The Top 10 Uses of Aviation

Broadcast journalism is one of many activities that has benefited greatly from the aviation industry. With the advent of the "news chopper," television and radio stations began providing live traffic updates to their viewers and listeners. With time, stations also employed helicopters to provide unique views of breaking news events: aerial coverage of car crashes, natural disasters (including reporting on the paths of tornados), and, famously, following high speed car chases. These choppers also have created some news on their own -- there have been numerous crashes involving newsgathering helicopters, some of them fatal.

The sport of air racing, a spectacular and dangerous high-speed aerial display, has made its most prominent splash with the Reno National Championship Air Races. Since 1964 Reno has hosted this annual competition, where a collection of jets, kit-built planes, and rebuilt World War II fighters assemble. In the face of safety concerns after a rash of race-related deaths, Red Bull brought some interest back to the world of air racing with a series of international events in which racers fly individually, called the Red Bull Air Race World Series. Outside of racing, pilots also display their skills in aerobatic displays and military demos, like those held at the EAA AirVenture air show held annually at Oshkosh. Events like these also host experimental and home-made aircraft.

Even in photography's infancy attempts were made to capture bird's-eye-views of the world. French photographer Nadar is credited as the first to take an aerial photo, from a large hot-air balloon in the 1850s. Like many technologies before and since, great strides were made in aerial photography thanks to the military. World War I pilots began taking aerial shots of enemy positions. During the 20th century, cartographers, archeologists, and film makers were among the many to benefit from an eagle's-eye view. More recently, NASA has used its Ikhana unmanned craft since 2007 to photograph wildfires in California to aid firefighters. Ikhana is equipped with infrared imaging technology that allows it to see through heavy smoke and darkness and report the locations of hot spots and flames to firefighters in real-time.

Hot-air balloons also ushered in the practice of top dressing. As early as 1906, New Zealander John Chaytor was spreading seeds over his farm land. Shortly after, planes took over, providing a way to cover large fields with pesticides and fertilizers relatively quickly. In the 1940s and '50s, converted World War II aircraft became the standard for crop dusting, and farmers came to depend on the low-flying planes. The Piper Pawnee series, specially designed for agricultural work, came into general use in the 1960s. Today's ag planes are equipped with GPS technologies, and can cover more acres per flight than ever, though crop dusting remains among the more dangerous aviation professions. However, Yamaha's remote-controlled miniature helicopters represent one solution to this danger, and several thousand are now used in Japan to cultivate rice paddies.

Aerial firefighting began with some creative, if not fully effective, techniques. Wooden barrels full of water and hoses were the first tools in the attempt to fight wildfires from above. Eventually, however, firefighters began dropping retardants such as borate salts, and today, ammonium sulfate and ammonium polyphosphate, from large airtankers. For the most part, today's airtankers are converted 1950s aircraft such as DC-6s, P-2V Neptunes and C-130A Hercules. But this summer Evergreen is introducing its new Supertanker, a Boeing 747 that the company says is equipped to carry about 24,000 gallons, seven times more water/retardant than most existing firefighting aircraft. Unlike older tankers, which empty their entire contents in one large drop, the Supertanker is able to segment its load to allow several drops in a single flight.

By the 1950s business trips were a major source of commercial air travel. The airplane allowed professionals to have face-to-face meetings around the country, even around the world, and travel faster and more often than was previously possible. Today, business/private aviation is a constantly growing and in-demand field. Business jets come in all sizes, ranging from very light jets, like the Cessna Citation Mustang, which carries four or five passengers, to the Boeing Business Jet (BBJ) series. BBJs are 737s converted for private use, seating up to 60. The Cessna Citation X pictured is a medium-sized business jet that carries eight to 12 passengers.

Search and Rescue (SAR) teams are operated by numerous organizations and groups -- from military branches such as the Air Force and Coast Guard to the National Association of Volunteer Search and Rescue Teams. SAR efforts are conducted around the world in urban areas, in mountains and forests, and in oceans, on foot, in aircraft, by ski patrols and even canines. The U.S. Coast Guard was integrating aviation into its work while flight was still in its formative years; Coast Guard members were on hand for the Wright Brothers' famous first powered flight. Eventually, the Guard came to have its own aviation division, and it pioneered the use of helicopters for search and rescue. SAR air teams have played key roles in recent disaster relief efforts like Hurricane Katrina and the wildfires in California, where victims can only be reached from above.

Even before photographs could be taken, military forces were using aviation to track the movements of their enemies. France sent a balloon to scout a battlefield as far back as 1794, and during the United States Civil War the Union Army had an entire Balloon Corps. World War I ushered aviation into a permanently prominent military role. At first aircraft were capable only of making short reconnaissance flights, and maybe carrying one bomb with them. But the war brought urgency to the development of military aircraft and soon they were carrying machine guns and making strides in strategic bombing. By the time World War II began, aviation had come into its own, with transatlantic flights having been accomplished and new patents popping up around the world. Bombers and fighters such as the F-111 Aardvark used by the U.S. Air Force during the Vietnam War have played major roles in every war, as have reconnaissance and transport aircraft.

One of aviation's most indispensable uses is rapidly transporting the sick and injured to where they can receive the care they need. Air medical services came into use during the 1920s. One of the first EMS flights carried patients from Nicaragua to Panama, where they were treated at a French Army Base. Helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft alike are used in air emergency medical services. The Association of Air Medical Services estimates that there are about 650,000 EMS flights each year, with roughly 500,000 of those performed by helicopters. While helicopters are invaluable for their ability to land near accident spots and on the rooftops of city-center hospitals, fixed-wing aircraft are generally used for moving patients longer distances, because they are faster and can fly much farther than helicopters. Bell and American Eurocopter are among the major EMS aircraft producers, supplying helicopters to operators such as STAT MedEvac.

Though millions were flying by the mid-20th century, commercial aviation was largely enjoyed by a small sector of society -- businesspeople and those wealthy enough to afford the high airfares. But when the de Havilland Comet, the Boeing 707 and the Douglas DC-8 began intercontinental flights in the late 1950s to introduce the jet era, the skies began to open up to the general public. By 1980, the 707 had been replaced by even larger jets (particularly the 747), Jimmy Carter had deregulated airline routes and fares, and almost 300 million Americans were traveling by air annually. Last year, that number was up to approximately 677 million. Allowing access to even the remotest parts of the Earth, air travel has become an indispensable means of shrinking the distances between people and places. Now the era of 'the plastic airliner' is about to begin with the advent of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, which makes extensive use of advanced carbon composite materials in its structure.