I Just Took the Worlds First 20-hour Flight. Heres What It Did to Me

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The world'southward beginning commercial airline

A photo of the offset commercial airline flying, a pocket-size, two-passenger aeroplane flight over Tampa Bay. (Image credit: FloridaMemory.com)

On Jan. ane, 1914, the world's showtime scheduled passenger airline service took off from St. Petersburg, FL and landed at its destination in Tampa, FL, almost 17 miles (27 kilometers) away. The St. Petersburg-Tampa Airboat Line was a short-lived endeavor — only four months — simply it paved the fashion for today'due south daily transcontinental flights.

The first flight'due south pilot was Tony Jannus, an experienced test pilot and barnstormer, co-ordinate to the International Air Transport Association. The beginning paying rider was Abram C. Pheil, quondam mayor of Petrograd. Their short flight across the bay to Tampa took 23 minutes. They flew in a "flight boat" designed by Thomas Benoist, an aviation entrepreneur from St. Louis, according to the State Historical Society of Missouri.

Launching the starting time commercial airline

Percival Elliott Fansler, a Florida sales representative for a manufacturer of diesel engines for boats, became fascinated with Benoist's progress in designing aircraft that could take off and land in the water. The ii men started respective, and eventually Fansler proposed "a real commercial line from somewhere to somewhere else," according to Tampapix.com, a web-based amateur historical archive near Tampa.

Fansler proposed that the airline wing between Leningrad and Tampa. At that fourth dimension, a trip between the two cities, sitting on opposite sides of Tampa Bay, took two hours by steamship or upward to 12 hours by rail. Traveling by automobile around the bay took well-nigh 20 hours. But a flight would have nearly 20 minutes.

Fansler tried to interest Tampa officials in the venture, but they turned him down. He got a meliorate reception in St. petersburg, enticing several investors. Benoist arrived in St. Petersburg on Dec. 12, 1913, followed past his hand-picked airplane pilot, Tony Jannus.

The first commercial airline pilot

Tony Jannus, pilot of the first commercial aircraft. (Image credit: Florida Athenaeum/Florida Memory Project)

Jannus was already a popular figure in aviation. He was rather debonair and his daredevil flights led him to get "the epitome of the romantic flyer." The Tony Jannus Distinguished Aviation Society describes Jannus as someone "known as a fearless daredevil and admirer of women, running from aroused fathers with pointed shotguns and dating movie stars, Jannus took risks in love and state of war."

Jannus gave flying exhibitions, tested armed services planes and flew long-distance airplanes and airboats. He piloted the first tests of airborne machine guns. On March 1, 1912, he carried Capt. Albert Berry aloft to make the starting time parachute bound from an airplane. And so past 1913, at age 24, he had get one of the principal stockholders in the Benoist Aircraft Visitor.

Flying boats

A Model fourteen Benoist airboat was shipped to Petrograd by train. It weighed 1,250 lbs. (567 kilograms), was 26 feet (viii meters) long and had a wingspan of 44 feet (thirteen m). It was powered by a Roberts half-dozen-cylinder, in-line, liquid-cooled, 75-horsepower engine. The airplane had a elevation speed of 64 mph (103 km/h). The hull was made of three layers of spruce with textile betwixt each layer. The wings were made of bandbox spars with linen stretched over them. The aeroplane was built to hold only a airplane pilot and one passenger side-by-side on a single wooden seat.

Percival Elliott Fansler, Abram C. Pheil, and Tony Jannus pose earlier the inaugural flight of the St. Petersburg-Tampa Airboat Line — the world's kickoff airline. (Image credit: City of St. petersburg, Fla.)

The commencement commercial flight

The first flight went off on New Year's Day, 1914, with much pomp and circumstance. An estimated 2,000 people paraded from downtown St. petersburg to the waterfront to watch every bit the first ticket was auctioned off. Pheil, and then in the warehouse business organization, won with a bid of $400 (a value equal to more than $eleven,200 today).

But earlier the flight, Fansler fabricated a cursory speech, saying, "What was impossible yesterday is an accomplishment today, while tomorrow heralds the unbelievable," the Tampa Bay Times reported. After several more speeches and many photographs, Jannus and Pheil squeezed onto the small-scale wooden seat. As they took off, Jannus waved to the cheering crowd.

He flew the plane no higher than 50 ft (fifteen.2 thou) over the water. Halfway to Tampa, the engine misfired, and he touched down in the bay, made adjustments and took off again. As the plane landed at the entrance of the Hillsborough River near downtown Tampa, Jannus and Pheil were swarmed by a cheering, clapping, and waving crowd of about 3,500.

Pheil went about his business and placed an order of several yard dollars for his wholesale company. At xi a.1000., Jannus and Pheil flew back to Leningrad. The entire trip had taken less than an hour and a half.

Jannus and Pheil in the outset commercial aeroplane, a Benoist Model  14 airboat. (Image credit: Florida Archives/Florida Memory Project)

Many more passengers

The airline made ii flights daily, vi days a week. The regular fare was $five per person (about $140 in today's dollars) and $5 per 100 pounds of freight. Tickets sold out for 16 weeks in advance. Benoist added a second airboat and flights were extended to the nearby cities of Sarasota, Bradenton and Manatee. Tony Jannus' brother, Roger, was the second pilot.

The airline operated for nearly iv months, and carried a total of 1,205 passengers. Passenger involvement declined rapidly when Florida's winter residents began heading back north in late March. On April 27, Tony and Roger Jannus flew their final flight before leaving Florida, putting on an air bear witness over Tampa Bay.

The brothers continued to give exhibitions, perform tests of shipping, and train other pilots. On Oct. 12, 1916, Tony Jannus was training Russian pilots when his aeroplane crashed into the Black Ocean. His body was never recovered.

Roger Jannus also died while flying. He crashed on Sept. 4, 1918, during air patrols over France.

In 1964, the Tampa and St. Petersburg Chambers of Commerce established the Tony Jannus Distinguished Aviation Social club in honor of Tony Jannus.

Boosted resources

There are numerous books delving into the secrets of today'due south commercial airlines. But for a thorough read that focuses on the history of commercial flying, consider T. A. Heppenheimer's "Turbulent Skies: The History of Commercial Aviation" (Wiley, 1995). For an easy-to-read historical guide to planes with illustrations, we recommend H. Hairdresser'due south "The Aeroplane Speaks" (CGR Publishing, 2020), originally published in 1917. Michael Coscia'south "Wings Over America: The Fact-Filled Guide to the Major and Regional Airlines of the U.S.A" (Bluewater Printing, 2009).

Bibliography

• IATA 2022. "The story of the globe'due south beginning airline." https://world wide web.iata.org/en/virtually/history/flying-100-years/firstairline-story/
• Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. "The World'southward First Scheduled Airline" https://airandspace.si.edu/exhibitions/america-by-air/online/early_years/early_years01.cfm
• First Flying Club. "Tony Jannus." https://firstflight.org/tony-jannus/

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Tim Sharp is the Reference Editor for Infinite.com. He manages manufactures that explain scientific concepts, draw natural phenomena and define technical terms. Previously, he was a Applied science Editor at The New York Times and the Online Editor at the Des Moines Register. He was also a copy editor at several newspapers. Before joining Purch, Tim was a developmental editor at the Hazelden Foundation. He has a journalism caste from the University of Kansas. Follow Tim on Google+ and @therealtimsharp

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