The Earliest Airports

Open spaces such as racetracks, golf courses, polo fields and fairgrounds made for the earliest airfields. These offered flat and smooth surfaces with predictable winds, which were essential for initial gliders and fixed-wing aircrafts to take flight.

Together with locations situated on prairies or close to water where winds could be predicted, Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina, were popular choices for early controlled and powered flights.

While Huffman Prairie near Dayton, Ohio entertained the Wright Brothers’ groundbreaking 1905 flights of the Flyer 3, and the Parisian ground of the Champ de Maneoeuvres, Issy-les-Moulineaux witnessed Louis Bl’riot’s pre-1910 flight models, neither of these grounds facilitated passenger flights.

The first commissioned airports were in Germany in 1910, which were primarily for the Delag-operated Zeppelin airships. Delag then constructed airship sheds in many German cities situated near rail hubs from 1913. These could handle passengers and maintenance of their airships. Prior to War World I in 1914, close to 34,000 passengers across 1,600 flights had been attended to in these airports.

By 1912, the United States had 20 airports, which were mostly converted from fields and country clubs. In comparison, over the course of World War I, 67 military airfields were established on farms and parks, although with the understanding that most would be reconverted when the war ceased.

There was even a failed attempt at a passenger service in South Florida in 1914, where a waterside building was modified to cater to passengers and aircraft supplies. With the close of World War I, 980 fields were listed as official airfields. Yet, unfriendly golf courses and insufficient racetracks rendered most of them unusable by aircraft.

The first regular airmail flight took place in May 15, 1918, on a polo field situated in downtown Washington, D.C. Dry Nevada lake bottoms, gas stations found on roadways, and even packing crates which housed airplane deliveries, served as ‘aerial garages’, otherwise known as hangars and maintenance shops. The post-World War I military parade grounds of Le Bourget and Tempelhof were converted into airports.

By 1919, five air stations, including emergency stops, were constructed by the U.S. Postmaster Otto Praeger between New York and Chicago. The Federal Government convinced local Chicago businessmen to contribute to a $15,000 hangar, with potential profits from passenger travel.

In 1920, scheduled international flights became commonplace in the United States with passengers traveling by Aeromarine West Indies Airways between Key West, Florida and Havana, Cuba. With 145 airports by the end of 1920, the airport system slowly began to take shape across the nation.

Early Post Office air stations featured 2 perpendicular runways and a tower with a light beacon of the intensity of 500,000-candlepower. These stations eventually evolved into 2,000-foot by 2,000-foot square designs by 1924, which facilitated multi-directional takeoff and landing regardless of the wind.

Airport fields were typically the size of 70 to 100 acres, with gravel or cinder covered surfaces to assist drainage. The fields were relatively bare, commonly with only one hangar, and bare essentials such as gasoline and oil storage, and telephone connection ‘ all spread out to guard against fire or crash accidents. Most were built on the square postal air station design, although variety came in the form of perpendicular T-shaped strips or rectangles.
From the 1930s prior to World War II, pilots relied on airmarking to fly during the day. To aid navigation and identification of airports, rooftops or hillsides were visually marked. The 50,000-candlepower beacons were used for night flight instead.

The growth of airports began slowly in Canada, but it eventually grew to 77 air harbors by 1930 from an initial 37 in 1922. The Prairie Air Mail Service started to link Winnipeg with Calgary and Edmonton, where its older municipal airport opened its doors in January 1927.

Across the world, airports continued to experience growth. Australia saw 181 public airports with passenger flights and support capabilities by April 1936. This was on top of the 200 designated open landing areas. The Soviet Union had a massive airport linking system, which stretched across Moscow, Nizhny Novgorod, Leningrad, Kiev and Tashkent, north of Afghanistan. The Soviet airline Aeroflot served the world’s biggest domestic air network, with over 500 million passengers catered to by 1975.

Despite the majority of airlines preferring to fly from grass or water, and perhaps protestations from Henry Ford, the first laid hard surfaced runway in the U.S. was publicly unveiled in Newark, New Jersey, on October 1, 1928. It measured 1,600 feet in length. In 1929, Pan Am became the first airline in the U.S. to build its own airport ‘ the Pan American Field. Part of the 116-acre field was rented to its competitor Eastern Airlines. As a precursor to radio communication between airplanes and ground staff, Pan Am used a radio station for Morse code signaling in 1930.

The Berlin Zentralflughafen Tempelhof was widely recognized as one of the world’s largest building in 1938. With simultaneous boarding facilities available for 300 planes and a handling capacity of 300,000 passengers annually, the Tempelhof roof could also accommodate 100,000 visitors watching airplane arrivals and departures. Its model of charging visitors admission fees was duplicated by countless airports trying to cash in on the public’s growing flight fascination.

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National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA)

National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics or NACA was founded on 1915. Its main purpose was to do pioneering research on the field of Aeronautics to improve the quality and the quantity of flight and also to regulate the academic and technological work on Flight Related Issues. As NACA got off a start, its purpose would also become to regulate the budgeting, to regulate, and govern the policy for aeronautical research and flight.

When NACA was founded in 1915, it was allotted a budget of $5000 per year. This budget would stay constant for 5 years and then it was to show a dramatic increase in the 1920′s as research got off to a big start. When it was first founded, NACA was to be regulated by a committee of 12 people who would not get paid for their work. They would be drafted from the War Department, from the NAVY, from the Weather Bureau and from the Bureau of Standards along with other prominent members of the Aeronautical community. It was perhaps this spirit that arose from doing un paid but pioneering work that made NACA and consequently the United States a leader in aeronautics and aerospace which it still enjoys as a country even today with unparalleled and unmatched success.

Although the role of NACA and its executive committee was advisory only, it was destined for NACA to gain control of the aeronautical sector and be more than an advisory committee but become a fully functional and powerful executive government agency. Thus, it was destined to become NASA, which has turned into the world’s most powerful aerospace research and policy agency.

The first employee was hired in 1915. However, the first executive director would not be appointed until 1919 when George W. Lewis would become the first director of NACA. He would be mainly staying in Washington for politics while the rest of NACA scientific staff prospered and focused on pure and practical research. The facilities of NACA were founded in Langley, Virginia as the first real aeronautical wind tunnel was constructed there. The facility soon became the Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory which would be intact with a fully equipped aeronautical wind tunnel for testing wing performance and their aerodynamics, propulsion laboratory for testing various engines and an airstrip to test run the various apparatus and planes there.

NACA attracted all kinds of brilliant and successful engineers from all over the country. It was a sign of prestige to work at NACA and many mechanical and electrical engineers were recruited. In time as Aeronautical Engineers became more found, there would be an influx of Aeronautical Engineers to Langley facility. However, the main task force never exceeded 100 people for a long time. This was perhaps the reason for the success of the NACA to be the leading edge of technology at the time. As the staff was less, the relationship between the senior members of the staff and the junior members of the staff were very strong and informal. This caused a free flow of exchange of ideas, which resulted in technological breakthroughs. It was very common for senior and junior engineers and other staff members to exchange ideas over lunch or over a cup of coffee. In fact, as long as nothing sensational was done, everyone was free to pursue their ideals and their research as they saw fit.

Although at the time only NACA enjoyed such freedom in a Government Agency, with the Era at the time, it proved to be the right thing to do as NACA prospered and the lead in flights research was to be the Americans until today from that day forward. Especially at the Wartime, the policies of NACA were responsible for the superior power in Air Force that United States still enjoys today. When NACA was dismantled in 1958 to become NASA; it had become a very powerful and capable agency that was also responsible for the success of NASA in Space Flight that it still enjoys today.

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History of Ornithopters and Helicopters

One of the first designed or at least imagined flying machines was the ornithopter. In essence, when mankind gazed at the skies, he saw that the birds were flying and thus mankind realized if he wanted to have the domain of the skies, he would have to fly like a bird. Thus since the dawn of the civilization, mankind with, its quest for dominion over nature, has tried to repeat the design and the behavior of the natural flying species. Besides the mankind’s formal history, the legends go back far describing the mankind’s quest for flying.

The first reference to an ornithopter and a real reference to flying is in the legend of Daedalus and Icarus. When Icarus was held captive by the Gods on top of a mountain fortress, he used big wings tethered to his body by wax. However because he flew too close to the sun, according to the legend his wings melted away from his body and he plunged into the deep abyss of death. Although it is a tragic myth, it symbolizes the quest for the man’s attempt to fly and thus control the forces of nature.

As mankind advanced further and further, throughout history there were lots of trials and designs for flying machines. In order to establish flying, mankind looked at the only available example of flying: namely the birds. Thus, everyone was trying to copy the designs of the birds to design a flying machine that paralleled their development: The Ornithopter. In essence, an ornithopter was a machine that had birdlike wings and a place for the operator to be attached. The operator would flap his arms and the wings of the ornithopter would be flapped also. In essence, mankind would fly by simulating the flapping of the bird’s wings. However, since the principles of aerodynamics was not discovered, no one was aware of the ratio of the wing to muscle power and thus all of these projects and attempts were doomed to fail.

Perhaps the most serious thoughts came from the famous thinker and designer Leonardo Da Vinci. He drew many representations of the birds to correctly understand the principle. Thus, as a result he designed may ornithopters design and a helicopter design which was a vehicle that can take off vertically from a ground y the use of blades that are horizontal to the ground. In fact, it can be said that an ornithopter is the father of helicopters.

During the history of mankind there were hundreds of ornithopter and even helicopter designs which never had a chance of flying off the ground. Especially the 19th century was filled with many inventors competing for the design of the successful ornithopter. In fact even the great inventor Thomas Edison tinkered with an ornithopter ad even received a patent.(although the design was not feasible and thus it never got ff the ground) When it was realized that the power to flap the wings was just not enough in humans, new designs were introduced that utilized mechanical energy for flying. In 1870, the French inventor Gustave Trouve designed an ornithopter that received its power to flap wings from an internal combustion engine. The flight was a partial success as the ornithopter that he designed flew 70 meters off the ground.

The final result was that although people tried to fly ornithopters, it just wasn’t a viable aerodynamic design. Although in the 20th century some successful ornithopters were built, it was discontinued as an idea. Then the power to flight was concentrated on glided flight (not flapped wings flight) and thus the Wright Brothers were able to fly creating a huge industry in the 20th century. However, the efforts for the Ornithopter were not in vain, as it was in principle the founding stone of the helicopter.

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