FIVE SURPRISING FACTS ABOUT THE AVIATION INDUSTRY

It’s that time of the year when the air turns crisp and cold, and when snow begins to blanket the ground and delight people of all ages.The travel industry is back and booming, which means we can bust out some surprising facts about air the aviation industry. The history of air travel and aviators is fascinating; here’s some fun facts about aviation in modern times.

The use of navigational lights has been standardized over the last century, which is helpful for safety and understanding between different types of transportation workers. Airplanes actually have the same type of navigational lights as water vessels.
All types of planes and ships will have these lights, no matter the size or purpose of the vehicle. The port light will be red, and the starboard light will be green to signal to others the position of the plane or boat. There also exists a white flashing light to signal when aircrafts are on the move.

There’s a rich history of pioneers and courageous aviator’s in the history of flight, but the first commercial flight actually took place on New Year’s Day in the year 1914. The flight was only thirty-four kilometers long, a simple trek across Tampa Bay in Florida.
The first passenger on this flight was actually the mayor of St. Petersburg, Abram C. Pheil. The plane used was actually closer to a flying boat and attracted a large crowd at its landing point.The record for shortest transatlantic flight was set by Concorde on a flight from New York City to London in 1983. The flight was finished in less than three hours – two hours and fifty-six minutes to be exact.It was a one-way flight carrying passengers on business. The flight’s time was streamlined by a great weather conditions and a direct route taken by the pilots. The Concorde may have been blisteringly fast, but it has nothing on the Lockheed SR-17. This manned jet is the fastest in the world and has held this record since 1976. The jet can fly at speeds of over 2,193 miles per hour, or just over thirty-five hundred kilometers per hour.

It’s actually a type of military spy plane, orbiting the Earth at around eighty-five thousand feet at incendiary speeds. The jet was developed in the 1960s but deployed in the early 70s. It was designed to be fast enough to outfly missiles!
Although many planes had made it “around the world” by 1986, the Rutan Model 76 Voyager was the first to do so without stopping or needing refueling even once during the flight.The plane was actually homebuilt and housed seventeen separate fuel tanks; it took off from California on December 14th and landed nine days later, on December 23rd, a day before Christmas Eve. There were four Collier Trophies, the most prestigious award in aviation, awarded for the flight: two to the pilots, one to the designer, and one to the crew chief.