World Issues

By: Mauran Thevarajah

Airplanes have been around for a little over 100 years. The first successful manned flight was by the Wright Brothers in 1903 in a plane called the “Wright Flyer.” It was in the air for a little less than 70m, which is less than the length of a Boeing 747. As the years went by, airplanes have improved so they travel higher, faster and made sure they stay in the air for long enough periods. In WWI guns were mounted on the aircraft, which started air combats. These planes were propelled by the spinning of the blade in front of the plane. In 1939 Germany made the first jet aircraft which was capable of very high speeds back then. Eight years later the Bell X-1 jet was the first to fly at supersonic speeds, which means it went faster than the speed of sound. The jet technology is very crucial for people and countries all over the world. This made transportation from one place to the next very fast and made wars a whole lot more dangerous. Some famous aircraft manufacturers are Boeing, Airbus, McDonald Douglas, and Lockheed Martin.

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In 1910 the first regular air passenger service took a group of people between two cities in the U.S. The flights used to take a long time so not many people would fly, and it was also quite pricy for a flight. Air travel wasn’t booming until 1952 when the DH 106 Comet was in service. The Comet was the first jet powered airliner. The Comet cut long distance flights by half, which got more people interested in air travel. Unfortunately the Comet was grounded because it kept crashing, but new models were made that used the same concept with reduced crashing. In 1969 a big accomplishment in airliner history was the Boeing 747 and the Concord. The 747 was called a “Jumbo Jet” because the plane was bigger than any other airliner in service. The 747 had a passenger capacity of 416 people and could travel for very long distances. The concord can only hold up to 128 passengers, so it wasn’t meant for capacity but speed. The Concord reaches a cruising speed of mach 2 or 2, 333 km/h. The Concords trips usually go from London to New Your and back. That trip which usually takes 6 hours took less than 4 hours. At this point air transportation was used frequently and took people to places around the world that they have never seen before. In late 2006 the hype in airliners, which is the Airbus A380, will be out in the market and ready for service. This new airliner was made to please the passengers. First of all it can hold 555 people, and it has 49% more floor space and 35% more seating than the 747.The Airbus is the new age in commercial air travel.

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Planes with weapons have been proven to be very useful in wars. At the beginning of the first world war planes were used for recon work, but later on machine guns were mounted on the planes. When the first few planes tried to shoot an enemy plane they used to shoot the propeller which caused them to crash. The Germans made an incredible fighter plane, the Fokker. The machine guns on it were synchronized with the spin of the propeller so the bullets don’t hit it. WWII planes did a lot more damage to their enemies because now they carried bombs. If planes didn’t exist the Hitler’s blitzkrieg tactic wouldn’t have worked too well, which could have changed some of his victories over countries. Military planes started to carry more and more bombs, and had missiles to fight off other jets. Now there are jets that are made to be invisible, or undetected under radar. A fighter jet that “stealth” is the F117 Stealth fighter. The shape of the plane deflects radar waves away from the source, so then it sneaks up to the target and drops a bomb which is accurately guided by a laser. One of the best fighter jets of this age is the Lockheed Martin F-22. The F-22 is very sleek and can get through radar easily, very maneuverable, fast, carries a huge load for a small fighter, and all weapons are hidden to give a non- threatening look for it’s enemies. Now planes are major ways for countries to win wars, because they can do massive damage, and now more and more carry nuclear weapons, which gives countries a lot of power.

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In the future most of or all of the jets will have a vectored thrust engine. This engine can direct the exhaust into many different directions, which give it more maneuverability. Some cool things that can be done with this engine is that your plane might be pointing down but you go horizontally and lose no altitude because of vectored thrust. Some projects that they are working for fighter planes are improving the attacking system. They are trying to develop a helmet that is connected to the plane, and the helmets have “gunsights”. This means that the pilot can direct a missile or laser by looking at the target and giving the voice command to shoot. In the near future jets used in wars won’t have pilots in the cockpit because it is too dangerous. Instead the pilots will be controlling the aircraft on a computer in a safe building. These jets are called UCAV, which stands for Unmanned Combat Air Vehicle. This will allow jets to do outstanding acrobatical moves in the air that couldn’t be done with a pilot inside the jet.