Welcome to the I Can't Sleep Podcast,
Where I help you drift off one fact at a time.
I'm your host Benjamin Boster and today's episode is about airliners.
An airliner is a type of airplane for transporting passengers and air cargo.
Such aircraft are most often operated by airlines.
The modern and most common variant of the airliner is a jet-powered aircraft with a long tube-shaped fuselage.
The largest of them are wide-body jets,
Which are also called twin-aisle,
Because they generally have two separate aisles running from the front to the back of the passenger cabin.
These are usually used for long-haul flights between airline hubs in major cities.
A smaller,
More common class of airlines is the narrow-body or single aisle.
These are generally used for short to medium distance flights,
With fewer passengers than their wide-body counterparts.
Regional airliners typically seat fewer than 100 passengers and may be powered by turbofans or turboprompts.
These airliners are the non-mainline counterparts to the larger aircraft operated by the major carriers,
Legacy carriers,
And flag carriers,
And are used to feed traffic into the large airline hubs.
These regional routes then form the spokes of a hub and spoke air transport model.
The lightest aircraft are short-haul regional feeder airline-type aircraft that carry a small number of passengers and are called commuter aircraft,
Commuter liners,
Feeder liners,
And air taxis,
Depending on their size,
Engines,
How they are marketed,
Region of the world,
And seating configurations.
The Beechcraft 1900 for example has only 19 seeds.
When the Wright brothers made the world's first sustained heavier-than-air flight,
They laid the foundation for what would become a major transport industry.
Their flight,
Performed in the Wright Flyer during 1903,
Was just 11 years before what is often defined as the world's first airliner.
By the 1960s,
Airliners had expanded capabilities,
Making a significant impact on global society,
Economics,
And politics.
During 1913,
Igor Sikorsky developed the first large multi-engine airplane,
The Russkiy Vityaz.
This aircraft was subsequently refined into the more practical Ilya Muromets,
Being furnished with dual controls for a pilot and co-pilot,
And a comfortable cabin with a lavatory,
Cabin heating,
And lighting.
This large four-engine biplane was further adapted into an early bomber aircraft,
Preceding subsequent transport and bomber aircraft.
It first flew on December 10,
1913 and took off for its first demonstration flight with 16 passengers aboard on February 25,
1914.
However,
It was never used as a commercial airline due to the onset of the First World War,
Which led to military applications being prioritized.
In 1919,
Shortly after the end of the First World War,
Large numbers of ex-military aircraft flooded the market.
One such aircraft was the French Farman Goliath,
Which had originally been designed as a long-range heavy bomber.
A number were converted for commercial use into passenger airliners starting in 1919,
Being able to accommodate a maximum of 14 seated passengers.
Around 60 were built.
Initially,
Several publicity flights were made,
Including one on February 8,
1919 when the Goliath flew 12 passengers.
Dozens of early airlines subsequently procured the type.
One high-profile flight made on August 11,
1919,
Involved an F-60 flying eight passengers and a ton of supplies from Paris.
Another important airliner built in 1919 was the Airco DH.
16.
A redesigned Airco DH.
9A was a wider fuselage to accommodate an enclosed cabin seating four passengers plus pilot in an open cockpit.
In March 1919,
The prototype first flew at Hendon Aerodrome.
Nine aircraft were built,
All but one being delivered to the nascent airline,
Aircraft Transport and Travel,
Which used the first aircraft for pleasure flying.
And on August 25,
1919,
It inaugurated the first scheduled international airline service from London to Paris.
One aircraft was sold to the River Plate Aviation Company in Argentina to operate a cross-river service between Buenos Aires and Montevideo.
Meanwhile,
The competing Vickers converted its successful First World War era bomber,
The Vickers Vimy,
Into a civilian version,
The Vimy Commercial.
It was redesigned with a larger diameter fuselage and first flew from the Joyce Green airfield in Kent on the 13th of April,
1919.
The world's first all-metal transport aircraft was the Junkers F-13,
Which also made the first flight in 1919.
Junkers marketed the aircraft towards business travelers and commercial operators.
And European entrepreneurs bought examples for their private use in business trips.
Over 300 Junkers F-13s were built between 1919 and 1932.
The Dutch Fokker company produced the Fokker F2,
Then the enlarged F3.
These were used by the Dutch airline KLM,
Including on its Amsterdam-London service in 1921.
A relatively reliable aircraft for the area,
The Fokkers were flying to destinations across Europe,
Including Bremen,
Brussels,
Hamburg,
And Paris.
The Hanley Page Company in Britain produced the Hanley Page Type W,
Its first civil transport aircraft.
It housed two crew in an open cockpit and 15 passengers in an enclosed cabin.
Powered by two 450 horsepower Napier Lion engines,
The prototype first flew on December 4,
1919,
Shortly after it was displayed at the 1919 Paris Air Show.
It was ordered by the Belgian firm Sabena.
A further 10 Type W's were produced under license in Belgium by SABCA.
In 1921 the Air Ministry ordered three aircraft built as the W8B for use by Hanley Page Transport and later by Imperial Airways on services to Paris and Brussels.
In France,
The Bleriot SPAD S33 was introduced during the early 1920s.
It was commercially successful,
Initially serving the Paris-London route,
And later on continental routes.
The enclosed cabin could carry four passengers with an extra seat in the cockpit.
It was further developed into the Bleriot SPAD S-46.
Throughout the 1920s,
Companies in Britain and France were at the forefront of the civil airliner industry.
By 1921,
The capacity of airliners needed to be increased to achieve more favorable economics.
The English company,
De Havilland,
Built the 10-passenger DH-29 monoplane,
While starting work on the design of the DH-32,
An 8-seater biplane with a more economical but less powerful Rolls-Royce Eagle engine.
For more capacity,
DH-32 development was replaced by the DH-34 biplane,
Accommodating 10 passengers.
A commercially successful aircraft,
Daimler Airway,
Ordered a batch of nine.
The Ford tri-motor had two engines mounted on the wings,
And one in the nose,
And a slab-sided body.
It carried eight passengers and was produced from 1925 to 1933.
It was an important early airliner in America.
It was used by the predecessors to Transworld Airlines,
And by other airlines long after production ceased.
The Trimotor helped to popularize numerous aspects of modern aviation infrastructure.
Including paved runways,
Passenger terminals,
Hangars,
Airmail,
And radio navigation.
Pan Am opened up trans-oceanic service in the late 1920s and early 1930s based on a series of large seaplanes,
The Sikorsky S-38 through Sikorsky S-42.
By the 1930s,
The airliner industry had matured and large consolidated national airlines were established,
With regular international services that spanned the globe,
Including Imperial Airways in Britain,
Lufthansa in Germany,
KLM in the Netherlands,
And United Airlines in America.
Multi-engined aircraft were now capable of transporting dozens of passengers in comfort.
During the 1930s,
The British de Havilland Dragon emerged as a short-haul,
Low-capacity airliner.
Its relatively simple design could carry six passengers,
Each with 40 pounds of luggage,
On a London-Paris route on a fuel consumption of 13 gallons per hour.
The DH-84 Dragon entered worldwide service.
During early August 1934,
One performed the first non-stop flight between the Canadian mainland and Britain in 30 hours,
55 minutes.
Although the intended destination had originally been Baghdad in Iraq.
British production of the Dragon ended in favor of the de Havilland Dragon Rapid,
A faster and more comfortable successor.
By November 1934,
Series production of the Dragon Rapid had commenced,
To have land invested into advanced features,
Including elongated rear windows,
Cabin heating,
Thickened wingtips,
And a strengthened airframe for a higher gross weight of 5,
500 pounds.
Later aircraft were amongst the first airliners to be fitted with flaps for improved landing performance,
Along with downwards facing recognition light and metal propellers,
Which were often retrofitted to older aircraft.
It was also used in military roles.
Civil Dragon Rapids were impressed into military service during the Second World War.
Metal airliners came into service in the 1930s.
In the United States,
The Boeing 247 and the 14-passenger Douglas DC-2 flew during the first half of the decade,
While the more powerful,
Faster 21-32-passenger Douglas DC-3 first appeared in 1935.
DC-3s were produced in quantity for the Second World War and were sold as surplus afterward,
Becoming widespread within the commercial sector.
It was one of the first airliners to be profitable without the support of postal or government subsidies.
Long-haul flights were expanded during the 1930s,
As Pan-American Airways and Imperial Airways competed on transatlantic travel,
Using fleets of flying boats,
Such as the British Short Empire and the American Boeing 314.
Imperial Airways ordered for 28 Empire flying boats was viewed by some as a bold gamble.
At the time,
Flying boats were the only practical means of building aircraft of such size and weight,
As land-based aircraft would have unfeasibly poor field performance.
One Boeing 314,
Registration NC18602,
Became the first commercial plane to circumnavigate the globe during December 1941 and January 1942.
In the United Kingdom,
The Brabazon Committee was formed in 1942 under John Moore Brabazon,
1st Baron Brabazon of Tara,
To forecast advances in aviation technology and the air transport needs of the post-war British Empire in South Asia,
Africa and the Near and Far East,
And Commonwealth,
Australia,
Canada,
New Zealand.
For British use,
Multi-engine aircraft types were allegedly split between the US for military transport aircraft and the UK for heavy bombers.
That such a policy was suggested or implemented have been disputed,
At least by Sir Peter Macefield.
British aircraft manufacturers were tied up to fulfill military requirements and had no free capacity to address other matters through the war.
The committee final report pushed four designs for the state-owned airlines British Overseas Airways Corporation and later British European Airways.
Three piston-powered aircraft of varying sizes,
And a jet-powered 100-seat design at the request of Geoffrey de Havilland,
Involved in the first jet fighters development.
After a brief contest,
The Type 1 design was given to the Bristol Airplane Company,
Building a 100 ton bomber submission.
This evolved into the Bristol Brabazon,
But this project folded in 1951 as BOAC lost interest,
And the first aircraft needed a costly wing redesign to accommodate the Bristol Proteus engine.
The Type II was split between the de Havilland Dove and Airspeed Ambassador conventional piston designs,
And the Vickers model powered by newly developed turboprops.
First flown in 1948,
The VC-II Viceroy was the first turboprop designed to enter service,
A commercial success with 445 Viscounts built.
The Type 3 requirement led to the conventional Avro Tudor and the more ambitious Bristol Britannia,
Although both aircraft suffered protracted developments,
With the latter entering service with BOAC in February 1957,
Over seven years following its order.
The jet-powered Type 4 became the de Havilland Comet in 1949.
It featured an aerodynamically clean design,
With four de Havilland Ghost turbojet engines buried in the wings,
A pressurized fuselage,
And large square windows.
On May 2,
1952,
The Comet took off on the world's first jetliner flight,
Carrying fare-paying passengers,
And simultaneously inaugurated scheduled service between London and Johannesburg.
However,
Roughly one year after introduction,
Three comments broke up mid-flight due to airframe metal fatigue.
Not well understood at the time.
The comet was grounded and tested to discover the cause,
While rival manufacturers heeded the lessons learned while developing their own aircraft.
The improved Comet 2 and the prototype Comet 3 culminated in the redesigned Comet 4 series,
Which debuted in 1958,
And had a productive career over 30 years,
But sales never fully recovered.
By the 1960s,
The UK had lost the airliner market to the US due to the comet disaster and a smaller domestic market,
Not regained by later designs like the BAC-111,
Vickers VZ-10,
And Hawkers Hiddeley Trident.
The stack committee was formed to consider supersonic designs and worked with Bristol to create the Bristol 223,
A 100-passenger transatlantic airliner.
The effort was later merged with similar efforts in France to create the Concorde supersonic airliner to share the cost.
The first batch of the Douglas DC-4s went to the U.
S.
Army and Air Forces,
And was named the C-54 Skymaster.
Some ex-military DC-6s were later converted into airliners,
With both passenger and cargo versions flooding the market shortly after the war's end.
Douglas also developed a pressurized version of the DC-4,
Which it designated the Douglas DC-6.
Rival company Lockheed produced the Constellation.
A triple-tailed aircraft was a wider fuselage than the DC-4.
The Boeing 377 Stratocruiser was based on the C-97 Stratofreighter military transport.
It had a double deck and a pressurized fuselage.
Convair produced the Convair 240,
A 40-person pressurized airplane.
566 examples flew.
Convair later developed the Convair 340,
Which was slightly larger and could accommodate between 44 and 52 passengers,
Of which 311 were produced.
The firm also commenced work on the Convair 37,
A relatively large double-deck airliner that would have served transcontinental routes.
However,
The project was abandoned due to a lack of customer demand and its high development costs.
Rival planes included the Martin 202 and Martin 404,
But the 202 had safety concerns and was unpressurized,
While the 404 only sold around 100 units.
During the post-war years,
Engines became much larger and more powerful,
And safety features such as dicing,
Navigation,
And weather information were added to the planes.
American planes were allegedly more comfortable and had superior flight decks than those produced in Europe.
The most common airliners are the narrow body aircraft or single aisles.
The earliest jet airliners were narrow bodies.
The initial de Havilland Comet,
The Boeing 707,
And its competitor the Douglas DC-8.
They were followed by smaller models,
The Douglas DC-9 and its MD-80,
MD-90,
Boeing 717 derivatives.
The Boeing 727,
737,
And 757 using the 707 cabin cross-section.
Or the Tupolev Tu-154,
Ilyushin Il-18,
And the Ilyushin Il-62.
Currently produced narrow-body airliners include the Airbus A220,
A320 family,
Boeing 737,
Embraer E-Jet family,
And Comac 7919,
Generally used for medium-haul flights with 100 to 240 passengers.
They could be joined by the in-development EarCud MC21.
The larger wide-body aircraft,
Or twin aisle,
As they have two separate aisles in the cabin,
Are used for long-haul flights.
The first was the Boeing 747 quadjet,
Followed by the trijets.
The Lockheed L-1011,
And the Douglas DC-10,
Then its MD-11 Stretch.
Then other quadjets were introduced.
The Ilyushin Il-86 and Il-96,
The Airbus A340 and the Doubledeck A380.
Twin jets were also put into service.
The Airbus A300,
A310,
A330,
And A350.
The 767,
777,
And 787.
Regional airliners seat fewer than 100 passengers.
These smaller aircraft are often used to feed traffic at large airline hubs to larger aircraft operated by the major mainline carriers,
Legacy carriers,
Or flag carriers.
Often sharing the same livery.
Currently produced turboprop regional airliners include the Dash 8 series and the ATR 4272.
Light aircraft can be used as small commuter airliners or as air taxis.
Twin turboprops carrying up to 19 passengers include the Beechcraft 1900,
Jetstream 31,
DHC-6 Twin Otter,
And Embraer EMB-10 Banderante.
Smaller airliners include the single-engine turboprops like the Cessna Caravan and Pilatus PC-12,
Or twin-piston powered aircraft made by Cessna,
Piper,
Britton Norman and Beechcraft.
They often lack lavatories,
Stand-up cabins,
Pressurization,
Galleys,
Overhead storage bins,
Reclining seats,
Or a flight attendant.
