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Yahoo
2 days ago
- Yahoo
The Golden Age of Flying Wasn't All That Golden
The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here. This is an edition of Time-Travel Thursdays, a journey through The Atlantic's archives to contextualize the present. Sign up here. Of YouTube's many microgenres, one of the most popular and most enduring is the airplane meltdown. There are thousands or maybe millions of these videos online: Passengers going nuts over spilled drinks or supposedly bad service; flight cancellations turning grown adults feral; tiny inconveniences disrupting the brittle peace of the temporary societies that exist in the air above us all the time. Sometimes, if you're lucky, you'll find a compilation, a clip show of modern misery. The Atlantic's early aviation writers would have a lot of questions about this. Those questions would probably start with 'What is a YouTube?,' but I suspect they'd get more philosophical pretty quickly. In the early 20th century, flying was a source of intense curiosity and great wonder; if anyone was melting down, it was probably because they were simply so dazzled by it all, or maybe very scared—not because someone used their armrest. 'For some years I have been afflicted with the belief that flight is possible to man,' Wilbur Wright wrote in a letter to a friend in 1900, eventually published in The Atlantic. Three years later, he and his brother, Orville, managed to get a biplane in the air for 12 seconds. Only 18 years after that, Kenneth Chafee McIntosh wrote that 'aviation has superposed itself upon civilization. Its future is limitless, not predictable.' Its present, however, was not fun. Early airplanes were used mostly for warcraft and mail carrying; occasionally, a passenger might come along for some reason or another, but they had to sit with the pilot in an open cockpit, exposed to whatever the weather was. Even once we figured out how to put more people inside planes, cabins weren't pressurized, so they flew low and jiggled everyone around. Until 1930, there were no flight attendants, which I suppose means there was no one to scream at. Some engines were loud enough to cause permanent hearing damage. Even so, the airplane's world-changing potential was obvious. By 1941, people were writing poetry collections about it, and The Atlantic was reviewing them. After 1945, the era of mass air travel began, aviation having been 'transformed by the war from a government-subsidized experiment into an economically sound transportation industry.' In the '50s, airplanes overtook trains, and then ships, as America's preferred means of long-distance transportation. This era is now widely considered to be commercial aviation's golden age, when the technology was established enough to be comfortable, safe, and fast, but still novel enough to feel remarkable: human ingenuity made material. In the popular imagination, at least, this was the last time flying was dignified. Stewardesses wore fabulous outfits and meals were served on real plates and nobody knew what a vape was. But that moment existed more in theory than it did in reality. In the century's middle decades, flying was significantly more expensive and more dangerous than it is today. Airports were segregated until the early 1960s. Every new advance seemed to come with a downside. As soon as planes got faster and flights got longer, passengers started reporting strange symptoms, ones they would later learn to call jet lag. As more people flew, the experience became both more banal and more crowded—just another form of mass transit. More flights and faster speeds meant mounting safety concerns (some warranted, some not). In 1978, the airline industry was deregulated, which resulted in less stability, lower quality of service, and, eventually, higher fares. By June 2001, three months before air travel was to change forever, it was already pretty bad, per the pilot and longtime Atlantic writer James Fallows. The industry was 'nearing the limits of its capacity,' he wrote, having routed more and more flights through hub airports in an effort to keep planes full and maximize profits. Delays were reaching record levels. After 9/11, security theater turned flight attendants into cops and passengers into would-be criminals. The airlines continued to cut costs, squooshing seats closer together and charging for just about everything they could: legroom, internet, checked bags, overhead space, food, even water, as Ester Bloom reported in 2015. 'To travel by air,' Lenika Cruz wrote in 2022, 'is to endure a million tiny indignities.' Flying really has gotten worse, due to greed and war and corporate decision making. But the truth is, the experience has always been somewhat unpleasant, because transporting human bodies through the air at hundreds of miles an hour is so difficult, it almost shouldn't be possible. I looked in our archives expecting to find stories about air travel's supposed midcentury glamor. I didn't find much. But I did find a piece from 2007, in which Virginia Postrel examines the collective longing for such a time, a time 'before price competition, security checks, and slobs in sweatpants ruined everything.' She quoted Aimée Bratt, who, as a flight attendant with Pan Am in the mid-'60s, 'was struck by 'how crowded it was on an airplane, no place to put anything, lines for the lavatories, no place to sit or stand … Passengers got their food trays, there was no choice of meals, drinks were served from a hand tray, six at a time, pillows and blankets were overhead, and there were no extra amenities like headsets or hot towels.'' But people didn't complain. 'Travel itself,' Postrel wrote, 'was privilege enough. Airline glamour was not about the actual experience of flying but about the idea of air travel—and the ideals and identity it represented.' Flying was budding internationalism, uncomplicated awe, wide skies, endless potential, the future made present and the impossible made real. Flying wasn't thrilling because the stewardesses dressed amazing—it was thrilling because up until very recently, the very concept of a waitress in the sky had been science fiction. Air travel has changed, but so have we. This is the noble life cycle of any technology: It is unimaginable, and then it is imaginable, and then it is just there. Fire, windmills, eyeglasses, the steam engine, pasteurization, cars, air-conditioning, microwaves, miniskirts, email, smartphones, bubble tea—every miracle eventually becomes mundane. It has to, I think: We need to make room for new miracles. We need to find new things to write poems about. When this magazine was first printed, in 1857, our species thought we were stuck on Earth. We eventually figured out how to liberate ourselves from the laws of physics and fly through the air, and then we figured out how to get live television and cold orange juice and fully reclining beds up there. And then we figured out how to make all of this dreadfully tedious. That's a remarkable human achievement, too. Article originally published at The Atlantic
Atlantic
5 days ago
- Atlantic
Has Air Travel Ever Been Good?
This is an edition of Time-Travel Thursdays, a journey through The Atlantic 's archives to contextualize the present. Sign up here. Of YouTube's many microgenres, one of the most popular and most enduring is the airplane meltdown. There are thousands or maybe millions of these videos online: Passengers going nuts over spilled drinks or supposedly bad service; flight cancellations turning grown adults feral; tiny inconveniences disrupting the brittle peace of the temporary societies that exist in the air above us all the time. Sometimes, if you're lucky, you'll find a compilation, a clip show of modern misery. The Atlantic 's early aviation writers would have a lot of questions about this. Those questions would probably start with 'What is a YouTube?,' but I suspect they'd get more philosophical pretty quickly. In the early 20th century, flying was a source of intense curiosity and great wonder; if anyone was melting down, it was probably because they were simply so dazzled by it all, or maybe very scared—not because someone used their armrest. 'For some years I have been afflicted with the belief that flight is possible to man,' Wilbur Wright wrote in a letter to a friend in 1900, eventually published in The Atlantic. Three years later, he and his brother, Orville, managed to get a biplane in the air for 12 seconds. Only 18 years after that, Kenneth Chafee McIntosh wrote that 'aviation has superposed itself upon civilization. Its future is limitless, not predictable.' Its present, however, was not fun. Early airplanes were used mostly for warcraft and mail carrying; occasionally, a passenger might come along for some reason or another, but they had to sit with the pilot in an open cockpit, exposed to whatever the weather was. Even once we figured out how to put more people inside planes, cabins weren't pressurized, so they flew low and jiggled everyone around. Until 1930, there were no flight attendants, which I suppose means there was no one to scream at. Some engines were loud enough to cause permanent hearing damage. Even so, the airplane's world-changing potential was obvious. By 1941, people were writing poetry collections about it, and The Atlantic was reviewing them. After 1945, the era of mass air travel began, aviation having been 'transformed by the war from a government-subsidized experiment into an economically sound transportation industry.' In the '50s, airplanes overtook trains, and then ships, as America's preferred means of long-distance transportation. This era is now widely considered to be commercial aviation's golden age, when the technology was established enough to be comfortable, safe, and fast, but still novel enough to feel remarkable: human ingenuity made material. In the popular imagination, at least, this was the last time flying was dignified. Stewardesses wore fabulous outfits and meals were served on real plates and nobody knew what a vape was. But that moment existed more in theory than it did in reality. In the century's middle decades, flying was significantly more expensive and more dangerous than it is today. Airports were segregated until the early 1960s. Every new advance seemed to come with a downside. As soon as planes got faster and flights got longer, passengers started reporting strange symptoms, ones they would later learn to call jet lag. As more people flew, the experience became both more banal and more crowded—just another form of mass transit. More flights and faster speeds meant mounting safety concerns (some warranted, some not). In 1978, the airline industry was deregulated, which resulted in less stability, lower quality of service, and, eventually, higher fares. By June 2001, three months before air travel was to change forever, it was already pretty bad, per the pilot and longtime Atlantic writer James Fallows. The industry was 'nearing the limits of its capacity,' he wrote, having routed more and more flights through hub airports in an effort to keep planes full and maximize profits. Delays were reaching record levels. After 9/11, security theater turned flight attendants into cops and passengers into would-be criminals. The airlines continued to cut costs, squooshing seats closer together and charging for just about everything they could: legroom, internet, checked bags, overhead space, food, even water, as Ester Bloom reported in 2015. 'To travel by air,' Lenika Cruz wrote in 2022, 'is to endure a million tiny indignities.' Flying really has gotten worse, due to greed and war and corporate decision making. But the truth is, the experience has always been somewhat unpleasant, because transporting human bodies through the air at hundreds of miles an hour is so difficult, it almost shouldn't be possible. I looked in our archives expecting to find stories about air travel's supposed midcentury glamor. I didn't find much. But I did find a piece from 2007, in which Virginia Postrel examines the collective longing for such a time, a time 'before price competition, security checks, and slobs in sweatpants ruined everything.' She quoted Aimée Bratt, who, as a flight attendant with Pan Am in the mid-'60s, 'was struck by 'how crowded it was on an airplane, no place to put anything, lines for the lavatories, no place to sit or stand … Passengers got their food trays, there was no choice of meals, drinks were served from a hand tray, six at a time, pillows and blankets were overhead, and there were no extra amenities like headsets or hot towels.'' But people didn't complain. 'Travel itself,' Postrel wrote, 'was privilege enough. Airline glamour was not about the actual experience of flying but about the idea of air travel—and the ideals and identity it represented.' Flying was budding internationalism, uncomplicated awe, wide skies, endless potential, the future made present and the impossible made real. Flying wasn't thrilling because the stewardesses dressed amazing—it was thrilling because up until very recently, the very concept of a waitress in the sky had been science fiction. Air travel has changed, but so have we. This is the noble life cycle of any technology: It is unimaginable, and then it is imaginable, and then it is just there. Fire, windmills, eyeglasses, the steam engine, pasteurization, cars, air-conditioning, microwaves, miniskirts, email, smartphones, bubble tea—every miracle eventually becomes mundane. It has to, I think: We need to make room for new miracles. We need to find new things to write poems about. When this magazine was first printed, in 1857, our species thought we were stuck on Earth. We eventually figured out how to liberate ourselves from the laws of physics and fly through the air, and then we figured out how to get live television and cold orange juice and fully reclining beds up there. And then we figured out how to make all of this dreadfully tedious. That's a remarkable human achievement, too.
Epoch Times
12-07-2025
- Sport
- Epoch Times
John Northrop's All-Wing Vision and the B-2 Stealth Bomber
When America hosted its first International Air Meet from Jan. 10 to Jan. 20, 1910, it had only been six years since the Wright Brothers conducted the world's first successful sustained flight in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. The Wright Flyer first flew for 12 seconds and then ended the day with a 59-second flight, covering 120 feet and 852 feet, respectively. The crowd of spectators for this history-making event, aside from Orville and Wilbur Wright, numbered five people. The International Air Meet exemplified the growth and excitement of aviation. The International Air Meet took place on the opposite side of the continent in Los Angeles. It showcased 16 different planes (43 were scheduled), witnessed flights that covered 110 miles and reached higher than 4,000 feet. It was attended by more than 250,000 people.
Fast Company
20-06-2025
- Business
- Fast Company
What the Wright Brothers can teach science entrepreneurs about how to survive a funding pullback
What happens when venture capital and government pull back from science entrepreneurs at the same time? Many scientists think we're about to find out, and are looking at how we can preserve our country's innovative leadership. While others are pulling back, at Activate we're leaning in and asking, 'What should we teach the scientist founders we support so they can find the opportunity in this crisis?' History lesson History has a lesson for us: the U.S. saw a boom in 'deep-tech' between 1870 and 1920 even though neither venture capital nor government grants existed at that time. Moreover, much of that technology was commercialized by teams of fewer than 10 people. Consider, for example, a particularly famous startup founded by two brothers. In 1892, some of America's most famous science entrepreneurs, Orville and Wilbur Wright, capitalized on a growing craze for bicycles in the U.S. by opening a bicycle shop in Dayton, Ohio. In 1896, the U.S. Government's War Department allocated $50,000 (about $1.9M in 2025 USD) to the Smithsonian Institution, the closest thing to a national lab at that time, to develop a powered flying machine. In 1899, in response to this very public market signal and to growing competition in the bicycle industry, the Wrights began to pivot toward developing an airplane. In their historic moment, they demonstrated powered flight in November 1903 and went on to earn their first revenue (totaling about $3.8M in 2025 USD) in late 1908 and early 1909. Financing deep tech Commercializing deep tech took the same decade then that it does now. This makes sense: we can make much more complex technologies today, but the core loop of design-prototype-test-revise continues to move at the speed of human thought and observation. Without grants or venture investment, financing deep tech then was very different, but it was not impossible. The Wrights continued to own and operate their bicycle business (with substantial assistance from their sister Katherine) over their entire entrepreneurship journey, only divesting in 1908 once the airplane was sure to pay the bills. From bicycle to airplane The bicycle shop provided the funds, skills, team, and facilities needed to develop the airplane. Funds: The bicycle shop was consistently profitable, allowing the Wrights to support themselves and invest in their airplane research. Skills: The Wrights started by selling and repairing bicycles from a variety of brands, graduated to assembling bicycles from components and selling them under their own 'Van Cleve' and 'St. Clair' brands, and eventually invented components (such as improved wheel hubs) for their cycles. Team: Charlie Taylor, whose many contributions to the first airplane include designing and building its aluminum engine, began working with the Wright Cycle Co. as a contract machinist in 1898 before joining full-time in 1901. Facility: The workshop and tools in the bicycle shop doubled as the laboratory for testing and building prototypes for the first airplane. When the Wrights finally closed the bicycle shop, it was to fully convert it to a workshop for their airplane business. Today's science entrepreneurs have a lot they can learn from this model. For one, even when venture capital investment is available, opening a bicycle shop before developing an airplane is often the way to go. We're advising our Activate fellows to find products and services that customers will buy today and that build the team, skills, and assets they need to bring their transformative technologies to market. The genius of the Wright brothers wasn't just in being first in flight, but also in seeing how the airplane could grow out of their bicycle business. Three questions In my job as managing director of Activate's Boston community, I have long-term coaching relationships with 20 science entrepreneurs. Right now I'm telling them to ask themselves three questions: How do I grow the long-term value of my airplane? How do I grow the short-term value of my bicycle shop? How do I tighten the connection between the two? In an uncertain economy, supporting science entrepreneurs is more important than ever. They have the skills needed to build 'bicycle shops' that deliver unglamorous but critical products and services for the millions of deeply technical niche markets that underpin our modern world. They also have the creativity and tenacity to leverage their day-to-day work to invent entirely new industries that meet our country's most pressing needs. We need to publicly recommit to these often unsung science heroes so that we can set them—and our country—up for success.
Khaleej Times
13-06-2025
- Automotive
- Khaleej Times
What Aston Martin's Le Mans comeback means for classic car investments
Le Mans is to the French what Silverstone is to the British and Indianapolis is to the Americans — the home of motorsport. The first French Grand Prix took place there in 1906. This city in Northwestern France, on the Sarth River — from where the circuit takes its name — has a long history dating to before the Romans took over in 47 BC. Henry II, the Plantagenet King of England, was born there to Geoffrey V of Anjou and Matilda of England, the daughter of Henry I and fourth son of William the Conqueor; Matilda, who was 25 and entering her second marriage, married Geoffrey, who was only 13 at the time, in Le Mans Cathedral on June 17, 1128. Fast forward 780 years to August 8, 1908, and Le Mans residents would have witnessed Wilbur Wright demonstrate the flying machine he had developed with his younger brother Orville. Yet, despite the city's extraordinarily rich history, Le Mans is best known for being home to the oldest active endurance racing event in the world, the 24 Hours of Le Mans. The race, which began in 1923, forms part of the Triple Crown of Motorsport. Unlike the Monaco Grand Prix and Indianapolis 500, Le Mans is won by the car that covers the greatest distance in 24 hours. Rather than focusing on speed, the primary objective is endurance — reliable cars that travel at speeds up to 250mph, lap after lap after lap, spending as little time as possible in the pits. The race is organised by Automobile Club de l'Ouest and since 2012 has been part of the FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC). This year promises to be particularly exciting, especially for the British: Aston Martin has not won here since Roy Salvadori and Carroll Shelby took their DBR1/300 across the line in 1959, some 66 years ago. The company's Valkyrie is an old-school, purebred V12, designed by Essex-born Englishman Adrian Newey, one of the greatest car designers of all time. Should it win on June 14, it will cement Aston Martin alongside Bentley as a perennial of British motorsport brands. Bentley has won Le Mans six times, including an incredible run from 1927-1930, when it was unbeaten, coining the expression The Bentley Boys, which refers to the group of wealthy British motorists who drove the cars to victory. The Valkyrie's engine is built by Cosworth, a portmanteau of the surnames of Mike Costin and Keith Duckworth, who met at Colin Chapman's Lotus Engineering Limited — one of the most successful racing teams of all time — and founded Cosworth in 1958, the year preceding Aston Martin's last Le Mans victory. The car will be driven by an all-British crew of Harry Ticknell, Tom Gamble and Ross Gunn, and carry the highly appropriate race number 007. It would be an historic win, but competition will be fierce: Ferrari is going for the hattrick, Porsche for an earth-shattering 20th win (no wonder the brand's reputation for reliability), and the French — Peugeot and Alpine — are desperate to win on home soil (the French haven't won since 2009). In addition, Mercedes returns to the fray following a 25-year hiatus; British racing team Jota Sport has teamed up with deep-pocketed Cadillac to enter no less than four cars, to say nothing of the ambitions of BMW and Toyota. This year's race promises the excitement of Moss and Jenks averaging 98 mph in the 1955 Mille Miglia. The Allure of Aston Martin Founded in 1913 by Lionel Martin and Robert Bamford, Aston Martin has a century of motorsport heritage and performance, connections with British royalty and, of course, James Bond. The marque's storied lineage at Le Mans is a siren call for discerning investors. The 1959 triumph of the DBR1, of which only five were ever constructed, culminated in a singular chassis commanding $22.6m at RM Sotheby's auction in 2017 — testament to the brand's enduring cachet. Should the Valkyrie claim victory next weekend, the ripple effect could elevate the value of Aston's stable of classic cars. The DB5, forever entwined with the mystique of Bond all the way from Goldfinger to No Time To Die, and, arguably, the most famous car in cinematic history, commands around a million dollars in fine fettle, yet those with documented racing provenance may soar well into seven figures. Rarer still is the 1961 DB4 GT Zagato, a mere nineteen crafted, with 'MP209' fetching £10m at the Goodwood Festival of Speed Bonham's auction on July 13, 2018, a tenfold appreciation from its one-million-dollar valuation in 2000. These automobiles transcend mere machinery; they are artifacts of motorsport's golden era, their value tethered to Le Mans' legacy of endurance. Scarcity and impeccable provenance reign supreme, rendering such vehicles coveted by collectors who prize history as much as horsepower. Classic Cars and the S&P 500: A Study in Returns Do classic cars outstrip the steady march of the stock market? The evidence suggests they can, though not without caprice. The Knight Frank Luxury Investment Index records a 10 per cent annual return for classic cars from 2010-20, surpassing the S&P 500's more pedestrian seven to eight per cent. Consider the 1962 Ferrari 250 GTO, acquired for $1.5m in 1990 and which sold for forty-eight million in 2018 — a 30-fold return that eclipses the S&P's sixfold growth over that time span. Similarly, the aforementioned Aston Martin DB4 GT Zagato, purchased for one million in 2000, now commands 10 million, a tenfold gain that outpaces the S&P's threefold rise. However, would-be investors should not expect the road to be as smooth as the Mulsanne Straight. A pedestrian Aston DB6 may merely shadow the S&P's returns, particularly when burdened by annual maintenance costs — five to ten thousand dollars for storage, insurance, and restoration. Liquidity further complicates the equation: stocks can be sold at a moment's notice, while classic cars languish for months. A Valkyrie victory in 2025 could ignite demand for Aston's DB5, much as Ferrari's hattrick will only bolster the allure of the 250 GTO, which, with its trio of Le Mans triumphs from 1960 to 1962, remains the ne plus ultra of automotive investment. Classic cars offer a potent blend of passion and profit, but their volatility demands a steady hand. The Road Ahead If you are new to the pursuit, diligence is paramount. Rarity is the lodestar — the fewer there are, the more sought after they are likely to be. Condition is critical: vehicles with original components, unmarred by corrosion and accompanied by meticulous maintenance records, command premiums. Provenance — be it a racing pedigree or ownership by a luminary — can elevate a car's worth exponentially. The 1955 Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR known as the 'Uhlenhaut Coupe' sold for $142 million in 2022, setting the record for the most expensive car of all time (the proceeds went to the Mercedes-Benz fund, a global scholarship programme designed to support young people working to make the world more sustainable). Platforms, such as RM Sotheby's and Bonhams, offer windows into current market dynamics; a well-preserved DB5 may be acquired for $150,000, while if you are lucky you may find the more accessible DB7, Aston's gateway classic, at around $50,000. Ownership is not without its tolls: restoration, insurance, and climate-controlled storage can soon wrack up thousands of pounds in annual costs. And unlike company shares, classic cars are illiquid, their markets subject to whimsy. Never underestimate the value of liquidity. Classic car 'investing' is all about the joys of ownership and immersing oneself in the culture. A DB7, driven with joy, may prove a wiser investment than a DB6 acquired solely for gain. Monitor Le Mans — a Valkyrie triumph could signal just the right time to enter the fray. Maltin is the Chief Investment Officer of RIM (BVI) Limited. The opinions expressed here are his own and do not necessarily reflect current portfolio positioning. For additional information visit
