Increasing Use of Composite Material in the Construction of Aircraft
Essay on the increasing use of composite material in the construction of aircraft and if they will lead to reduction in operational costs
The Airline Industry has its origin with the first scheduled service by the St Petersburg-Tampa Airboat Line on January 1, 1914. The plane, a Benoist XIV, conducted 1205 commercial flights across the Tampa bay in Florida, USA. The airline discontinued the service after three months, as the service proved to be unprofitable (Kaufmann, 2008).
The Benoist XIV was able to transport one passenger up to 135 km, almost one hundred years later, 853 passengers can be carried in the Airbus A380 up to 15,400 km.
Since these early days, the growth in Aviation has been phenomenal. From a standing start almost 100 years ago, aviation accounts for 11.6% of total world travel. (Ribeiro, et al.2007) See Figure 1.
[pic]
Figure 1 Worldwide transport industry broken up per travel type (WBCSD, 2004b)
The growth of the airline industry has been significant, as can be seen in Figure 2, the Passenger sector has grown from less than 10 billion passenger- km in 1950 to nearly 5000 billion in 2010 and the Cargo sector has grown from less than 1 billion tons-km to more than 170 billion tons-km. (Rodrigue et al, 2009).
From it’s beginning in 1914, the world airlines now comprise of 5,541 airlines listed with an IATA unique identifier, a meteoric rise by all accounts. (IATA, 2012).
[pic]
Figure 2 World Air Travel and World Air Freight Carried, 1950-2010 ( IATA)
The growth in aviation has been drive by 3 main factors (Holloway, 2003), they are:
• Deregulation:
Aviation has changed from a method of transport used by the wealthy to a common method for all. In the early days of aviation, the airline business was highly regulated and services could only be operated by state owned flag carriers. Through progressive
The Airline Industry has its origin with the first scheduled service by the St Petersburg-Tampa Airboat Line on January 1, 1914. The plane, a Benoist XIV, conducted 1205 commercial flights across the Tampa bay in Florida, USA. The airline discontinued the service after three months, as the service proved to be unprofitable (Kaufmann, 2008).
The Benoist XIV was able to transport one passenger up to 135 km, almost one hundred years later, 853 passengers can be carried in the Airbus A380 up to 15,400 km.
Since these early days, the growth in Aviation has been phenomenal. From a standing start almost 100 years ago, aviation accounts for 11.6% of total world travel. (Ribeiro, et al.2007) See Figure 1.
[pic]
Figure 1 Worldwide transport industry broken up per travel type (WBCSD, 2004b)
The growth of the airline industry has been significant, as can be seen in Figure 2, the Passenger sector has grown from less than 10 billion passenger- km in 1950 to nearly 5000 billion in 2010 and the Cargo sector has grown from less than 1 billion tons-km to more than 170 billion tons-km. (Rodrigue et al, 2009).
From it’s beginning in 1914, the world airlines now comprise of 5,541 airlines listed with an IATA unique identifier, a meteoric rise by all accounts. (IATA, 2012).
[pic]
Figure 2 World Air Travel and World Air Freight Carried, 1950-2010 ( IATA)
The growth in aviation has been drive by 3 main factors (Holloway, 2003), they are:
• Deregulation:
Aviation has changed from a method of transport used by the wealthy to a common method for all. In the early days of aviation, the airline business was highly regulated and services could only be operated by state owned flag carriers. Through progressive
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