A Century of Aviation

Paper Summary:

Little did the Wright brothers know when they successfully tested their flying machine at Kitty Hawk, on December 17, 1903, what an influential industry they were launching. The paper shows that since then aviation has changed enormously, with airports like Chicago O'Hare facilitating some 383,362 landing and take-off cycles each year. It examines how the aerospace industry is becoming America's leading industrial employer with some 1,484,000 employees and sales of $27 billion. The paper shows however that the evolution and growth of aviation has not been an entirely positive experience. This paper examines the effects "good and bad" that aviation has had on the economy, on society, on the environment and on military power.

From the Paper:

"Surely the most negative aviation-related event that has happened "and has had a tremendously harmful and lingering effect on the U.S. economy and on citizen morale" was the hijacking of jetliners by terrorists on September 11, 2001. On that day, America learned that large airplanes can quite easily be turned into missiles, and those missiles upon impact become potent bombs, to be used by our enemies against this nation. This is an issue that leaders must address, in terms of making airports truly secure and safe. Meanwhile, another kind of airport safety is in the news lately. A recent article in Time Magazine alludes not to hijacking, or of people in planes, but rather to "the vastly greater numbers on the ground who are brutalized as the planes pass overhead."

Millions of people who live ""under the proliferating webs of flight path" are paying an unacceptable price in stress, lost sleep, impaired hearing, inability to concentrate, in their children's ability to learn and in the generally degraded quality of life that results when the mind is tormented by these intrusions," writes Time journalist Lance Morrow."

More papers on A Century of Aviation:

• Essay # 68112 : "Modes of Transportation "
• Analytical Essay # 147411 : "Aviation Strategy for Gulf Air"
• Argumentative Essay # 89568 : "Globalization, Unions and the American Airline Industry"

APA Citation:

MLA Citation: