Airplane

It was not until after World War II (1939-1945), when comfortable, pressurized air transports became available in large numbers, that the airline industry really prospered. When the United States entered World War II in 1941, there were fewer than 300 planes in airline service. Airplane production concentrated mainly on fighters and bombers, and reached a rate of nearly 50,000 a year by the end of the war. A large number of sophisticated new transports, used in wartime for troop and cargo carriage, became available to commercial operators after the war ended. Pressurized propeller planes such as the Douglas DC-6 and Lockheed Constellation, early versions of which carried troops and VIPs during the war, now carried paying passengers on transcontinental and transatlantic flights.

Wartime technology efforts also brought to aviation critical new developments, such as the jet engine. Jet transportation in the commercial-aviation arena arrived in 1952 with Britain’s DeHavilland Comet, an 885-km/h (550-mph), four-engine jet. The Comet quickly suffered two fatal crashes due to structural problems and was grounded. This complication gave American manufacturers Boeing and Douglas time to bring the 707 and DC-8 to the market. Pan American World Airways inaugurated Boeing 707 jet service in October of 1958, and air travel changed dramatically almost overnight. Transatlantic jet service enabled travelers to fly from New York City to London, England, in less than eight hours, half the propeller-airplane time. Boeing’s new 707 carried 112 passengers at high speed and quickly brought an end to the propeller era for large commercial airplanes.

After the big, four-engine 707s and DC-8s had established themselves, airlines clamored for smaller, shorter-range jets, and Boeing and Douglas delivered. Douglas produced the DC-9 and Boeing both the 737 and the trijet 727.

The next frontier, pioneered in the late 1960s, was the age of the jumbo jet. Boeing, McDonnell Douglas, and Lockheed all produced wide-body airliners, sometimes called jumbo jets. Boeing developed and still builds the 747. McDonnell Douglas built a somewhat smaller, three-engine jet called the DC-10, produced later in an updated version known as the MD-11. Lockheed built the L-1011 Tristar, a trijet that competed with the DC-10. The L-1011 is no longer in production, and Lockheed-Martin no longer builds commercial airliners.

In the 1980s McDonnell Douglas introduced the twin-engine MD-80 family, and Boeing brought online the narrow-body 757 and wide-body 767 twin jets. Airbus had developed the A300 wide-body twin during the 1970s. During the 1980s and 1990s Airbus expanded its family of aircraft by introducing the slightly smaller A310 twin jet and the narrow-body A320 twin, a unique, so-called fly-by-wire aircraft with sidestick controllers for the pilots rather than conventional control columns and wheels. Airbus also introduced the larger A330 twin and the A340, a four-engine airplane for longer routes, on which passenger loads are somewhat lighter. In 2000 the company launched production of the A380, a superjumbo jet that seats 555 passengers on two decks, both of which extend the entire length of the fuselage. Because of its size, the A380 may require modifications to some airports, including wider runways and special passenger boarding facilities. The world’s largest passenger jet, the A380 is scheduled to enter commercial service in late 2007.

Boeing introduced the 777, a wide-body jumbo jet that can hold up to 400 passengers, in 1995. In 1997 Boeing acquired longtime rival McDonnell Douglas, and a year later the company announced its intention to halt production of the passenger workhorses MD-11, MD-80, and MD-90. The company ceded the superjumbo jet market to Airbus and instead focused its efforts on developing a fuel-efficient midsize passenger airplane called the 787 Dreamliner. Designed to permit long-range nonstop flights, the 787 can carry from 210 to 330 passengers and is the first commercial aircraft with a primary structure made largely of composite material (mostly carbon fiber-reinforced plastic) rather than traditional aluminum. The 787 is scheduled to enter commercial service in 2008.