Wings #6

 

1. In your opinion, what was the most significant impact aviation had on our world in the first one hundred years of flight?

I think that the most significant impact aviation had on our world in the first one hundred years of flight was that it connected the globe at a much faster pace than would have happened if the only transcontinental transportation were ships and trains.  This is exemplified by Chapter 15’s title: A World in the Air, 1945-2003.  Albeit it says 1945-2003, aviation had connected the world long before that.  In the early years exhibition flights brought people from all over the world to new places because of their fascination with flight.  That fascination eventually evolved into the complex transcontinental flight system we have today, that connects products, people, and cultures.  Because of aviation, humans have now been able to expand their reaches out of the atmosphere into space, even to the far edges of the solar system!  Without the Wright Brothers solving the problem of flight the world we live in today could have turned out very different. 

 

2.   What do you think the future holds for aviation in the twenty first century?

I think that the future of aviation in the twenty-first century, and even beyond, will become even more complex and advanced than it is now.  As our phones and computers become smaller and more advanced, so too will the technology that aircraft employs.  This type of steep increase in complexity and performance of aircraft can be seen in Orville Wright’s own lifetime.  It is amazing to me to think that Orville helped to invent the very first successful airplane, constructed out of wood and fabric, and he lived to see the planes of World War II, to see aircraft that could go faster than the speed of sound.  That is quite a leap in technology for a forty-some year period.  Imagine then that rate of expanding technology and apply it to this century.  What amazing things will aircraft be capable of when we are all in our nineties?  I do not know exactly what advancements could be made, but I do know that aviation technologies will continue to expand in the future as they have in the past century.