The advantages and disadvantages of air transport

The advantages and disadvantages of air transport.

Air transport is of recent origin in the development of transport system of a country. It is the gift

of 20th century to the world. The second world ware has stimulated the growth of air transport

and it has made progress in the recent years because it is the fastest way of transporting of goods.

The transport of goods through airways is costly and therefore it is designated to carry costly

goods of small quantity.

Advantages

The following are some of the advantages of air transport:

I. High Speed:

Air transport is the fastest mode of transport and therefore suitable carriage of goods over a long

distance requiring less time. There is no substitute for air transport when the transport of goods is

required urgently.



II. Quick Service:

Air transport provides comfortable, efficient and quick transport service. It is regarded as best

mode of transport for transporting perishable goods.



III. No Infrastructure Investment:

Air transport does not give emphasis on construction of tracks like railways. As no capital

investment in surface track is needed, it is a less costly mode of transport.



IV. Easy Access:

Air transport is regarded as the only means of transport in those areas which are not easily

accessible to other modes of transport. It is therefore accessible to all areas regardless the

obstruction of land.



V. No Physical Barrier:

Air transport is free from physical barriers because it follows the shortest and direct routes where

seas, mountains and forests do not obstruct.



VI. Natural Route:

Aircrafts travels to any place without any natural obstacles or barriers. Because the custom

formalities are compiled very quickly. It avoids delay in obtaining clearance.



VII. National Defence:

It plays a significant role in the national defense of the country because modern wars are

conducted with the help of aero planes. Airways has a upper hand a destroying the enemy in a

short period.

Disadvantages

Inspite of many advantages air transport has a number of disadvantages. These disadvantages

are:

I. Risky:

Air transport is the most risky form of transport because a minor accident may put a substantial

loss to the goods, passengers and the crew. The chances of accidents are greater in comparison to

other modes of transport.



II. Very Costly:

Air transport is regarded as the costliest mode of transport. The operating cost of aero-planes are

higher and it involves a great deal of expenditure on the construction of aerodromes and aircraft.

Because of this reason the fare of air transport are so high that it becomes beyond the reach the

common people.



III. Small Carrying Capacity:

The aircrafts have small carrying capacity and therefore these are not suitable for carrying bulky

and cheaper goods. the load capacity cannot be increased as it is found in case of rails.



IV. Unreliable:

Most of the air transport are uncertain and the unreliable because these are controlled by weather

condition. It is seriously affected by adverse weather conditions. Fog, snow and heavy rain

weather may cause cancellation of some flights.



V. Huge Investment:

Air transport requires huge investment for construction and maintenance of aerodromes. It also

requires trained, experienced and skilled personnel which involves a substantial investment.





Different Types of Air Transportation



Hot air balloons are among the many forms of air transportation mankind has invented.



A number of different types of air transportation exist, both commercially and privately. Some of

these types have been developed over the course of decades or even centuries to meet the needs

of modern humans. Each different type is unique in the way it achieves flight, the speed

it travels and the sustainability of its voyage. Many of the inventions have developed into large

scale industries. However, some methods are still in their infancy, or they merely represent a

small niche within the world of flight.



1. Hot Air Balloons

o The first successful type of air transportation that carried humans was the hot air balloon. The

Montgolfier brothers developed the idea of designing a large bag or balloon that held hot air in

the late 1700s. Passengers and the heat source were placed in a gondola or wicker basket

underneath the balloon. Since hot air rises, the balloon flew according to the direction of the

wind. By cooling the balloon's temperature, the passengers safely floated back to earth. Today's

hot air balloons use almost the exact same technology, however, they are able to design the

balloons into nearly any shape imaginable.

Blimps

o An offshoot of the hot air balloon is the blimp. Blimps have been around since the end of the

19th century and were first used as scouting tools by various militaries. The technology has

developed into a convenient and cost-effective way to travel and advertise products. To float,

blimps use hot air and large fans attached to the gondola underneath. They can be deflated for

storage or transportation and inflated cheaply when service is needed. Arguably, the Goodyear

Blimp is the most famous of this mode of transportation, seen at sporting games and events

around the world.

Zeppelins

o Zeppelins were built in the early 20th century, based on designs by Count Ferdinand von

Zeppelin. Visually, zeppelins appear very much like blimps. However, they differ on two key

points: zeppelins have a metal skeleton with a rigid covering, and they are filled with hydrogen.

These two elements made zeppelins much larger than blimps and capable of sustaining long-

distance flights. During World War I, they were introduced as the first flying machine to practice

bombing runs. Through the successive decades, zeppelins were used in the first commercial

airline service, ferrying passengers from Germany to the Americas. Unfortunately, the zeppelin

industry was destroyed by the public outcry from the 1937 Hindenburg disaster, when a zeppelin

exploded over New Jersey, killing 35 people.

Airplanes

o The fixed-wing aircraft is the most popular form of air transportation available. According to

FlightAware, a flight tracking organization, there are 49,315 commercial flights around the

world each day that use fixed-wing aircraft. Nearly 1.1 billion people are flown each year. Fixed-

wing aircraft are distinguishable from other types of air transportation in that they achieve lift

through forward motion. A long runway is needed for the vehicles to achieve enough velocity to

become airborne. Airplanes use a propeller or jet engine to power the aircraft, and the wings act

as a stabilizer for keeping the vehicle in the air.

The first design for functional fixed-wing aircraft dates back to the 1800s. Most of these designs

were models that were not large enough to hold passengers. The first official sustained flight was

performed by the Wright Brothers on Dec. 17, 1903. Over the next decade, advances in the

technology continued. World War I became the first full-scale testing ground for fixed-wing

aircraft. Thousands of planes were built for the purpose of spying, bombing and fighting. By the

time the war ended, aviation had become a science. Following the war, larger passenger planes

were produced, and ultimately, the jet engine was designed, making way for one of the fastest

modes of transportation in the world. Airplanes are used by militaries and civilian agencies

around the world. They have been incorporated with luxurious facilities in the case of passenger

planes and extensive weapons systems for military use.

Helicopters

o With the success of the fixed-wing aircraft, engineers and technicians looked for a way to make

the general principles of airplanes, sustained and fast flight, more efficient. The goal was to

develop a flying vehicle that could take off from a sitting position and carry people to another

location. This invention is the helicopter. Helicopters are propelled using horizontal rotors

consisting of two or more blades. These blades rotate around the top of the machine, and achieve

lift, pulling the body of the helicopter along. Designs for the helicopter had been conceived as far

back as the 1480s, with Leonard da Vinci. However, it wasn't until the early 1900s that

individuals created working models. The post-war era saw the birth of the helicopter industry.

However, most models can only carry four to six people, limiting its commercial use. The

primary applications for helicopters are in the military, law enforcement, medical, news or fire

control sectors.

Personal Air Transportation

o The mid-1900s saw the birth of a new type of air transportation: the personal vehicle. Individuals

invented autogyro, gliders and jet packs for the purpose of transporting a single person from one

place to another. Some of the earliest styles of helicopters were single-seat vehicles. This was the

inspiration for the autogyro. The autogyro uses elements from both fixed-wing and rotary aircraft

in order to fly. The lift is supplied by a rotor positioned on the mast. The stability and power for

flight is achieved by a rear propeller and a set of wings. Gliders use no power to control flight.

They simply use the stability of fixed-wings to soar through the air. The controller can move

flaps on the wings in order to hit updrafts that keep the vehicle in the air. A jet pack is a device

that is generally strapped to the back and releases a powerful blast of gases that allow the user to

fly. These devices are very inefficient, as most models can only contain enough gases to sustain

flight for a few minutes.

Rockets

o Perhaps the most advanced form of air transportation comes in the form of rockets. Rockets use

thrust obtained via the chemical reaction of a fluid that is ejected at high velocities from the

vehicle. The force from the explosion within the vehicle's combustion chamber forces gases out

of the tail of the rocket, pushing the vehicle to extremely high speeds. The principle is based on

inertia, in that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. Rockets have been used at least

since the 13th century for small-scale military applications and recreational displays. However,

the first full-scale implementation was during World War II with Germany's V-2 rockets and

various rocket-powered aircraft. The post-war era saw the rocket implemented as a mode of

transportation that allowed for suborbital and orbital flights in the upper atmosphere. These

vehicles are used for both public and private enterprises.









Among the different modes of transport, air transport has experienced the fastest growth.

However, it must overcome the problem of its infrastructures becoming saturated.



Goods and services. Air transportation plays an integral role in our way of life. Commercial

airlines allow millions of Americans every year to attend business conventions, go home for the

holidays, take vacations around the globe, or travel to other important events. Air transportation

also represents the fastest way to ship most types of cargo over long distances. Passengers and

cargo can be transported by air either over regularly scheduled routes or on "charters," which are

routes specifically designed for a group of travelers or a particular cargo.

What is air transportation used to transport?



For rapid delivery over long distances, air transportation is a logical but more costly choice.

Larger products and large quantities of a product are moved by cargo planes while smaller

parcels are carried on many types of planes



http://www.animationfactory.com/en/search/index.html?cid=E1&q=air+transport



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aviation_accidents_and_incidents









Aviation accidents and incidents



Thunderbird 1st year Capt. Christopher Stricklin ejected from his USAF F-16 aircraft at an

airshow at Mountain Home Air Force Base, Idaho, on September 14, 2003. While performing a

Reverse Half Cuban Eight, Stricklin realized he could not pull up in time and ejected. Eight-

tenths of a second later, the plane crashed, skidding aflame 200 yards, and the engine flew out

and went another 100 yards. Except for a few bruises, he was not injured.



An aviation accident is defined in the Convention on International Civil Aviation Annex 13 as

an occurrence associated with the operation of an aircraft which takes place between the time

any person boards the aircraft with the intention of flight and all such persons have disembarked,

in which a person is fatally or seriously injured, the aircraft sustains damage or structural failure

or the aircraft is missing or is completely inaccessible. The first fatal aviation accident occurred

in a Wright Model A aircraft at Fort Myer, Virginia, USA, on September 17, 1908, resulting in

injury to the pilot, Orville Wright and death of the passenger, Thomas Selfridge



An aviation incident is also defined there as an occurrence other than an accident, associated

with the operation of an aircraft, which affects or could affect the safety of operations.



An accident in which the damage to the aircraft is such that it must be written off, or in which the

plane is destroyed is called a hull loss accident.



Major disasters



September 11 terror attacks



The deadliest aviation-related disaster of any kind, considering fatalities on both the aircraft and

the ground, was the destruction of the World Trade Center in New York City on September 11,

2001, with the intentional crashing of American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight

175. The World Trade Center crashes killed 2,752, most of them occupants of the World Trade

Center towers or emergency personnel responding to the disaster. In addition, 184 were killed

when American Airlines Flight 77 was crashed into the Pentagon and 44 were killed when

United Airlines Flight 93 crashed into a Pennsylvania field, bringing the total number of

casualties of the September 11 attacks to 2,996 (including the 19 terrorist hijackers). Being

deliberate terrorist acts, the 9/11 crashes were not classified as accidents, but as mass murder-

suicide, and subsequently treated by the United States and the member nations of NATO as an

act of war.



Tenerife



The March 27, 1977, Tenerife disaster remains the accident with the highest number of airliner

passenger fatalities. In this disaster, 583 people died when a KLM Boeing 747 attempted take-off

without clearance, and collided with a taxiing Pan Am 747 at Los Rodeos Airport on the island

of Tenerife, Spain. Pilot error was the primary cause of this catastrophe.



JAL Flight 123



The crash of Japan Airlines Flight 123 in 1985 is the single-aircraft disaster with the highest

number of fatalities. In this crash, 520 died on board a Boeing 747. The aircraft suffered an

explosive decompression from an incorrectly repaired pressure bulkhead, which failed in mid

flight and destroyed most of its vertical stabilizer, and severed all of the hydraulic lines, making

the 747 virtually uncontrollable. The pilots were able to keep the plane flying for several minutes

before crashing into a mountain. Incredibly, several people survived the impact, but by the time

that the rescue teams could get there, all but four had died.



Other crashes with high death tolls



The world's deadliest mid-air collision was the 1996 Charkhi Dadri mid-air collision involving

Saudia Flight 763 and Air Kazakhstan Flight 1907 over Haryana, India. The crash was mainly

the result of the Kazakh pilot flying lower than the altitude for which his aircraft was given

clearance. Three hundred and forty-nine passengers and crew died from both aircraft. The

Ramesh Chandra Lahoti Commission, empowered to study the causes, also recommended the

creation of "air corridors" to prevent aircraft from flying in opposite directions at the same

altitude.



On March 3, 1974, Turkish Airlines Flight 981, a McDonnell Douglas DC-10, crashed in a forest

northeast of Paris, France. The destination was London but the plane crashed shortly after taking

off from Orly airport. A total of 346 people were on board; all of them perished in the crash. It

was later determined that the cargo door had detached which caused an explosive decompression

which in turn caused the floor just above to collapse. When the floor collapsed it severed the

control cables, which left the pilots without control of the elevators, the rudder and the No. 2

engine. The plane entered a steep dive and crashed. It was the deadliest plane crash of all time

until the Tenerife disaster in 1977.



On June 23, 1985, Air India Flight 182 crashed off the southwest coast of Ireland when a bomb

exploded in the cargo hold. On board the Boeing 747-237B were 307 passengers and 22 crew

members, all of whom were killed when the plane disintegrated. One passenger had checked in

as "M. Singh". He did not board the flight, but his suitcase which contained the bomb was loaded

onto the plane. "Mr Singh" was never identified and captured. It was later found out that Sikh

extremists were behind the bombing and that it was a retaliation for the Indian government's

attack on the sacred Golden Temple in the city of Amritsar, which is very important for the

Sikhs. This was, at the time, the deadliest terrorist attack involving an airplane.



Iran Air Flight 655 was a civilian airliner shot down by U.S. missiles on Sunday, 3 July 1988,

over the Strait of Hormuz killing all 290 passengers and crew aboard, including 66 children,

ranking it seventh among the deadliest airline disasters.



On May 25, 1979, American Airlines Flight 191, a McDonnell Douglas DC-10-10, lost control

and crashed near O'Hare International Airport in Des Plaines, Illinois, following inproper

maintenance and the loss of an engine. The crash killed all 271 passengers and crew on board, as

well as two people on the ground. It remains the deadliest single-aircraft accident in United

States history, and was also the deadliest aviation disaster until the September 11 attacks in 2001.



On September 1, 1983, a Soviet Sukhoi Su-15 shot down Korean Air Lines Flight 007 after it

unknowingly flew into Soviet airspace, killing all 269 passengers and crew.[1]



On November 12, 2001, American Airlines Flight 587, an Airbus A300, crashed in the Belle

Harbor neighborhood of Queens, New York, just after departing John F. Kennedy International

Airport due to the first officer's overuse of the rudder in response to wake turbulence from a

Japan Airlines 747. The crash killed all 260 people on board, as well as five people on the

ground. It is the second-deadliest aviation accident on U.S. soil, after American Airlines Flight

191



Pan Am Flight 103 was a Boeing 747-121 that was destroyed by a terrorist bomb over the town

of Lockerbie, Scotland, on December 21, 1988. The crash killed all 243 passengers, all 16 crew

and 11 people on the ground (all of whom were residents of Sherwood Crescent, Lockerbie),

making it the worst terrorist attack involving an aircraft in the UK. It remains the deadliest

terrorist attack on British soil.



On October 31, 1999, at around 01:50 EST, EgyptAir Flight 990 (MSR990) crashed into the

Atlantic Ocean, about 60 miles (97 km) south of Nantucket Island, Massachusetts, in

international waters, killing all 217 people on board. The National Transportation Safety Board

report concluded that the pilot had intentionally dived the aircraft into the ocean; Egyptian

authorities have vigorously denied this conclusion, saying that a mechanical failure was to

blame.



[edit] Safety

Controlled Impact by NASA and the FAA.



Main article: Air safety



Aviation safety has come a long way in over one hundred years of implementation. In modern

times, two major manufacturers still produce heavy passenger aircraft for the civilian market:

Boeing in the United States of America and the European company Airbus. Both have placed

huge emphasis on the use of aviation safety equipment, now a billion-dollar industry in its own

right, and made safety a major selling point—realizing that a poor safety record in the aviation

industry is a threat to corporate survival. Some major safety devices now required in commercial

aircraft involve:



 Evacuation slides — aid rapid passenger exit from an aircraft in an emergency situation.

 Advanced avionics - Computerized auto-recovery and alert systems.

 Turbine engines - durability and failure containment improvements

 Landing gear - that can be lowered even after loss of power and hydraulics.



When measured on a passenger-distance calculation, air travel is the safest form of transportation

available: these figures are the ones mentioned by the air industry when quoting statistics on air

safety. A typical statement is this one by the BBC: "UK airline operations are among the safest

anywhere. When compared against all other modes of transport on a fatality per mile basis air

transport is the safest — six times safer than traveling by car and twice as safe as rail."[2]



However, when measured by fatalities per person transported, buses are the safest form of

transportation and the number of air travel fatalities per person are surpassed only by bicycles

and motorcycles. This statistic is the one used by the insurance industry when calculating

insurance rates for air travel.[3]



For every billion kilometers traveled, trains have a fatality rate 12 times larger than air travel,

while automobiles have a fatality rate 62 times larger. On the other hand, for every billion

journeys, buses are the safest form of transportation. By the last measure, air transportation is

three times more dangerous than car transportation and almost 30 times more dangerous than

bus.[4]



A 2007 study by Popular Mechanics found that passengers sitting at the back of a plane are 40%

more likely to survive a crash than those sitting in the front, although this article also quotes

Boeing, the FAA and a website on aircraft safety, all claiming that there is no safest seat. The

article studied 20 crashes, not taking in account the developments in safety after those

accidents.[5] However, a flight data recorder is usually mounted in the aircraft's empennage (tail

section), where it is more likely to survive a severe crash.



Over 95% of people in U.S. plane crashes between 1983 and 2000 survived.[6]