1920-1950

1920-1950

1920’s

In the early 20’s in America, the ability to fly long distances in a short amount of time with a relatively light load meant that the commercial services were mainly mail deliveries and not actual passengers. There was a time where the Post Offices considered to speed up the mail deliveries by making all the Post Offices roof’s flat topped so that it could become a landing strip for the aircraft so that that the mail would be directly moved in the plane rather than putting it into van which then has to drive to the nearest airfield.

Initially the aircraft before time were mainly built up with lightweight materials such as wood, canvas and strong wires but as the building of aircraft developed and modernised in that time period, and as the industry began to grow, the use of metal in the aircraft increased as well. Eventually during the 1920’s the whole aircraft began to be made of metal and the lighter weight materials got left out. But the metal that they started to use was actually light as well and they found a way of just using metal rather than the wood and canvas. All-metal aircraft at that time became normal and the aircraft that used and was made up with wood and the canvas was considered old-fashioned. It is said that roughly 4600 aircraft were built as full metal planes in 1928. Also in 1928, they decided to host the first ever air show where they used 104 aircraft. This then made Henry Ford, the creator of Ford Industries, decide that there would have to be consolidation within the industry meaning that he wanted to join in and become a unit with the industry.  

The pilots that survived World War 1 and who were able to make it back home safely now had to find new jobs and a way that they could live. The way these pilots supported themselves was by travelling around the country (America) visiting all the different town. In these towns they would show off the flying or aerobatic skills and would perform shows for money. They all sometimes took passengers, if they were willing to pay of course, on a ride inside the planes. The planes they used were normally planes that the town’s people owned for farming or either they had saved up and bought their own plane. This was the only way for the pilots to have a life back then as after the War, the air force and army did not require all these men so they were just let go and they had to survive and fight for themselves. The pilots that did this kind of thing for a living were the smart ones and were not going to lose or forget what they had learned and been trained for, it would have been a waste. They used the very own skills in order for them to have a life. The other less unfortunate pilots were either left jobless or were lucky to find a low income job. It is said that all that was needed for the pilots to land and take off in order to perform their show, they simply needed some sort of farmland or field that was long enough. This made it easy for the pilots to fly around the country as they could land almost where ever they wanted with the permission of the landowner of course.

In the USA, the terminals for the planes were actually no more than open fields. If people wanted to take a plane, they would simply be waiting in the middle of a field where there was oil trucks waiting to refuel the aircraft. The first terminal that had a waiting room and a ticket office, like the terminals we have to today, was said to be constructed in 1925 at the Ford Airport, at Dearborn, Michigan. The first ever scheduled air service in the United States was between the Ford Airport (Grand Rapids) and Detroit. The plane that was used was a Ford-Stout Monoplane called Miss Grand Rapids, which started July 26, 1926. The airport is not name after Henry Ford, the owner of the Ford Industry, it was actually named the Gerald R. Ford International Airport who was a president of the US at one time. But back then they did not have an official name for the terminal yet. It was most likely called the Grand Rapids as this was the name of the plane that flew there. The terminal nowadays is an actual airport and is the second largest in Michigan. In 2014, the airport broke its record for passengers, with 2,335,105 total. This number compared to the number of people that were flying in 1927 is massive. Back then only the wealthy could afford the tickets meaning that not everyone was able to fly.

As the aircraft during the 1920’s developed and increased their capabilities in terms of flying longer distances, holding more cargo, it allowed daring men and women pilots or aviators as the were called to start breaking and setting different aviation speeds and distance flown. They thought that with the new planes, why not try to put their name in the history books and set a record and that’s what they did. These pilots that were willing to do this captured the public’s imagination and love as the public found the aircraft so fascinating. The pilots back then were treated like royalty or movie stars. Being a pilot that set and broke records was a really major thing during the 20’s. 

One example of a pilot that become super famous for breaking a record in an aircraft was Charles Lindbergh. He was originally from Detroit, Michigan in the US. In May 1927, Lindbergh emerged from out of nowhere of being a 25 year old man working in the U.S Air Mail as a pilot flying mail around the country, to instantaneous world fame as he won the Orteig prize which was the first solo nonstop flight across the Atlantic Sea and prize money of 25,00 dollars. The flight occurred on May 20^th-21^st from the Roosevelt Field in Garden City on New York's Long Island to Le Bourget Field in Paris, France. The distance between New York and France is roughly 5,800km and he did it in single seater aircraft, single engine aircraft named the Spirit of St. Louis. This flight made Charles Lindbergh the first person in history to be in New York one day and the next in Paris. The record setting flight took a whole 33 hours and 30 minutes. Lindbergh who was also a U.S Army Air Corps Officer was also awarded the highest military decoration, the Medal of Honour for his bravery and historic flight. Just from flying across the sea, from New York to Paris which our aircraft can do very easily, Charles has been put in the history books for being the first person to solo cross the Atlantic in an aircraft and be in the U.S one day and France in the next. Not bad for a pilot that worked for the U.S Air Mail. As stated before, Charles was seen by the public as a hero and a celebrity and his whole life changed after that one flight. This is why flying inspired so many people back then to set these records and keep improving the aircraft industry.

1930’s

Another person that got their fame for setting a record flying was a woman named Amelia Mary Earhart was an American aviation pioneer and an author. What makes Earhart so famous was she was the first female aviator or pilot to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. Unlike Charles’s flight which lasted 30 hours, Earhart’s only lasted 14 hours as she was flying in a more developed aircraft. Along the way she battled strong northerly winds, icy conditions and mechanical problems. What she received for this record was the U.S Distinguished Flying Cross. This reward is a military decoration that is awarded to any officer or any personal that works in the U.S military who has distinguished himself or herself in some sort of operation by “heroism or extraordinary achievement while participating in an aerial flight, subsequent to November 11, 1918.” Not only did Earhart set this record, she also set many other records, for example she wrote best-selling books about her experience of the flying. She played a huge role in the formation of The Ninety Nines which was an organisation that helped female pilots get into the aviation industry and get them professional opportunities. Earhart also joined another group to counsel woman on careers and help inspire other with her love for aviation. Sadly though Earhart when doing a flight around the top of the globe in 1937, she disappeared over the Pacific Ocean.

The plane that Amelia Earhart flew in during her solo Atlantic crossing was the Lockheed Vega 5b. The 5b was a different model to the original Vega 1 but it had roughly the same engine. The 5b was a seven-seater transport version built for higher gross weight operations. When the 1 was only a five-seater plane. Both aircraft had an engine that gave about 225 horsepower. The aircraft could cruise at a speed of about 195km/h. Its top speed was 220km/h. Now you see why the journeys lasted so long as the aircraft were not the fastest. Now a day the aircraft fly at about 800km/h which is a huge difference.

The 1930’s were known as the “Golden Age of Flight”. These years saw huge technical advances and growth in aviation and aircraft technology. It saw all-metal skin or fully metal planes, enclosed cockpits, retractable undercarriages or landing gear that could go up into the plane and an increased armament. These advances are said to have fuelled the War. Also the development of mass-production, and the increasing global network of industry and trade helped make and take commercial air travel from a luxury and novelty at the beginning of the 30’s to something that was common and was necessary to get around. All around the world during the 30’s, air lanes were opening up and the remote regions that no one could really reach, were gradually being connected to the rest of the world thanks to aviation and the different types of aircraft.

Even though there were huge technical advances in aviation, it was still a very new technology. It wasn’t very normal to fly around back then. The normal transport that everyone relied on was by train on the rails and boats on the sea. These transports were what everyone used and it was what the public was comfortable with. Railways and shipping had created and had developed a certain luxury and economy that was impossible for air travel to beat. Back then the aircraft that were being used were not capable of reaching the higher altitudes that modern aircraft are able today. When they were flying at the lower altitudes it made the aircraft more exposed to turbulence. The smaller and lighter aircraft were poorly suited for the weather which made flying quite difficult and dangerous. Travelling by the air was often bumpy and not always pleasant. Also since the weather was constantly changing and since the navigation system was not so advanced, it made flight time very unreliable. You would have never known how long your flight is and also would have never known how long the delays would have been. It is said that in some flights there would have to be unscheduled landings for fuel or to service the less unreliable aircraft.

While flying was more expensive, less comfortable and in some cases a lot more dangerous to travel compared to trains and boats, there was one thing that aircraft and air travel had on trains and boats which was speed. Air travel, mainly in inhospitable or remote areas, was a lot faster to travel to. There were4 surveys done back then and it is said that the main reason people chose to use air travel over trains and boats was the speed of it which was a huge advantage. Since the air travel was so expensive, it was mainly used by the upper class or the rich people. It was all used by businessmen who owned major companies. The passenger aircraft that were used were fitted to make these high class at feel comfortable. They put different fabrics, upholstered seats, wet bars (mini bars), smoking lounges and wooden panelling. All these different object helped give the feel of luxury though the passengers still had to put up with the loud noises from the engines and the turbulence. During the 30’s, the air stewards were mainly males were there to carry and help passengers with their luggage, offer sandwiches mid-flight and help the people that felts airsick.

Flights across North America became very common and popular throughout the 30’s. One reason that it became common and popular was thanks to the new introduction of the Douglas DC-2 and then in 1935 the world famous DC-3. These DC-3’s allowed flights across the U.S to be comfortable and very fast which was unheard of at the time.  In 1934, a flight from Los Angeles would take almost a whopping 26 hours and require a lot of aircraft changes. With the new DC-3 in the air, the plane cut that time to just 17 hours. With daytime and sleeper flights occurring, upholstered seats (leather seats) and the introduction of female flight hostess, who were required to be trained nurses in case of an emergency along the flight made air travel in the U.S was maybe not 100% luxurious was at least comfortable. 

The Douglas DC-3 is a fixed-wing propeller driven airplane. It has a cruise speed of 333km/h and had a range of about 2,400km. This aircraft revolutionised air transport in the 1930’s and the 1940’s. Its lasting effect that it had on the airline industry and in World War 2 makes it one of the most significant transport aircraft that was ever made.

The DC-3 was a twin engine metal monoplane which was developed as a bigger and improved 14 bed sleeper version of the Douglas DC-2. The DC-3 was a lot better than the DC-2. It was fast, it had a good range of flight and it could operate or land and take off easy on short runways. The DC-3 was also very reliable as it was easy to maintain and it could carry the passengers in comfort. Before the World War 2 and how it was used during the war, it made and created many air travel routes. The plane was able to cross the United States which made transcontinental flights and worldwide flights possible. It was also considered to be the first aircraft that could make money by just carrying passengers alone. Before, for the airline or aircraft to make some sort of income, they had to carry some kind of cargo that they could get paid for delivering it. The production of the DC-3 ended in 1942 and only 607 aircraft had ever been produced. Even though there weren’t many DC-3, the aircraft was still a huge aircraft in the aviation industry and allowed for a lot of routes and development to occur in the aviation industry.

1940’s and World War 2

During World War 2 aviation made itself a vital component for the warfare. Germany and Japan on the one side and Britain, the United States and the USSR on the other, all created a manufactured massive air forces during the time which were put into battles in the air against each other and the ground forces below. One strategy that become huge and was being used was the bombing, flying the aircraft over enemy lines and just dropping bombs on to the enemy creating havoc. Another thing that became very popular and played a significant role was the use of aircraft carries which a massive boats that hold that aircraft. The aircraft are able to land and take off from the boat making it a floating airport for the military.

Just like in World War 1, the investment that the military were putting into the aviation industry drove it forward and really helped it develop with new ideas and aircraft. The military were needing new inventions and by the military spending millions on the industry, it quickly grew. The streamlined monoplane meaning a fixed-wing aircraft with one main set of wing surfaces that allowed the little resistance over the wings, quickly proved itself to be useful in every role in the air force. Biplanes were now too old to be used. Throughout the war, engine power and the aircraft’s performance increased and by the end of the war jet and rocket engines started appearing. The instruments inside the aircraft also developed greatly including power-assisted flight controls, blind flying instrumentation, radio communications and radar tracking. Military technologies developed during the war would revolutionise post-war aviation. One thing in particular was by creating airports where aircraft could land and take off successively would provide the basis of long-ranged passenger flights which is what we do when ever we travel today.

The different components that each monoplane had back then during the war were:

• Stressed-skin semi-monocoque construction which was typically of light aluminium but sometimes with wooden or mixed constriction. Stressed-skin semi-monocoque means that the whole airframe was held together normally in a rectangular shape and the weight was balanced over all the beams. The loads are supported through an object's external skin, similar to an egg shell.
• A clean, unbraced cantilever monoplane wing. Cantilever is a rigid structural element such as a beam or a plate that is anchored or attached at only one end, in the case the fuselage. The wing is then built around the beam.
• Conventional tail or empennage, with bombers often adopting twin tail fins, believed to improve stability during the bombing run. This is essentially the tail wing that we all know but bombers used to not have one tail wing but instead they had two.
• Retracting landing gear of conventional configuration with a tailwheel or tailskid. This is just the landing gear that can be lifted up into the plane. The tailskid is a metal plate that is on the back of the plane so that when taking off, if the back hits the runway, the tailskid is what it will hit.
• Landing flaps. Landing flaps are retractable flaps that are on the wings that move up and down. When the flaps are down it creates more lift for the aircraft and is normally used during take-off so that the aircraft can get as much lift as possible to get into the air before running out of runway.
• Fully enclosed cockpit. This is simple a cockpit that is fully closed and is sheltered from the wind the cold air.
• Variable-pitch propellers in tractor configuration. A variable-pitch propeller is a type of propeller with blades than can rotate around their long axis to change the blade’s pitch or angle.

As stated before, engine power and the aircraft’s performance increased over the years of the war. During the war they had two types of engines, with liquid-cooled inline (engine was cooled with a liquid) and vee egines (the pistons of the engine were placed I a V shape) which competed with air-cooled inline. An example of how much the engines increased over the years is at the beginning of the war the Rolls-Royce Merlin 3 liquid-cooled V12 engine developed 1,000 horsepower while by the end of the war the engine that followed up from the Merlin was the Rolls-Royce Griffon 61 and that offered 2,035 horsepower. In just 6 years the power of the engines that were being used in the aircraft doubled.

The three most famous aircraft that were used during the war and the ones that almost everyone knows about were the North American P-51 Mustang, the Focke-Wulf Fw-190 and the Supermarine Spitfire. These planes were some of the best in the air in those times. However these were all monoplanes and used the likes of propellers. The first ever jet engine aircraft were the Arado Ar 234, reconnaissance bomber, Messerschmitt Me 262 Schwalbe (Swallow) fighter and Gloster Meteor fighter.

The North American P-51 Mustang is an American long-range, single-seat fighter plane and fight bomber. It was used during World War 2 and also in the Korean War. The aircraft was built by the North American Aviation (NAA) and it was originally designed in response to a British specification. The NAA agreed that they would produce the first prototype only 4 months after signing the contract with Great Britain in April 1940. The first prototype that was sent to the British for test flights was powered by the Allison V-1710 engine which was a good engine but it struggled and did not operate the best at high altitudes. This engine was a V-12 liquid-cooled engine and gave out over 1000 horsepower. Later in April, 1942, a British test pilot flew the Mustang and thought that it was an excellent plane but he thought that the plane would be a natural fit with the Rolls-Royce Merlin 60 which was suited for high altitudes. After working together and finally fitting the Rolls-Royce engine, the results were very impressive. At 30,000 feet the Mustang could reach 700km/h. This was 160km/h faster than the Allison-equipped Mustang at that altitude. The Mustang was a fast aircraft and it had a decent turning ability. One thing the Mustang benefited in was its range. With a 75-gallon tank under each wing, it could fly six-hour missions which was completely unheard of at the time.

The Focke-Wulf Fw 190 was a German single-seater, single-engine fight aircraft. It was designed by Kurt Tank, a German aeronautical engineer, in the late 30’s and it was used by the German air force throughout World War 2. The Fw-190 along with another aircraft, the Messerschmitt Bf 109 became the backbone of the Luftwaffe’s Jagdwaffe which was the fighter force of the German aerial warfare branch of the German Reich. The Fw-190 was fitted with the twin-row BMW 801 radial engine which generated about 1,600 horsepower. With this engine, it allowed the Fw-190 to lift heavier and larger loads which allowed to be used as a day fighter, fighter-bomber, a ground-attack aircraft and occasionally a night fighter. It started flying operationally over France in August 1941 and it quickly proved itself to be superior in everything but its turn radius to the Royal Air Force’s (Great Britain) main aircraft the Spitfire MK. The Fw’s performance though decreased at higher altitude normally around 20,000 feet. Overall the aircraft was very effective in battle but struggled when it came to higher altitudes which is where the P-51 Mustang came into play.

The Supermarine Spitfire was a British single-seat, single-engine fighter aircraft that was used by the Royal Air Force and other Allied countries before, during and after World War 2. The Spitfire had many different visitants which used several wing configurations. It was produced in greater number than any other British aircraft. The Spitfire was designed as a short-range, high performance interceptor aircraft meaning that it would go and a stop certain missions from happening like taking out enemy bombers. It was designed by R. J. Mitchell, chief designer at Supermarine Aviation Works. As it was built as an interceptor aircraft, Mitchell supported the idea that the Spitfire needed to have the thinnest possible cross-section. With the thin wing, it enabled the Spitfire to have a higher top speed. The Spitfire was fast and had a good turning radius. At first the Spitfire was equipped with the Merlin 3 liquid-cooled V12 engine which developed 1,000 horsepower but then later on in the years it was equipped with the Rolls-Royce Griffon 61 and that offered 2,035 horsepower. This is why the Spitfire was so fast and nimble in the air. The speed of the Spitfire was roughly 550km/h. The Spitfire was constantly in battle against the Luftwaffe and their aircraft like the Fw-190. Throughout the years, 20,351 Spitfires were built.

The first jet engine or rocket engine aircraft were built mainly by the Germans as they were experimenting to find the best aircraft. The Messerschmitt Me 163 Komet was designed by Alexander Lippisch. It was a rocket-powered fighter aircraft and it was the only rocket-powered aircraft to ever be operational. Its design was revolutionary. Its performance was unheard of at the time and shocked the world. A German test pilot named Heini Dittmar in early July of 1944 reach 1,130km/h in the Me. It was a flight speed record that wasn’t beaten for almost 10 years. The aircraft was travelling a whole 500km/h faster than the P-51 Mustang or the Pw-190. Over 300 aircraft were built it was found to be ineffective as a fighter and only was able to shoot down 8 allied planes. Though it was the first every rocket-engine aircraft which was going to change the aviation industry forever.