1914 – 2014
Another Almandsmith
Human flight has long been a dream for the inventive and the adventurous. Several ancient cultures experimented with gliders and manned kites, with varying levels of success. Leonardo da Vinci famously sketched several designs for flying machines. Lighter-than-air craft, such as hot air balloons and airships (a category consisting of nonrigid blimps and rigid dirigibles), were first shown to work in the late 18th century, and continued to be improved and refined through the 19th and early 20th centuries. It took until the turn of the 20th century, however, for the principles of aerodynamics to be understood enough to create working, heavier-than-air, fixed-wing flying craft — i.e., airplanes.
The brothers Orville and Wilbur Wright are recognized as being the first to achieve powered heavier-than-air flight, staying aloft for 12 seconds and flying 120 feet on December 17, 1903 (“Telegram…”). Almost immediately, aviation caught on as a dangerous new hobby for amateur pilots around the world. By 1912, airplanes had been used to carry mail and commercial freight, could carry passengers, had been used in combat (by the Italians during the Italo-Turkish War), and, in the case of seaplanes (first used successfully in 1910), could land and take off from the water (Daniel).
Airships had been carrying passengers since 1910, when the Zeppelin LZ 7 flew twenty paying customers approximately 270 miles from Friedrichshafen to Dusseldorf, Germany, with Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin himself at the helm. The airship line DELAG operated a route between several German cities from 1910 to 1914, carrying almost 40,000 passengers (Grossman).
Dirigibles, however, had a much larger carrying capacity and much better safety record than the airplanes of the time, which were often fatally dangerous. Aircraft design was still incredibly primitive, planes not being much more than glorified gliders with a propeller and internal combustion engine stuck on. As such, they tended to be fragile, with faulty engines and no safety equipment, and the atmosphere could be unpredictable. It wasn’t unusual for aviators and passengers to die in crashes. The classic definition of a good landing (“any landing you can walk away from”), unsurprisingly, comes from these early days of aviation. One source reports there had been over a hundred aviation deaths by 1912, less than a decade after the advent of powered flight, though it’s unclear how many of those were in airplanes (versus gliders, balloons, airships, etc) (Daniel 155).
Commercial airplane travel, then, was a little later to take off (so to speak). Up through 1913 or 1914, planes were mainly used for experiments and record breaking, joyrides, trick flying (barnstorming), or as advertising to sell more planes. Paying customers were often taken up on short jaunts for the thrill and novelty of flying, and occasionally a passenger or two would be flown a distance to set a new record or prove it could be done, but airplanes were not in use as a form of transportation, per se (Reilly).
In 1913, aviator Silas Christofferson (most known for flying a plane off the roof of the Multnomah Hotel in Portland, Oregon the year before) would fly paying passengers across the bay between San Francisco and Oakland in his hydroplane (Freeman). His brother Henry later clarified, however, that Silas had no fixed schedule to these trips, and thus his operation could not be truly called a regular air travel service — i.e, an airline (Reilly 154).
The title of “First Commercial Airline” instead goes to the St. Petersburg-Tampa Airboat Line, which, as the name suggests, provided regular flights across the bay between Tampa and St. Petersburg, Florida. Service began in January 1914 and went until May of that year, when the tourist season ended (Glines). The project was a joint venture between Percival E. Fansler, a Florida sales rep for an engine company, and Tom Benoist, airplane manufacturer. The Airboat Line owned two Benoist airboats, which were biplanes equipped with pontoons on the wings, designed for water takeoffs and landings. The planes were wood, fabric, and wire constructions with a 75 horsepower engine strapped to the back, powering the large propeller at the rear providing thrust (Reilly 150). Each could carry up to two passengers in addition to the pilot.
The 17 mile trip between the two cities took about twenty minutes, usually at a height of about five feet above the water. A one way ticket on the airboat line cost $5 per person or 100lbs of freight, which would be somewhere in the range of $100 to $150 today (Glines). Despite the steep cost for such a trip, between the novelty tourist draw and the fact that the airboat trip took a fraction of the time of other means of transport (2 ½ hours by steamship, 12 hours by train), the demand for rides stayed high. Several local businesses took advantage of the convenience and panache of delivering their goods by airplane, including a Tampa florist, the St. Petersburg Times, and a grocery company shipping smoked hams and bacon, advertising “Although they came high, the price is low” (Glines).
The pilot and public face of the operation was 25 year old Tony Jannus, celebrity aviator, playboy, and test pilot for Benoist. Often in the newspapers for his stunts, Jannus set several aviation records of the time, as well as acting as pilot for the first parachute jump from an airplane. He was rarely without his mechanic sidekick, J.D. Smith (called Smitty), or any number of actresses and society girls. A number of women claimed at various points to be engaged to him, though there appears to be no evidence that any of the claims were legitimate (Reilly). Although he only flew the plane and was not involved in the administrative and business side of the venture, the St. Petersburg-Tampa Airboat Line was known as Tony Jannus’ project, and Tony Jannus’ airline. Even today, Jannus is by far the most famous of the Fansler-Benoist-Jannus trio (Glines).
The Airboat Line made its last flight on May 5, 1914 (Glines). WWI broke out in Europe less than two months later with the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand (though the United States didn’t join the war until 1917). Nonetheless, WWI led to massive innovations in aircraft design, and was the first major conflict to use airplanes in combat, as well as the first war to have aerial combat between planes.
Silas Christofferson died in a plane crash in Redwood City, California in 1916 (McGovern et. al. 24). Tony Jannus died when his plane engine failed over the Black Sea the same year (Reilly 187). Jannus’ contribution to commercial aviation is recognized with the presentation of the Tony Jannus Award for Outstanding Achievement in Scheduled Commercial Aviation, given annually since 1964 in Tampa (Tony Jannus Distinguished Aviation Society).
Dirigible airship travel ended with the Hindenburg disaster, in which the LZ-129 Hindenburg Zeppelin famously and dramatically caught fire in 1937 over Lakehurst, New Jersey. Airplanes took over the air travel market, to become the ubiquitous form of long-distance travel they are today. Planes crisscross the globe constantly, ferrying passengers in everything from tiny commuter aircraft to gigantic jumbo jets. Passenger aircraft reach extremes unimaginable a century ago — carrying hundreds of passengers thousands of miles without needing to refuel.
The largest passenger aircraft at the time of this writing is the Airbus A380, which carries up to 853 passengers in a single class system. According to Airbus’ website, the A380 has a range of 15,700 km — in other words, the plane can fly almost 9,800 miles without stopping to refuel (“Dimensions & Key Data – A380”). The A340-500, also made by Airbus, has the longest range of a passenger aircraft, at 16,670 km (10,360 mi) (“Dimensions & Key Data – A340-500”). The A340-500 is used for the longest commercial flight offered by an airline, Singapore Airlines’ nonstop flight from Newark to Singapore, an effective distance of 15,345 km (9,535 mi), which is over a third the circumference of the Earth (Meier).
Flying has become dramatically safer, as well. Gone are the days when a pilot risked his or her life every time they took off. The overall fatal accident (ie, accident in which there is loss of life) rate for the decade of 2002 – 2011 was about 0.6 fatal accidents per million flights, or 0.4 fatal accidents per million hours flown (“Global Fatal Accident Review 2002-2011”). In 2012, the overall accident rate (including both fatal and nonfatal incidents) was 3.5 accidents per million departures (2013 Safety Report).
Flying has become a normal aspect of modern life, allowing us to reach any part of the globe in a matter of hours. Commercial aviation is built into our infrastructure, legal system, and culture to a degree that even Tom Benoist, who “dreamed of the skies filled with air lanes carrying the world’s passenger and freight traffic,” would scarcely believe (Glines). 2014 was the centennial of the world’s first commercial air service — who knows what the next hundred years will bring.
Works Cited
2013 Safety Report. Rep. International Civil Aviation Organization, 2013. Web. 03 Oct. 2013. <http://www.skybrary.aero/bookshelf/books/2412.pdf>.
Daniel, Clifton. Chronicle of the 20th Century. Mount Kisco, NY: Chronicle Publications, 1987.
“Dimensions & Key Data – A380.” Airbus.com. Airbus, 2013. Web. 2 Oct. 2013. <http://www.airbus.com/aircraftfamilies/passengeraircraft/a380family/specifications/>.
“Dimensions & Key Data – A340-500.” Airbus.com. Airbus, 2013. Web. 2 Oct. 2013. <http://www.airbus.com/aircraftfamilies/passengeraircraft/a340family/a340-500/specifications/>.
Freeman, Rich. “The Pioneering Years: Commercial Aviation 1920 – 1930.” Centennial of Flight. U.S. Centennial of Flight Commission, 2003. Web. 27 Sept. 2013. <http://webarchive.library.unt.edu/eot2008/20080920022134/http://centennialofflight.gov/essay/Commercial_Aviation/1920s/Tran1.htm>.
Glines, C. V. “St. PetersburgTampa Airboat Line: World’s First Scheduled Airline Using Winged Aircraft.” Aviation History May 1997: n. pag. Web. 28 Sept. 2013. <http://www.historynet.com/st-petersburgtampa-airboat-line-worlds-first-scheduled-airline-using-winged-aircraft.htm>.
“Global Fatal Accident Review 2002-2011.” SKYbrary. N.p., 24 July 2013. Web. 03 Oct. 2013. <http://www.skybrary.aero/index.php/Global_Fatal_Accident_Review_2002-2011>.
Grossman, Dan. “DELAG: The World’s First Airline.” Airships.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 2 Oct. 2013. <http://www.airships.net/delag-passenger-zeppelins>.
McGovern, Reg, Janet McGovern, Betty Veronico, and Nicholas Veronico. Images of America: Redwood City. N.p.: Arcadia, 2008. Google Books. Web. 30 Sept. 2013. <http://books.google.com/books/about/Redwood_City.html?id=mcTxQ0Sr-UAC>.
Meier, Michael. “Singapore Airlines Beats Its Own Long-haul Record.” Airsider. Celway Group, 29 June 2004. Web. 02 Oct. 2013. <http://www.airways.ch/files/2004/0604/010/sia345.htm>.
Reilly, Thomas. Jannus, an American Flier. Gainesville: University of Florida, 1997. Google Books. Google. Web. 28 Sept. 2013. <http://books.google.com/books?id=hqXDkJ1gjS8C>.
“Telegram from Orville Wright in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, to His Father Announcing Four Successful Flights, 1903 December 17.” World Digital Library. 16 July 2013. Web. 1 Oct. 2013. <http://www.wdl.org/en/item/11372/>.
Tony Jannus Distinguished Aviation Society. Tony Jannus Distinguished Aviation Society, Inc., 2013. Web. 30 Sept. 2013. <http://www.tonyjannus.org/>.
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