Today, we take the jet powered air liner for granted. You see them in just about every commercial field in the world. You see the big jumbo jets, the smaller jets, and even the turbo props (yes grasshopper, the turbo prop is considered to be a jet powered aircraft). As we wind down this first decade of the 21st Century we have planes like the Airbus A380 and the Boeing 787 Dreamliner being able to left their bulk up in strips of 8,000 ft or less.

We take for granted that you can be anywhere in the US or Europe in the mater of just a few short hours. Man we have really come far since those fledgelings days of commercial aviation.

But lets say thank you to those who have made that posible and now lets turn the clock back and look at the struggle of the transition to this jet age.......

POST WORLD WAR II

This was the golden era of Commercial Aviation. The old Airlines came back to the air with a vengeance. Airlines like Pan American, TWA, Lufthansa and BOAC picked right up where they had left off. They connected the world via the air. Aircraft types like the Boeing 377, Douglas DC-4, Douglas, DC-6, the Lockheed Constellation, and the Avro York crossed the Atlantic on a daily basis and in most cases they did it with luxury, especially the operators of the Boeing 377.

All the war built airfields across the world served well as airports for these grand prop-liners.

As the 1950's approached some commercial airlines begun to wonder....was it possible to bring the jet engine to civilian use. In 1949 De Haveland answered the question. They introduced the world to the DH.106 Comet. The plane was presented and marketed to fill the role of medium range flights . They were hoping the Comet would capture the market for the Douglas DC-4 and Lockheed L079 Constellation replacements as these planes wore out. The Comet entered service in 1951 with initial success, but by 1954, the Comet's future was in doubt. A series of crashes lead to an end of the initial start of the jet age in civil transport. Airlines canceled orders, grounded and scrapped the initial models of the Comet. The Comet did emerge from this disaster in 1959, but it was to late for De Haviland to compete against the US based manufacturers. With England's failure to kick start the jet into civil transport, the eyes turned to the New World.

In the United States the four major companies building airlines at this time were Lockheed, Convair, Martin, and Douglas. At this time Boeing only had a minor share in the market with its 377 Stratocruiser (which this was just a side production to the work being done on the C-97 and KC-97 for the USAF). All four of the companies looked at the use of jet power in the future as being limited to Turbo-prop aircraft, and they felt that this was still years down the line. They concentrated on producing piston engine aircraft that had the posibility to be converted to turbo props on down the line. As the 50's wore on planes like the Douglas DC-6 and DC-7, Lockheed L1069 Super Constellaton and the small twins produced by Martin and Convair all still relied on the radial engine.

Following Boeing usual business model of the times, they looked at what they had in the shops and asked what can we do with it. This line of thinking had produced both the B.307 and B.377. These aircraft were civil transports developed from military aircraft. What they had in the shop was the Boeing B-47 Stratobomber and the Boeing B-52 Stratofortress. Both these airplanes forced Boeing and the US Air Force to realize that the KB-50 and the KC-97 were not able to really do the job needed. This led Boeing down the path of destany and a golden egg. The bird hatched from that egg would change the world of commercial aviation. The hatch-ling was the Boeing 367-80 of 1954. The Dash 80 capitalized on the advances developed on the B-47 and B-52. Its swept wings and its engines hung under the wings were all features found on the bombers. The Dash-80 eventually led to the the Boeing C\KC-135 family of military transports. As produduction ramped up for the USAF, Boeing took the plane in hand and studied it, redesigned it and then announced what would become the prototype Boeing 707-120. Boeing took its first orders for the aircraft in 1957.

The Dash-80 and the 707, came as a major shock to the other four companies. Both Douglas and Convair (that had just become a division og General Dynamics) found themselves scrambling to catch up. Both companies found themselves a year behind in production to Boeing. Lockheed buried its head in the sand and continued to produce the Constellatons and its Turbo prop L188 Electra. They didn't offer their first pure jet until the 1960s when they offered the L101 Tri-Star.

By 1959, the US companies had pretty much captured the line share of the world market for large jet aircraft. In the sky, you could see the Boeing 707, the Douglas DC-8 and the Convair 880. They were covering the routes of the world twice as fast, but wait, not all was good. These monsters of their day had a problem........a big problem......only a hand full of airports could support them. These early jets required around 10,000 ft of heavy runway to take-off and land on. Most airports of the day, just didn't have these. So they were limited on where they could be used. So, once again the prop-liners and the few turbo-props that had made it into production were still the primary aircraft of the air carriers.

As the 1960s dawned, the airlines had their jets, but they were limited to where they could go; the solution was to improve the airports. So, in the US and Europe a major rebuild of the infrastructure of aviation was begun. Runways were lengthened, new terminals built, and even new fields constructed. This took time. It really wasn't until the mid 60's that the problems of where to land the beasts were solved, but by 1967, most airports were able to handle them, and traffic increased. The prop-liners were pushed to the side, closing the door on the golden age. Even the small planes like the DC-3 and Martin 2-2-0 were on the way out. They were being replaced by turbo props and small medium jets like the B.727 and the DC-9.

With this increase in jet traffic, a whole new problem appeared....the skies were getting crowded. This problem had been identified in the 1950's and dealt with by establishing local air space and control, but the problem compounded in the 1960's. In the US the FAA fully established a National Air Control System to direct traffic. Similar systems were put in place around the world.

It took us nearly 25 years to transition into what we have today. Isn't aviation great?