Aviation Innovations Take Flight

Dec. 17 -- More than 100 years ago, soaring through the air like a bird might have been an impossible dream.

Now it's so commonplace there are an estimated 612 million commercial flights each year on U.S. airlines alone.

What a difference a century makes.

But for all the innovations since the Wright brothers took to the air on Dec. 17, 1903, there have been numerous low points — especially in the recent years — that have cast a pallor on the once-romantic dream of flying through the air with the greatest of ease.

Last month, supersonic travel came to a halt when both British Airways and Air France retired the Concorde. Service on the world's only faster-than-sound passenger jet stopped because neither airline could operate the plane economically. Rising fuel and maintenance costs had effectively killed the quest for faster commercial travel — for now.

Instead, commercial airlines with an eye toward the bottom line are working on ways to cram even more people on heavily-traveled routes. The latest example: Airbus Industry's A380, a plane that will take to the skies next year with nearly 600 people stuffed aboard its double-decker shape.

For sure, such a radical concept is considered an innovation in modern commercial aviation. But while the industry focuses on such "super-jumbo" jets, it also underscores the disappointing lack of innovation at the other end of the aviation spectrum: the so-called personal flying vehicle, a dream of science fiction that has never become reality.

With personal aircraft likely to remain a dream of science fiction for the time being, some experts believe the biggest advances in aviation over the next century will come in a sector that is just the opposite: unmanned flight.