Category AVIATION &ТНЕ ROLE OF GOVERNMENT

efore the war, air travel had begun to catch on, and in 1941 domestic airlines carried four million passengers. With the war over in 1945, air travel quickly picked up again, and by the end of 1945 the airlines had enplaned some 7.5 million passengers. In 1946, the num­ber almost doubled to 12.5 million passengers. The commercial airline fleet before the war pro­vided about 6,200 seats. By 1946, the airlines had tripled capacity to 19,000 available seats. The cost of airline travel had fallen enough to be competitive with first class railroad fares, and the four-hour plane ride between Chicago and New York offered a real choice for any time-sensitive traveler over the sixteen-hour railroad Pullman. It was a new day in commercial aviation.

The development of transport aircraft had progressed rapidly during the war. The expectation was that the prewar traffic would be promptly reclaimed and then exponentially developed using the new era of airliners. Some of the aircraft were suited to expanding the first class travel begun in the 1930s, particularly on the transcontinental and transoceanic runs. Mod­ern airlines of the postwar era were on the verge of entering the first class travel market long held by the steamship lines and the transcontinen­tal Pullman trains. While it was true that some
airlines using DC-3s had offered berths for sleep­ing on overnight flights, now airliners could fly much higher and faster, and in pressurized and air-conditioned comfort.

TWA launched transatlantic service on December 5, 1945, with a VIP flight to Paris that was completed in the record time of 12 hours and 57 minutes. Pressurized, and with a cruise speed of 280 miles per hour, the Connie was ready to contribute to the anticipated revolution in transat­lantic and transcontinental air travel.

The number of airports used by the airlines more than doubled between 1941 and 1947, from 2,484 to 5,343. Outside the terminals, new sleek aircraft for the first time took on the look of fly­ing in place with their new tricycle landing gear. Interspersed among the ubiquitous DC-3s that appeared to be sitting back on their haunches, these new planes stood tall over them and gave an impression of progress, comfort, and safety. The airplanes were getting larger than the termi­nals in some places. Mass transit, facilitated by the big airliners, was about to begin.

The DC-4, which had been commandeered by the military upon its appearance in 1942, became available to the domestic fleet in 1946. (See Fig­ure 18-1.) Unpressurized, seating 44 passengers and barely able to muster 200 miles per hour at

cruise, the DC-4 was out-classed by the Connie, yet it became in the late 1940s the four-engine airplane of choice. Its service during the war had proved it to be safe and reliable, something yet to be proved in the Constellation and other advanced aircraft emerging from the war. The tapered lines of the Constellation, its more complex systems, its three vertical stabilizers, and the number of parts required to be stored and available also caused it to be significantly more expensive to maintain than the DC-4. (See Figure 18-2.) The straight lines of the DC-4 proved to be much cheaper to repair, maintain, and to fly.

The availability of these new aircraft increased the airlines’ capacity and brought with them options for airline management that had never before been possible. This may be the point in history when the concept of the passenger seat as a “grapefruit,” as in a perishable commod­ity, was articulated as a marketing truism. Every unfilled seat at takeoff was like spoiled grapefruit for that flight; it was forever lost to use. Competi­tive management thinking recognized that high – density seating brought with it pure profit after boarding enough passengers to cover costs.

The scheduled airlines were, and had always been, of one class, and that was first class. When

comparisons were made between the airlines and the railroads as to cost, an airline seat was com­pared to a Pullman berth (these accommodations were seats during day travel and were converted to beds for night travel). The high cost of air travel could be favorably compared to first class rail fares because of the time-distance advantage between comparable points enjoyed by the airlines.

After the war, the CAB began loosening the regulations that bound the air-traveling public to the scheduled airlines (first class service). This allowed aircraft charter, or as some called it, the nonscheduled lines, or “nonskeds.” Using DC-3s and then DC-4s, these charter operators flew at off hours, at night, and most importantly, with full airplanes. Not bound to a schedule, these operators were not required to leave the terminal at any par­ticular time. Their schedule was simply dictated by the passenger count. And passengers flocked to them. Soon the nonskeds were going coast to coast and at prices that were 30 percent less than the scheduled airlines. They did the same thing on some international routes, notably to Puerto Rico.

Pan Am’s official name had been changed in 1945 from Pan American Airways to Pan Ameri­can World Airways. Juan Trippe was again ahead of the game and ready for the postwar contest. He saw that by seating five abreast in the DC-4, the passenger count could increase from 44 to 63. But the question remained in what market such a configuration could be put to use. And fares would certainly have to be reduced in order to induce anyone to put up with such crowding. Here, Juan Trippe was about 30 years ahead of his time, ahead of the days of deregulation that would come in 1978.

In 1948, Pan American began flying DC-4s from New York to San Juan, Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico was a relatively impoverished island, and most of its inhabitants could not afford expensive travel of either kind, ship or plane. The low stan­dard of living in Puerto Rico and its mortality rate combined to provide motivation to some people to leave the country. Pan Aon tapped this large market for mass air transit in the newly configured DC-4,

which had no galley and only one flight attendant. Any Puerto Rican with $75 was given the opportu­nity to begin a new life in New York, which had a Puerto Rican population of 70,000 at that time. By 1950, there would be 250 thousand Puerto Rican residents in New York City. By 1975, five million of the island’s former residents had migrated to the United States.

Domestically, the airlines were losing money to the nonskeds, so they petitioned the CAB for authority to operate a second class of service. “Air coach,” as it was called, was intro­duced by the scheduled airlines in 1948. Some of the crews began to refer to the new passengers as “cattle class.” The airlines saw that they could compete with the railroads, not just for first class passengers, but also for coach passengers. Capi­tal Airlines became the first established carrier to offer “coach-class” service, inaugurated on the New York-Chicago route. At a fare of two-thirds
the standard, there were few complaints of over­crowding, late night departures, or the lack of a meal service. TWA and American followed suit with their transcontinental service. By the end of 1951, nine domestic carriers offered coach or tourist class service to 34 cities. In 1952, fares were $99 coast-to-coast; $32 between Chicago and New York. Airline passenger traffic doubled in the five years between 1948 and 1952. By 1955, the airlines had passed the railroads for the first time in the number of passengers carried.

For a while the “coach” or “tourist” class flights operated as separate airplanes both domestically and internationally. The smaller international carriers complained to the Inter­national Air Transport Association (IATA) that they could not compete with larger airlines since they did not possess the necessary number of aircraft to operate both first class and tourist class airplanes. When IATA authorized them to
operate their equipment carrying both first class and tourist in the same airplane, the modern form of aircraft configuration was born. TWA was the first to begin domestic operations with both fare classes on the same airplane after CAB approval.

A new group of air carrier, known collec­tively as local service lines or feeder lines, com­pleted their first full year of service in 1946. While the CAB would not expand the total number of trunk airlines beyond the sixteen that were grandfathered under the Civil Aeronau­tics Act of 1938, these smaller carriers received authority to operate on short routes to some 350 small cities. The average distance flown between stops was about 60 miles, and some of the com­munities served had populations of as few as

3,0 people. By the end of 1951, there were 18 local service airlines operating 130 airplanes.

The Continent Grows Smaller

Coast-to-Coast

1840 The ox-drawn covered wagon………………………………………………………. 6 to 8 months

1846 Sailing vessels around the Horn…………………………………………………. 6…………. 1/2 months

1849 Steam vessels around the Horn…………………………………………………. 4…………. 1/2 months

1858 Overland mail coaches and rail……………………………………………………… 24-30 days…… ^3^

1861 Pony Express and rail……………………………………………………………………………. 11-13 days

1869 First transcontinental train………………………………………………………………… 7 days…. 1933

1903 First transcontinental automobile trip………………………………………………. 61 days…. 1934

1911 First transcontinental airplane trip Calbraith R Rodgers:

Sheepshead Bay, L. I. to Pasadena,………………………………………………….. California 49 days ^35

1919 First transcontinental round trip by air:

Lt. Belvin W. Maynard……………………………………………………… 9 days 4 hours 25 min. jg37

1920 First air-rail mail: NewYork-San Francisco………………………………………… 72 hours

1921 First all-air mail: San Francisco-New York………………………………. 33 hours 20 min. 1938

1923 First non-stop coast-to-coast flight:

Lts. John A. Macready and Oakley Kelly 1943

New York-San Diego, May 2-3………………………………………………….. 26 hours 50 min.

1924 Fastest transcontinental railroad trip…………………………………….. 69 hours 7 min.

Standard transcontinental railroad trip……………………………………………… 87 hours 1945

Regular air mail, day and night schedule…………………………………………… 32 hours

First dawn-to-dusk coast-to-coast flight:

Col. Russell L. Maughan, NewYork-San Francisco, June 23……… 21 hours 44 min.

1927 First coast-to-coast commercial air passengers:

NewYork-San Francisco………………………………………………………….. 31 hours 45 min.

Round-trip record by Frank Hawks:

New York-Los Angeles……………………………………………………………… 19 hours 10 min.

Los Angeles-New York……………………………………………………………… 17 hours 38 min.

First air-rail passenger service…………………………………………………………… 48 hours

New round-trip record by Frank Hawks:

Los Angeles-New York, August 12……………………………………………. 14 hours 50 min.

New York-Los Angeles, August 15……………………………………………. 12 hours 25 min.

Record by Jimmy Doolittle:

Burbank-Newark, September 4…………………………………………………. 11 hours 15 min.

Regular coast-to-coast air passenger, mail, and express schedule 19 hours 35 min.

Jack Frye and E. V. Rickenbacker in regular commercial transport plane:

Los Angeles-Newark, February 18-19……………………………………….. 13 hours 4 min.

Jack Frye with mail: Los Angeles-New York, May 8……………………. 11 hours 30 min.

Record by Leland S. Andrews and H. B. Snead:

Los Angeles-Washington, February 20…………………………………….. 10 hours 22 min.

Record by Howard Hughes:

Los Angeles-New York, January 19…………………………………. 7 hours 28 min. 25 sec.

Westbound record by A. R DeSeversky:

Brooklyn-Burbank, August 29………………………………………… 10 hours 2 min. 55 sec.

Regular schedule for passengers, mail, express…………………………………. 16 hours

New record by Howard Hughes and 17 passengers in transport plane:

Burbank-Washington, April 17……………………………………….. 6 hours 57 min. 51 sec.

Regular extra fare service:

New York-Los Angeles……………………………………………………………… 14 hours 35 min.

Record in transport plane:

Seattle-Washington, January 10……………………………………. 6 hours 3 min. 50 sec.

FIGURE 18-4 Less time to cross the continent.

Since passage of the Federal Aviation Act of 1958, responsibility for carrying out enforcement proce­dures for violations of the FARs has resided with the FAA. Enforcement options open to the FAA in any given case are normally dictated by consider­ations already well-established within the agency, and are generally handled either as administrative dispositions (warning notices and letters of correc­tion) or by certificate action (suspension or revo­cation). Occasionally, civil penalties are assessed in lieu of certificate action (historically against corporations or against working pilots where cer­tificate suspension is deemed too harsh).

Operations

The FAA is charged with the operation and main­tenance of a vast array of facilities and equipment within the aviation system. We will briefly review the major categories of FAA responsibility.

Air Traffic Control

The АТС system includes airport control tow­ers, air route traffic control centers (ARTCC), terminal radar approach control (TRACON), and flight service stations (FSS).

The FAA estimates that it will lose 10,291 controllers, or about 70 percent of the controller workforce, between 2006 and 2015 due to retire­ments. The large percentage loss is due to the unlawful PATCO strike in 1981, when President Reagan fired almost 11,000 controllers. From 1982 through 1991, the FAA hired an average of 2,655 controllers each year. These controllers will become eligible for retirement during the next decade.

In 1982, the FAA began a program of out­sourcing operation at a limited number of VFR towers. As of 2006, 231 towers in 46 states par­ticipate in the FAA’s Contract Tower Program.

In 2005, the FAA entered into a contract with Lockheed Martin to operate the 58 Flight Service Stations located in the contiguous United States.

Radio Aids to Navigation

These facilities include VORs, VORTACs, instrument landing systems (ILS), and micro­wave landing systems (MLS). The Global Positioning System (GPS) is operated by the Department of Defense, and Loran C is operated by the United States Coast Guard.

In 2003, the FA A inaugurated the Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS) as a precursor for a new and extremely accurate navigation system. WAAS augments, or enhances, the Global Posi­tioning System in order to provide the additional accuracy, integrity, and availability necessary for its use by the civilian aviation community. Previ­ously, GPS data were unable to provide naviga­tion capability for use in precision approaches. Through WAAS, precision approaches are con­ceivable for all 5,400 public use airports in the United States without local airport ground sup­port facilities.

WAAS is an integral part of the FAA plan to replace ground-based Navaids entirely with satellite-based navigation capability, thus elimi­nating VORs, VORTACs, ILS, and MLS. (See Chapter 35 for the Next Generation Air Trans­portation System plan.)

National Airports

The FAA no longer is responsible for the two major airports located in and near Washington, D. C., Reagan National and Dulles, since their operation has been assigned to the Washington Metropolitan Airport Authority.

Under CAB regulations, air cargo was allowed to be carried by certificated carriers in the belly of any type of aircraft and over any route for which the carrier had passenger authority. As of 1978, more than half of all cargo still moved in the bellies of passenger aircraft. No “all-cargo” commercial car­riers appeared on the scene at all until after World War II. In the 1970s, there were only a few all­cargo certificated carriers, including Flying Tiger and Seaboard World Airlines, and only one air taxi cargo operator. The air taxi was Federal Express, and it had been allowed entry into the cargo field by using the CAB exemption for small airplanes— under 12,500 pounds. Once a cargo plane landed, it was limited to a delivery radius of 25 miles by ICC regulation. The CAB set cargo prices and did not allow higher prices for faster transport.

In June 1976, John Robson proposed to Congress that cargo be treated separately from passenger operations and, going beyond what either Kennedy or Ford had authorized, sug­gested that air cargo be completely freed of regulatory control. At the time, the pending air­line deregulation bill applied to both passenger and cargo carriage, but the main problem with advancing the legislation lay with the passenger side of the legislation. This was due to powerful interest groups on the passenger side who were opposing airline deregulation vociferously. On the cargo side, there were no such interest groups working against the bill; in fact, most all of the interested parties supported complete deregula­tion of air cargo. This was the opening that John Robson saw and was the reason for his proposal to split the legislation and seek full deregulation for air cargo.

Federal Express and Flying Tiger represen­tatives worked closely with Congressional com­mittees to separate the passenger legislation from the cargo legislation, and on October 20, 1977, the cargo bill was signed into law by President Jimmy Carter. By this statute, the cargo carriers were free to use aircraft of any size, to fly them wherever they chose, and to set rates that were justified by market conditions.

The share price for Federal Express on the day of the passage of this law in October was $9.16. By December, it had catapulted to $34.75. Share prices for Flying Tiger also rose. Federal Express began acquiring large jet aircraft, up to seven times larger than those permitted during regulation. Total shipments increased by 38 per­cent in 1978. Overnight shipping was born, with pricing based in part on speed. In the world of air cargo and on the New York Stock Exchange, the name “FedEx” took on new meaning.

The deregulation of cargo also created opportunities for companies engaged solely in surface transportation. In 1981, United Parcel Service (also known as UPS) entered the over­night air delivery business and is today one of the largest cargo airlines in the country. It is an interesting fact that labor relations between UPS management and its employees are governed by the National Labor Relations Act, while FedEx is subject to the Railway Labor Act. This seem­ing contradiction is, of course, due to the fact that UPS was subject to the NLRA from its inception as the American Messenger Company in 1907.

The success of the air cargo carriers due to deregulation was a positive sign for air passen­ger deregulation. Arguments that chaos would follow deregulation of the air carrier industry were to some degree muted by the success of the air cargo carrier experience, but not everybody agreed. [11] [12]

The second entry into the lighter than air cat­egory was the craft known as the dirigible. The marked distinctions between a balloon and a dirigible are the elongated shape of the dirigible; the control planes to allow pilots of the dirigible to turn, descend, and climb; and the presence of engines to provide thrust.

Both balloons and dirigibles used hydrogen gas to provide a lifting substance until the gas helium was extracted from natural gas in 1917. Since the United States had a monopoly on helium, no other country was privileged to use it in their airships. Instead, they were required to continue to rely on the very flammable hydro­gen gas.

The first dirigibles (the term used here interchangeably with the term “airship”) flew in France between 1851 and 1884. The word dirigible is derived from the French diriger, meaning to steer. Airship, on the other hand, is a literal translation of the German, Luftschiff (airship).

Airships are of two main types, rigid and non-rigid. (See Figure 5-2.) The rigid airship was highly developed after the turn of the 20th cen­tury by Ferdinand Adolf von Zeppelin, a former German cavalry officer, who became acquainted with balloons during a visit to the United States. His LZ-1 became the first rigid airship to fly in a

17- minute sojourn over Lake Constance in 1900. This craft was 420 feet in length, supported by hydrogen gas, and cruised at 20 miles per hour with two 16 horsepower engines. Count von Zeppelin became a national hero because of his development of the very imposing and exciting “Zeppelins,” which could be seen overhead pro­ceeding majestically through the German coun­tryside. In 1909, Count Zeppelin formed the first passenger line for the carriage of passengers by air, Deutsche Luftshiffahrts A. G. (DELAG). DELAG, the airship company, carried passen­gers all over the country of Germany after its inauguration, and by 1913 had conducted over 1,600 flights, carrying 35,000 passengers without mishap.

With the advent of World War I, Germany and England geared up to produce airships by the hundreds. The British navy produced 200 airships between 1915 and 1918, more than Germany, and almost all of them were used for antisubmarine patrol. Germany produced 125 Zeppelins between 1914 and 1918, and employed them in offensive engagements over the Eng­lish countryside, dropping bombs and otherwise wreaking havoc among the terrified population. The Zeppelins proved quite vulnerable to anti­aircraft battery fire and to fighter aircraft. Of the 125 Zeppelins manufactured and placed in ser­vice during the war, only 6 survived.

Non-rigid airship (blimp)

Semirigid airship

Several countries produced airships after the war. Both England and France built dirigibles, but accidents and mysterious disappearances caused the French to cancel their program in 1923. England continued operating dirigibles until 1930. Aerodynamic improvements were made as the technology advanced. The English R-34, completed in December 1918, had a total air resistance of only 7 percent of a hypothetical flat disc of the same diameter. The United States built its own dirigibles and even received a Zep­pelin as a war prize from Germany after the ces­sation of hostilities in 1918. The 660-foot ZR-III was the 126th Zeppelin constructed by Germany

and was later renamed Los Angeles and placed in service by the U. S. Navy.

After the war, the Zeppelin continued to be used in passenger service between America and Germany, as well as between Germany and South America. Zeppelin flights continued until the occurrence of the Hindenburg disaster in Lakehurst, New Jersey, in 1937. The Hinden­burg was undoubtedly the greatest airship ever constructed, boasting restaurants, staterooms, lounges, and other amenities for the enjoyment of its transatlantic passengers.

The Goodyear Company built airships for the United States, including the Akron in 1931,
commissioned for service in the U. S. Navy, and the Macon in 1933, also a navy craft. Both the Akron and the Macon were lost to weather, the last of a long line of airships that had come to similar grief. It was believed that the rigid air­frame employed in the dirigibles was not suffi­ciently flexible, given its rather large dimensions, to withstand the vicissitudes of rough air and storms. The days of the rigid airship thus came to an ignominious close with their last production in the 1930s.

The non-rigid airship, or blimp, was placed in service by the United States Navy in World War II in convoy operations, and proved effec­tive as an anti-submarine weapon. The only service to employ blimps in World War II, the United States Navy, worked 170 of the non­rigid airships over the Atlantic during the war, escorting 89,000 ships and logging some 500,000 hours flying time.

Today, blimps are used almost exclusively as promotional devices, employing television cameras for golf event coverage or other sporting events, or displaying brand names of commer­cial products on their ample sides. The advent of international terrorism after September 11, 2001, however, has caused renewed interest in the sub­ject of blimps as a potential countermeasure against terrorist attacks in the United States.

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