The statistics comparing
various means of transportation are a bit deceiving: the
nearly 1.9 billion passenger miles logged in the air
worldwide in 1934, one of the strongest years before World
War II, represented a great increase from 1929 (sixty-six
million passenger miles), but still represented less than 2
percent of all means of intercity transportation, and even
less when considered on the basis of fare dollars or trips
taken.
By 1934 the people
prepared to hazard flying had taken their first flight; the
remainder were going to be hard to coax onto an airplane.
The industry’s response was a technological one: planes had
to become more comfortable, safer (and appear safer in
design to the average person), and more stable; they had to
be able to fly higher to avoid the turbulence of lower
atmosphere weather, which meant sealing the passenger
compartment and treating the air within it; and they had to
develop many more safety systems, especially for takeoffs
and landings, the most dangerous phase of most flights.
Airplanes also had to
vastly increase their speed and range to provide clear and
obvious advantages over other long-range transportation
options if the benefits of flight were to be worth the
risks. Virtually none of this was in place during the 1920s,
and only the merest glimmer of light was apparent during the
1930's. It is therefore one of the remarkable aspects of the
history of aviation during this period that the men and
women of aviation, traditionally a hot-blooded and impatient
lot, exercised great patience in solving each technological
problem in turn. The impetuous character that had undermined
the French in the first decade of the century was not
apparent in these decades, at least not in the development
programs of the airplane manufacturers.
This newfound sense of
responsibility was the result of several factors. The
industrialists had good reason to believe that they had the
time and would have the resources to develop aviation slowly
and carefully through the 1930s. For one thing, it was clear
that governments were on their side. Legislation continually
favoured the industry over other means of transportation
(just as the railroads and the road-builders and car makers
had received government support). When it was clear that
manufacturers and airlines would not be able to turn a
profit for some time, ways were found to support them,
either by providing contracts for services such as mail
delivery or army transport, or by outright purchase of
aircraft far in excess of the government’s current needs.
This latter form of
support became so integral a part of the aircraft industry
that it has lasted right to the present day, causing no end
of problems even as it keeps the industry afloat. Second,
governments themselves undertook the research programs that
were going to be necessary for the industry to grow.
Ostensibly these programs were motivated by purely
scientific and, to a lesser degree, military concerns, but
the shape and size of the programs made it abundantly clear
that it was civil aviation that was meant to be the
beneficiary.
Very little of the
research done by the National Advisory Committee for
Aeronautics (NACA) or at the Institute Aerotechnique
remained secret, especially not after it was applied to one
of the aircraft produced by Lockheed or Breguet. With
Germany forbidden from carrying out aeronautical research of
any kind in secret (but getting around that by building
aircraft that could be converted easily to military uses), a
hope may have existed in American and British circles that
open technological development would discourage military
development of aviation. This turned out to be a false hope;
after the war, the use made by the Germans and Japanese of
data made public by NACA and other research facilities would
be used as an argument against shared technology as an
antiwar strategy.
The world of commercial
aviation was to see its beginnings during the 1920s and have
its first modest blossoming in the 1930s. The steps taken
were halting ones, to be sure. The issue of airships had to
be put to rest—as it finally was with the Hindenburg
disaster, though the air transportation industry had already
realized airships were not going to become a mainstay of air
travel—and even the great flying boats had to run their
course, though for a while they appeared to offer a feasible
approach to the problems of air transportation. By the late
1930s, airports began to be designed that could accommodate
the new transports, and airports like Idlewild and Croydon,
built near water in anticipation of a great deal of flying
boat traffic, adapted to land aircraft and provided the
services both aircraft and passengers would need to make
flying a safe and pleasant experience.