control surfaces and propel­lers. He concluded, by observing birds, that a curved surface (a wing) would support weight and, under the proper configuration of fuselage and other accoutrements, would permit flight. As a scientist, he kept meticulous records of his observations and the results of his experi­ments. In years to come, this documentation would greatly assist those who followed him in the quest for flight.

In 1804, Cayley built and flew a model of a glider that incorporated the principles of the cambered wing, and in 1808 he flew a full-scale version of this glider as a kite, thereby proving his basic wing theory. Cayley worked on his theories all his life. Between 1849 and 1853, he designed and built the first human-carrying glid­ers in history. His research probed the engineer­ing essentials of aircraft design today, including the ratio of lift to wing area, the determination of the center of wing pressure, the importance of streamlining, the concept of structural strength, and the concepts of stability and control. Cay­ley’s work became the foundation of most of the future experimentation in flight.

Throughout the course of the 19th century, many pioneers contributed to the persistent quest of manned flight. Some got the cart before the horse, like the Englishmen John Stringfellow and his cohort William S. Henson. In their zeal they attempted to form a company called the “Aerial Steam Transit Company” in 1843, for the purpose of operating an international airline. The first problem the company had was the absence of any form of aerial conveyance, such as an airplane. There also was no form of propulsion to make the aerial conveyance go anywhere, although Stringfellow apparently worked at high pitch to develop a lightweight steam engine to be placed on the yet undesigned airplane. The attempt came to naught when the English House of Commons rejected the motion to form the company, with great laughter.

In apparent recognition of the unlikely com­mercial success of their venture, Henson married and moved to the United States, where no record has been located to support evidence of any fur­ther aeronautical involvements. But Stringfellow persisted and, in 1848, he was successful in devel­oping a three-winged model aircraft on which he placed a lightweight steam engine that actually flew a distance of 120 feet. He is thus credited with producing the first engine-driven aircraft capable of free flight and, under the auspices of the Aeronautical Society, exhibited his machine at the world’s first exhibition of flying machines held in the Crystal Palace in London in 1868.

Others, such as the French sea captain Jean – Marie Le Bris, are noted more for their efforts than their successes. His legacy was a series of glider crashes occurring after short, unmanned flight. Francis Wenham was an Englishman who pursued the elusive reality of flight without success, but who did design and build the first wind tunnel. Wenham was a marine engineer, as was the Frenchman Alphonse Penaud, who brought to their interest in flight an engineering discipline that would enhance the ultimate suc­cess of achieving manned flight.

Penaud’s work was important to the Wright brothers’ success, by their own admission. Penaud is known for his experimentation with model aircraft, with results long studied by aeronautical engineers and historians. Penaud had shown that models are effective for purposes of experimentation. He dem­onstrated the usefulness of the twisted rubber band as a means of propulsion for model airplanes. These models were among the first powered, heavier than air objects ever to fly and went far to encourage experimenters that manned, powered flight was possible. Penaud’s “planaphore,” a model mono­plane with tapered dihedral wings, an adjustable tail assembly, and a pusher-type propeller mounted on the tail of the airplane, flew as a demonstration in 1871 in Paris. The planaphore covered a distance of 131 feet and is acknowledged to be the first recorded flight of an inherently stable aircraft.

Efforts to find a workable means of pro­pulsion, or thrust, for aircraft were the primary interests of two other engineers. Clement Ader, a French electrical engineer, and Hiram Maxim, chief engineer for an early electric utility, experi­mented with steam engines, at the time the only known reliable form of moveable power.

During the 1880s Ader built flying machines to which he attached 40-horsepower and 20-horsepower steam engines. The engines were effective in producing sufficient power to propel his clumsy and unwieldy machines, all of which were completely without any effective means of control, and by turns they all suffered the igno­miny of the crash and burn.

In 1893, Hiram Maxim built an enormous biplane. It was 200 feet in length with a wing­span of 107 feet, and he mounted on it not one but two 180-horsepower steam engines. The plat­form for the engines, the boiler, and the three – man crew was 40 feet long and 8 feet wide. The machine was effectively affixed to the ground by attachments to a track over which it ran. It was made to move along the track at speeds of up to 42 miles per hour in a fashion described at the time by a journalist at the scene:

When full steam was up and the propel­lers spinning so fast that they seemed to become whirling disks, Maxim shouted, “Let go!” A rope was pulled and the machine shot forward like a railway train with the big pro­pellers whirling, the steam hissing and the waste pipes puffing and gurgling, it flew over the 1800 feet of track in much less time that it takes to tell it.

Otto Lilienthal (see Figures 5-3 and 5-4), a German engineer who believed that glider flight was a necessary prerequisite to powered flight, constructed and tested a series of monoplanes in the nature of what we today would call hang gliders. He made the most accurate and detailed observations about the properties of curved

surfaces, presenting for the first time observa­tions concerning aspect ratio, wing shape, and profile, and conducted various experiments in his workshop that were built on the already proven idea of the cambered wing. In 1889 he pub­lished Birdflight as the Basis of Aviation, which contained the findings and conclusions from his experiments and which were presented in tabulated format. Beginning in 1894, he proved, through repeated successful glides of distances of over 1,000 feet, that manned flight was possible.

Between 1891 and 1896, Lilienthal made over 2,000 gliding flights, many over distances in excess of 1,000 feet, and for this period there are 137 known photographs of him in flight. He wrestled with the concept of control, using dex­terous movements of his body to keep the glider in proper attitude, but was unable to develop an otherwise effective means of control. On August 9, 1896, the lack of control took its toll when his glider stalled at an altitude of 50 feet and plum­meted to the ground, fatally injuring him. As he lay dying in the open field where he crashed, he was heard to have said, “Opfer mtissen gemacht werden.” Thus was started the tradition that has transcended the epoch of aviation, in the transla­tion of his last words, “Sacrifices must be made.” Lilienthal’s exploits were publicly acknowl­edged, and photographs, interviews, and publi­cation of his experiments and calculations were widely circulated. Percy Pilcher, a Scotsman and marine engineer and lecturer in naval architecture at Glasgow University, was intrigued by Lilien­thal. He fashioned his own form of glider, but did not fly it until after he was permitted a visit to Lilienthal with the opportunity to practice in his proven machines. Pilcher died in his own glid­ing crash in 1899. He was later cited by Wilbur

Wright as having influenced the brothers’ experi­ments, who credited both Pilcher and Lilienthal in the success of the Wrights’ experiments.

Octave Chanute was arguably the most important single influence on Orville and Wilbur Wright as they relentlessly pursued their goal of manned, powered flight. Chanute was an accom­plished and successful civil engineer, president of the American Society of Civil Engineers, and

designer of the first railroad bridge over the Mis­souri River. (See Figure 5-5.) His interest in flight can be best understood as a hobby until he was in his sixties, when he published a book called Prog­ress in Flying Machines, which compiled his exten­sive investigation of flight experimentation and research up to that time. (See Figures 5-6 and 5-7.) In 1896, Chanute began a series of experiments using gliders of his own design and construction. A short train ride from Chicago to the south lays the Indiana state line, along the shore of Lake Michigan. In June of that year, Chanute, his associ­ate Augustus Herring, and two others established a campsite outside of Miller Junction, Indiana, among the famous dunes along Lake Michigan. Winds from the lake and the elevation of the dunes provided a very suitable venue for glider experi­mentation, and the isolation of the region pro­vided some degree of privacy. (See Figure 5-8.) These physical characteristics of the topography were later noted by the Wrights in the selection of the Outer Banks of North Carolina for similar, although even more favorable, characteristics.

During this encampment, the Chanute party experimented with Lilienthal glider designs, mak­ing modifications that to them seemed appro­priate. Progress was made, particularly in the six-winged version known as the “Katydid.” The party returned to the area in August 1896, and continued experiments with gliders, this time

concentrating on the double-deck kite version that would become the model for the Wright’s success­ful efforts a few years later. Chanute was encour­aged by the results of the double-decker tests, and upon his return to Chicago he published the results in an article entitled “Recent Experiments in Glid­ing Flight.” The next year he followed this up with an article in the Journal of the Western Society of Engineers, wherein he recounted not only the 1896 experiments but also additional flights con­ducted by Augustus Herring in 1897. This free distribution of information was typical of the gen­erous Chanute, who was genuinely committed to the advancement of manned flight regardless of any issue of credit for it.

The Wright brothers became seriously inter­ested in the subject of manned flight in 1899. They wrote to Secretary Langley at the Smith­sonian Institution, who was also in the process of experimenting with the idea of manned flight, and in that way became aware of the efforts of Chanute. Wilbur Wright first corresponded with Octave Chanute in 1900, and expressed particular interest in the structural engineering concept of strut and wire bracing that Chanute first introduced to aircraft design with the dou­ble decker. From this developed a lengthy and prolific correspondence and association between Chanute and the Wright brothers that extended for a decade, until his death in 1910. Chanute became a friend and confidant to the Wrights, and even accompanied them to the Outer Banks on several occasions. As a man of some stature as compared to the unknown Wright brothers, he defended them and vouched for their accom­plishments during the secretive five-year period following their first successful controlled and powered flight in 1903, when, as we shall see, no one else would.

«All agreed that the sensation of coasting on the air was delightful, w

Octave Chanute, regarding first glider flights, 1894

In 1923, Congress granted an appropriation to fund the construction of a system of sequential lighting on the transcontinental airmail route. The first segment completed was between Chicago and Cheyenne, a stretch of flat country most conducive to this original effort, and centrally located along the route. Airplanes launched at first light on either coast could reach the lighted segment by nightfall under most circumstances.

Beacons were placed on 50 foot steel tow­ers constructed every 10 miles along what had come to be known as the “airway.” The beacons rotated so as to allow pilots to see their flash from 40 miles away in good weather. If the bea­cons were located at a landing field, the beacons showed a green course light, if not, then red. Morse code, which is still used as part of the FAA navigation scheme today, was introduced into the airway system at the time of this first construction. Each beacon flashed an identifier in Morse code that corresponded to the number of the beacon within the airway segment.

Regularly scheduled airmail service was begun on July 1, 1924, just over six years from the inauspicious kick-off in Washington, D. C.

with Lt. Boyle. Due to prevailing winds, east – bound mail crossed the nation in 29 hours, while that mail bound for the West took 34 hours. This provided a savings in time of at least two full business days in mail going from coast to coast compared with mail carried by rail. Within the first full year of operation, the lighted air­way system had been completed coast to coast. (See Figure 10-10.) American aviation, with the leadership of an enlightened government, had made a quantum leap into a technologically advanced civilian navigation system. Nothing like it existed in the world.

The American scene was almost set for the beginnings of a viable commercial aviation trans­portation system, but not quite. Still to come

were more reliable engines, sturdier airplane designs, acceptance of flight by reference only to aircraft instruments, involvement of the banking and financial community, acceptance by the pub­lic of aviation as legitimate transportation and, lastly, those visionaries and adventurers, both physically and financially, who would make it all happen.

Transportation during the 1920s was the domain of the railroads, which carried nearly all of the intercity passengers in the nation. The railroads delivered essentially all of the freight of the nation, and employed by far the most workers of any industry in the country.

The hazards of being a railroad employee, particularly those working as members of train crews, like brakemen, conductors, and engi­neers, or those working on the bridges, tunnels, and rights of way of the railroad, had resulted in a level of deaths and maiming previously unknown. Congress, taking note of the plight of railroad workers, passed a spate of remedial legislation aimed at improving their working conditions and safety. Examples are the Boiler Inspection Act to lessen the risk of locomotive boiler explosions; the Safety Appliance Act to establish safety standards regarding ladders, handholds, and coupling devices on freight cars; and the Air Brake law, which required the instal­lation of air brakes on each railroad car.

Congress also addressed the concerns of workers who had little or no control over their wages or working conditions, and the concerns of railroad management and the public regarding disruptions of the nation’s primary transportation system through labor strife, work stoppages, and violence carried out by railroad workers. The result was the Railway Labor Act of 1926.

The Railway Labor Act, for the first time, provided a legislative scheme to insure workers the right to organize themselves into legally rec­ognized bargaining units, or unions. This required railroad management to accord the workers a voice in their conditions of safety, wages, and working conditions. At the same time, the law restricted the unions’ right to disrupt the nation’s transportation system through work stoppages and strikes except under the most controlled conditions, and only after federally mandated mediation between workers and management proved fruitless. Even then, the law provided that the president of the United States could require, under certain conditions, that employees continue to work under their existing labor agreements so as not to paralyze the nation’s commerce.

Except for the enactment of the Railway Labor Act in 1926, there had been no meaning­ful federal legislation affecting the larger world of workers and management since the Clayton Antitrust Act of 1914. That statute had exempted labor unions from the constraints of the Sherman Antitrust Act, legislation that had been used by the courts to great effect in enjoining union strike activity. In 1932, Congress passed the Norris – LaGuardia Anti-Injunction Act,3 which further severely limited the power of courts to issue injunctions in labor disputes.

When the Roosevelt Administration took office in 1933 amidst the distress of working people during the Great Depression, it turned its attention to the general condition of workers outside of the railroad industry. In 1935, Con­gress passed the Social Security Act to provide protection to workers to cover the risks of old age, death, and the dependency of children, and to provide for the payment of unemployment ben­efits. Congress also, in 1935, passed the National Labor Relations Act (the Wagner Act),4 which extended to workers in the nation generally the right to organize, bargain collectively, and to “engage in concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid and protection.”

At this point, recognizing that the fledgling air carrier industry, similar to the railroad indus­try before it, appeared to be on the threshold of assuming some of the transportation needs of the country, Congress exempted airlines and their workers from the broader labor relations law of the Wagner Act and placed the air carrier industry under the Railway Labor Act (RLA), where it has remained. The pilots’ union, the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA), maintains that this result came about, at least in part, because of lobbying efforts by their organization in the early 1930s.

The first airline employee’s union, ALPA, was formed in 1931, but it had no legal stand­ing. The airlines required pilots to fly 120 hours a month, but during the depression in 1933, they announced that flight hours would be increased to 140 per month, and at a lower pay scale. A strike was called by the pilots and, in the absence of any law governing the situation, the parties agreed to refer the issue to mediation. Judge Bernard Shintag of the New York Supreme Court took evidence and ruled, among other things, that pilot monthly flight time should be limited to 85 hours per month. Although without the legal standing of enforcement, the ruling, known as Decision 83, was ultimately incorporated into the Civil Aeronautics Act of 1938.

Under the provisions of RLA, airline work­ers were given the same rights of organizing and collective bargaining as were railroad workers, and airline employees were similarly constrained from conducting work stoppages except under the very specific provisions of the statute.

The main purposes of the Act are:

* The statute intends to establish a system that

resolves labor disputes without disrupting

interstate and foreign commerce. The statute imposes on both labor and management the obligation to use every reasonable effort to settle disputes. This is the “heart of the Act,” as stated by the Supreme Court.

9 The statute requires that no change in work­ing conditions or wages be made during negotiations between labor and management. This is called “maintaining the status quo” and generally prohibits management from changing working conditions or wages and prohibits unions from striking or conducting any other type of “work action,” like slow­downs or sick outs, during this time.

• The statute prohibits management from interfering with any attempt by workers to organize themselves into collective bargain­ing units.

There are only two types of “issues” rec­ognized under the Act. Every type of actual or potential disagreement or dispute between the parties is classified as:

9 A “major dispute” is one that concerns wages and benefits, working conditions, or rules. These types of disputes are also called “Sec­tion 6” disputes and may, after exhaustion of all remedies under the statute, and while the “status quo” is being maintained during negotiations between the parties, result in strike action.

• A “minor dispute” describes all other dis­putes, and mainly concerns individual employee issues such a disciplinary action. Strikes are prohibited in minor disputes; instead binding arbitration is required in the event that the parties are unable to resolve the issue.

Procedures to be followed are:

1. The party desiring to change the provisions of the labor agreement must give a Section 6

notice of the desired change to the other side. This notice includes the initiation of nego­tiations after the “amendable date,” or the date that the agreement becomes subject to change.

2. The parties must enter into negotiations within 30 days and bargain in good faith.

3. Either of the parties may request mediation by the National Mediation Board (NMB), which appoints a mediator to assist in the negotiations. The NMB may not require either party to agree or to take any other action with respect to the issue.

4. If the NMB concludes that an impasse has been reached, so that no settlement of the issue is likely, it may offer to arbitrate the issue and issue a decision that will be bind­ing on the parties. Both parties must agree to be bound.

5. If either party refuses binding arbitration, a 30-day “cooling off’ period begins, during which mediation usually continues.

6. If no agreement is reached by the end of the 30-day period, either side may resort to “self­help,” that is, a strike by labor or the imposi­tion of new wages or working conditions by management.

7. If certified to the president by the NMB, a Presidential Emergency Board (PEB) may be convened to prevent “self-help.” The PEB has 30 days to investigate and report to the president, after which time an additional 30

days (a total of 60 days) is imposed on the parties to maintain the “status quo.” During this time, considerable pressure is exerted both by government officials and by the media (public opinion) to cause a resolution of the issue.

8. Congress is empowered upon a failure of all preceding efforts to legislate a resolution that is binding on the parties.

No Presidential Emergency Boards were convened during the 1930s, nor until after World War II. In fact, the first labor agreement in the airlines was not negotiated until 1939.5

It should be noted that the RLA was extended only to airlines, or “carriers” as defined in the Act, and not to other forms of transporta­tion. The trucking industry, buses, and shipping under the Merchant Marine fall under the NLRB.

Significant developments in airline labor relations, both before and after the deregulation of the airlines in 1978, will be discussed begin­ning in Chapter 30.

Endnotes

1. Time Magazine, August 26, 1935.

2. Pacific Air Transport v. U. S., et al.

3. 27 USC §101-115.

4. 29 USC §151-166.

5. Presidential Emergency Boards under the Railway Labor Act <http://www. ilr. cornell. edu/library/e_archive/ miscellaneous/airlines/emergency. pdf>.

It has been said that World War II advanced the airplane by 50 years. Yet it can also be accurately stated that there were really only two revolution­ary technological advances to come out of the war—radar and the jet engine—and America had nothing to do with the discovery of either. Not only were the Americans a bit slow at the beginning, they were even slower at appreciat­ing how great a leap the jet engine represented in the potential for air commerce. This was dem­onstrated by the reluctance of American air­craft manufacturers and air carriers to pursue jet engine potential after the war.

The idea of turbine engines first manifested itself in England in 1884, when Charles Par­sons, who was called the greatest engineer since James Watt, developed a stationary steam tur­bine that he applied to the generation of elec­tric energy. Within his lifetime his patent was applied to all major world power stations, includ­ing in the United States by George Westing – house. Although his original patent claimed the use of the steam turbine for ships, it was not until 1894 that he built a 100-foot vessel, the Turbinia, which he powered by means of a steam turbine to a speed of 34 knots. The British Admiralty adopted the steam turbine in 1905 as the exclu­sive propulsion system in all classes of its war­ships. The steam turbine was soon also applied to new construction for the mercantile fleet and by Cunard for luxury passenger liners.

In the early 20th century, attempts to apply the turbine technology to internal combustion engines, or gas turbines, met with disappoint­ment. The design of the gas turbine called for the induction of air (as in a reciprocating engine) that would be compressed prior to ignition (as in a reciprocating engine). In the reciprocat­ing engine, the compression is accomplished by means of the piston, but in the turbine engine, the compression is delivered by means of a series of rotating vanes (the compressor) located in front of the combustion chamber. Although the idea of the gas turbine proved workable, its fuel consumption was four times that of the inter­nal combustion engine, and the economics of the invention simply prevented its adoption into commercial use.

The use of compressors in aircraft engines, however, did find continued use as the combined technology associated with aircraft engines and aircraft designs matured during the early years of aviation. As early as World War I, a turbocharger was fitted to a French aircraft to enable increased engine performance at higher altitudes. Turbo­chargers use the engine’s exhaust gases to propel the turbocharger’s compressor, thus making use of the free fuel source of the exhaust to compress air for induction into the engine’s cylinders as the aircraft climbs into the thinner air at altitude. This technology was used to good effect in the design of the American fighters and bombers used in World War II. The B-17, for instance, could carry its bomb load to 34,000 feet.

The idea of utilizing the smooth, vibration – free rotation of a turbine, instead of the oscil­lating pistons of the much more cumbersome internal combustion engine, continued to occupy the minds of engineers and inventors. The first serious work on developing the jet engine, or tur­bojet, was commenced almost simultaneously in the 1930s in both England and Germany.

In England, Frank Whittle, an officer in the Royal Air Force (RAF), conceived that the application of the principles of the gas turbine might be applied, not to drive a shaft or propel­ler, but to produce a source of thrust for pro­pulsion. In 1930, he was awarded a patent for his design, which was replete with compressor, combustion chamber, and turbine. Although his ideas and designs appeared to be workable, no assistance was forthcoming directly from the British government. The RAF did allow him to continue his work while on duty, and even approved his securing engineering and advanced degrees at government expense, culminating in a master’s degree from Cambridge. By 1935, Whittle had almost given up on his dream of
producing a prototype jet engine when he was approached by two RAF officers willing to capi­talize a company for this work. A company was formed, Power Jets, Ltd., and a workable proto­type was achieved. At last, government interest was piqued, and direct funding of refinements of his engine was provided. Shortly, in 1939 and in conjunction with the Gloster Aircraft Company, Whittle was given a contract to produce Eng­land’ s first fighter jet airplane, the Meteor. It first flew in 1941.

In Germany, Hans von Ohain, a doctorial student in physics at the University of Gottingen, was similarly motivated to develop an efficient compressor for the gas turbine. His efforts led to early disappointments, but tests revealed enough success that his university mentors used their influence to introduce Ohain to Ernst Heinkel, the noted aircraft builder. Ohain found kindred spirits at Heinkel’s company, and with that sup­port a workable jet engine, of much simpler design than Whittle’s, was incorporated into a newly designed airplane, the He 178, for its test flight in August 1939. The test was completely successful and ultimately produced the Jumo – 004 (see Figure 19-3), later incorporated into the Messerschmidt 262 and Heinkel 280. These air­planes made limited but impressive appearances over the skies of Europe during World War II.

Although the United States did not have a jet research program, in 1938 General Hap Arnold (see Chapter 17), having taken command
of the Army Air Corps was a member of the NACA Main Committee. One of the R&D proj­ects underway at that time was called jet assisted takeoff (JATO), the purpose of which was to accelerate aircraft for takeoff using rockets. As a result of letters received from Charles Lindbergh while on a tour of Nazi facilities and equip­ment that same year at the invitation of Hermann Goering, in which Lindbergh related the speeds of German pursuit aircraft exceeding 400 mph, Arnold stepped-up propulsion research by bring­ing in scientists and engineers from Caltech and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). But it was not until April 1941 that Whittle’s jet engine research was made known to General Arnold by the British.

Upon receipt of those plans and specifica­tions, in September of that year Arnold created a super secret production team composed of Bell Aircraft engineers and General Electric personnel. General Electric was chosen as the most experi­enced turbine producer in the country, and it was given the assignment of developing an American model along the lines of Whittle’s design. Only 15 people composed the Bell/GE project, known as “Super-charger Type #1.” It was assigned an old project number to avoid suspicion and the work teams were divided up in a manner that prevented any one person from realizing exactly what they were building. The resulting jet air­craft, the Bell XP-59A “Airacomet” first flew officially on October 2, 1942. But this airplane

was experimental, not a production model, and its limited range and further development precluded its application to the American effort in World War П. This initial American jet R&D, however, expanded to jet bomber adaptation that resulted in the North American B-45 Tornado and the vastly superior Boeing B-47 Stratojet, and to the first operational American fighter, the Lockheed P-80 Shooting Star.

Boeing had engineered and put in service in

1944 a very large wind tunnel capable of design testing shapes at speeds close to the speed of sound. Engineers had been dealing with drag at lower speeds for decades, but compressibility was a phenomenon that had only manifested itself as aircraft gained speeds approaching the speed of sound. Drag also appeared to increase exponentially as the speed of sound was approached. The Boeing tests concentrated on these phenomena and, unlike the B-45, were to result in a sweepback wing design never before incorporated in production aircraft. This design had the effect of delaying the onset of com­pressibility and of raising the speed at which the exponential increase in drag occurred. In short, it facilitated faster flight. Interest in production jet aircraft in the United States was in military air­craft, as evidenced by the B-47 medium bomber program, followed by the B-52 heavy bomber program. The first fully operational jet fighter, the Lockheed P-80, appeared in production in

1945 with its straight wings. The swept-wing North American P-86 (designation changed to F-86) appeared in production in 1948 and set the world speed record that year at 671 miles per hour. These and the other jet aircraft of the time incorporated the conventional turbojet engine with all of its drawbacks and shortcomings. Chief among these drawbacks was fuel consump­tion, followed by high initial cost, and frequent maintenance requirements. Airline chieftains were wary of the new, noisy technology. While there was little long-term operational data on jet engines available at the time, what was known was daunting. The consensus among American airline executives was that the jet was too risky, too unproven, and too expensive to be seriously considered as an addition to the fleet.

In the late 1940s, a secret design concept for an improved jet engine, known as a “twin-spool turbojet” was in the works in military circles. The prototype of this engine would be known as the “J-57,” and it was first tested aloft in 1951. After successful tests, it would be incorporated in a new generation of military airplanes, and it ultimately would make the difference the airline industry needed to consider turbojet propulsion in American commercial aviation. But in the early 1950s, the J-57 was still a military secret.

A central registry for U. S. civil aircraft (N-numbered aircraft) is located at the Aero­nautical Center in Oklahoma City. All aircraft operated within the United States are required to be registered, and it is the responsibility of the owner of every aircraft to secure the registration. The FAA issues its Certificate of Registration in the name of the owner upon satisfactory comple­tion of the registration process. The Aircraft Reg­istry also functions as the recordation site for establishing or determining legal title to aircraft, and is the one place that contains the entire chain of title of any aircraft. All legal encumbrances, or perfected security interests, in aircraft must be filed with the FAA at the Aircraft Registry.