Jet Age

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Jet age
)
For other uses, see Jet Age (disambiguation).
The de Havilland Comet was the first commercial jet airliner and began service on 9 January 1951.
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The Jet Age is a period in the

jet turbine
engines and the social and cultural changes fostered by commercial jet travel.

piston‑powered propliners, making transcontinental and intercontinental travel considerably faster and easier. Aircraft leaving North America and crossing the Atlantic Ocean (and later, the Pacific Ocean
) could now fly to their destinations non-stop, making much of the world accessible within a single day's travel for the first time. Large jetliners could carry more passengers than piston-powered airliners, which caused air fares to decline and opened international travel to a broader range of socioeconomic groups.

In addition to pure jet engines, turbine-driven propeller engines delivered a smoother ride and better

Tu-114
(first flight 1957). This airliner was able to match or even exceed the speed, capacity and range of contemporary jets, but such powerplants were only used in large airframes for military planes after 1976.

The introduction of the

Tu-144, but it was soon withdrawn due to high maintenance and other issues. McDonnell Douglas, Lockheed and Boeing were three U.S. manufacturers that had originally planned to develop various SST designs since the 1960s, but these projects were eventually abandoned for various developmental, cost, and other practical reasons.[citation needed
]

Origins

The term "Jet Age" was coined in the late 1940s.[1] At the time, the only jet-powered aircraft in production were military types, most of which were fighters. The expression reflects the recognition that the jet engine had effected, or would soon, a profound change in aeronautics and aviation.

One view is that the jet age began with the invention of the jet engine in the 1930s and 1940s.[2] In the history of military aviation it began in 1944 with the introduction into service of the Arado Ar 234 reconnaissance bomber and the Messerschmitt Me 262 fighter during World War II.[3][4] In commercial aviation, the jet age was introduced to Britain in 1952 with the first scheduled flight of the de Havilland Comet airliner and to America later in the decade with the first American-built jet airliners.[5][6]

Civil aviation

The British de Havilland Comet was the first jet airliner to fly (1949), the first in service (1952), and the first to offer a regular transatlantic service (1958). One hundred and fourteen of all versions were built. However, the first jet airliner to provide a sustained and dependable service was the Soviet Tupolev Tu-104 (201 built) which was the only jet airliner in operation worldwide between 1956 and 1958 (the Comet having been withdrawn in 1954 due to structural failure issues). The Comet and Tu-104 were later outstripped in production by the United States' Boeing 707 (which entered service in 1958) and Douglas DC-8, which joined it in the skies over the next few years. Other types of the period included the French Sud Aviation Caravelle. After the 707 began service on the New York to Paris route on October 26, 1958, with Pan American, 1959 became the first year that more transatlantic passengers traveled by air than by sea.[citation needed]

As the number of passengers soared, it became impractical to increase the number of aircraft flying from the major hub airports. International airports like that of Orly Airport in Paris, France would construct terminals around bag-check and customs processing efficiency in response to rising passenger numbers.[7] Instead, designers created even larger widebody airliners and the engine manufacturers responded with larger, more powerful and also more fuel-efficient engines. The first "jumbo jet" was the Boeing 747, and it both increased airport passenger capacity and reduced the cost of air travel, further accelerating the social changes brought about by the Jet Age.[citation needed]

Military aviation

Military aviation had entered the jet age somewhat earlier, during the closing stages of World War II. In the early postwar years, the increasing use of jet aircraft had little significant impact, serving mainly to continue the slow but steady improvements in performance seen in the past. Supersonic flight brought about a step change in aircraft performance. The

Cold War.[citation needed
]

See also

References

  1. ^ "The Story goes on" (PDF). Retrieved January 25, 2020.
  2. Encyclopedia Britannica
    . Retrieved 2020-01-26.
  3. Encyclopedia Britannica
    . Retrieved 2020-01-26.
  4. ^ Green, W.; "Warplanes of the Third Reich", Macdonald and Jane's (1970).
  5. Flight Global. Archived from the original
    on February 1, 2014.
  6. ^ "The Jet Age, 1958 – today," America by air, Smithsonian national Air and Space Museum.[1]
  7. ISSN 1537-6370
    .
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