Essay, Research Paper: Airplane Industry

Airplane IndustryThe Airplane Industry was a great industry that contributed tothe New Industrial Revolution. Quickly growing popular,airplanes took off with a boom when World War I started. This industry also led to and was linked to several otherindustries, as will be explained below. After the Wright brothers (Orville and Wilbur Wright)successfully flew their prototype at Kitty Hawk shocking Americain 1903, the airplane industry took off. Due to WW1, theindustry was transformed in a four year time span fromcrafts-oriented workshop in local warehouses to mass-productionmanufacturing. The universal use of wood in airframeconstruction allowed for mixing in the industry. Furnituremakers produced the wooden box-like structure while automobileengineers worked on preparing engines for these powerfulmachines. In June of 1910, Glenn Curtiss proposed military use ofairplanes for war. In August of that year, the first rifle wasfired from an airplane. Naval adaptations of aviation also
























emerged when again, Glenn Curtiss demonstrated taking off from aship in an airplane. By 1914, there were sixteen firms listed bythe Census Bureau as aircraft manufacturers with a combinedoutput of 49 plane, and by 1918 production reached a wartimepeak of approximately 14,000 aircraft and employment of 175,000people. Also in 1918, a state-of-the-art fighter - the FokkerD.VII - was powered by a 160 hp Mercedes six-cylinderwater-cooled radial engine and had a maximum speed of 189 km/hrand the first strategic bomber - the Handley Page V/1500, waspowered by four 375 hp R-R Eagle engines with a maximum speed of156 km/hr. In the early 20s, the military began experimentingand exchanged the wooden body for a sturdier, but heavier, steelone. With the production all-steel aircraft came a much, much,larger demand for steel. The steel industries took off evenfurther than they had been going. And those planes don't fly onwater. The Petroleum industry took off as well.