ABSTRACT
The entire age of air transportation is not yet older than the life span of an ordinary human being. On 17 December 1903, the Wright Brothers launched an airplane with controllable powered engines at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, and changed the world forever, even though evidence has now revealed that several New Zealanders had actually flown first. The historic “controllable-powered” flight covered only 120 feet, which is a shorter distance than an average flight attendant traverses in walking from the front end of a large commercial airliner to the other end. The invention of the airplane enabled man for the first time in history to rapidly and easily travel over land-dominated obstacles like mountains, deserts, and ice caps. It has since also provided speed not even imagined a generation ago. The greatest tribute to air transportation, however, may be the simple fact that it is taken so much for granted. Any passenger can walk into any scheduled airline service and purchase a ticket to virtually anywhere on the planet because of the airlines’ intercarrier cooperative programs. The
same service is available for freight shipments. The world depends on it. Unfortunately, there are signs that its infrastructure and security have been somewhat neglected and taken for granted.
