As I was relaxing on a recent Delta Airlines flight between St. Louis and Atlanta, I reflected back on how far aviation has progressed since the December 17th, 1903, first piloted powered flight.   Orville Wright piloted the first flight which lasted 12 seconds and covered 120 feet which is a shorter distance than the length of the airplane I was sitting in.

Over the past 105 years, commercial air travel grew into an industry that we know and love today.  From the classic DC-3 aircraft that revolutionized air transport in the 1930’s and 1940’s to the invention of jet aircraft commercial travel in the 1950’s, passenger were taking to the skies for their travel needs.  In 1903 it is hard to believe that Orville and Wilbur would have any idea that in 67 years 336 passengers aboard a Boeing 747 traveling between New York and London would usher in the age of jumbo jets weighing close to a million pounds or supersonic travel would be available on the Concorde flying at 1,330 miles per hour.

If all this happened in a short 105 years, imagine what can happen in the next 105 years.  In 2025 passengers might be traveling in aircraft that no longer require oil based fuels to propel them.  These new designed aircraft will steadily evolve into sleeker more efficient transport devices that can fly at higher altitudes with higher speeds and more passenger room but still operate out of our current airport structure.

With the race to provide commercial space travel already underway, I can imagine a time in the next thirty years that we will see passengers not only transported to locations anywhere on earth but to bases on other planets and the moon.  Air travel may become what was depicted in the early 1960’s cartoon “The Jetsons .”

Whatever transpires in the aviation industry, the Eugene Airport or possibly the future Eugene Intergalactic Spaceport, will be there to serve the travelers of western Oregon.