From 10 feet to 20,000 feet in 15 years

by philg

I read The Unsubstantial Air: American Fliers in the First World War and learned that World War I military pilots would climb to as high as 20,000′ without oxygen (and 22,500′ for some German photo reconnaissance equipped with oxygen). The Wright Brothers flew to an altitude of 10′ during their famous 1903 flight. So that’s 10 feet to 20,000 feet in 15 years. Not a bad rate of progress!

7 thoughts on “From 10 feet to 20,000 feet in 15 years”

  1. That a 1300x increase in 15 years. We’ve had 6.5 15 year periods since then. If not for failure and stagnation driven by unreasonable FAA regulation, we’d be flying 10^21 miles over the surface of the earth without oxygen by now. That’s higher than the width of the Milky Way.

    Darn this stagnation. Good thing Moore’s law will never slow down.

  2. Brian, have you read John Morrow’s books? How about a decrease from a 50% casualty rate, where roughly 75% of the casualties were from training and rear areas? Is that due to stagnation driven by unreasonable FAA regulation?

  3. Do you recommend it? Sounds wonderful, and I’m an ex-pilot myself, but also cheap, so before I drop well over $12 on Amazon, I’d like the Phil G Seal of Approval ™.

  4. A stong heavier-than-air bias. Ballons were already at these altitudes years before.

  5. The 20th was a remarkable century, particularly for the U.S. I was born in 1938, the beginning of World War 2 (which was a continuation of World War 1). From biplane fighters to the SR-71, diesel submarines to nuclear boomers, AM radio to streaming internet TV, sulfa drugs to genetics, and on and on…

  7. What’s really remarkable (to me at least ) is how LITTLE progress there has been in the last 50 years or so vs. the 1st 50 years of flight. For example, compare the Wright Flyer of 1903 with the Boeing 707 of 1958. Then compare the Boeing 707 with say the Boeing 737 that is still currently being produced by Boeing. Yes, the engines are improved and there is now a glass cockpit, etc. but the airframe has changed very little, nor has the speed of travel (in fact when you include the time to be processed thru the security theater, your door to door times are WORSE than in 1958).

    Any mature technology tends to plateau but I wonder whether aircraft design has been particularly stagnant. Several factors seem to be involved – it’s incredibly expensive to do a clean sheet design for a jetliner. FAA requirements and liability concerns limit your flexibility. The customers (airliners) are also very conservative and not interested in something that is not tried and true (unless it saves them money). And obviously (and justifiably), safety is a paramount value and the easiest way to make something safe is to take a tried and true design and refine it a little bit to make it even safer. But still, I wonder if we had a less calcified society whether we would be farther ahead by now? Where is the flying car? Where is the supersonic passenger jet or the rocket plane that will get me to Tokyo in 45 minutes? I realize that all of these things hit some kind of economic or technological brick wall that killed their progress, but still it seems that we have stagnated.

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