Beyond recognition

Forty years is a long time in anyone’s language. If the past four decades have seen incredible change in Australia and on the world aviation landscape the next four promise to be even more momentous. As the pace of technological advances gain increasing altitude it all points to a challenging landscape ahead for airlines and the overall industry.

We take it for granted now. The Wright Brother’s first flight on December 14, 1903, which lasted a mere four seconds and covered just 112 feet, is ancient history. Seventy-four years later, in 1977, when Australian Aviation magazine began publishing, airlines such as Qantas were spanning the globe with Boeing B707 and B747 jumbo jets. The age of mass air travel was underway. Next March, the launch by the Flying Kangaroo of its new Boeing B787-9 Dreamliner on the first ever non-stop scheduled flights between Australia and Europe – from Perth to London – will mark another milestone in commercial aviation and particularly for Australia.

Yet if anything can confidently be predicted, it is that it won’t end there. The pace of technological development has been gathering momentum and will continue to do so. Unprecedented advances in areas such as engine technology, aircraft manufacturing, fuel and operational efficiency, information technology (IT) and increasingly satellite-based air traffic management are set to make the next forty years even more exciting than what went before. The days when non-stop flying between Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne to Europe will be possible are not as far away as was once thought. Think of this. Before long, these developments will offer airlines new jets capable of flying anywhere in the world without a re-fueling stop.