Commercial Flight
Populations worldwide are increasing and more and more people are requiring transportation. Commercial airlines are realizing this increase and are attempting to meet the future needs and to promote flying. Just in recent years, Airbus achieved designing and building the largest passenger plane, the Airbus A380-800, capable of transporting up to 853 passengers with a typical setting for 525 passengers in 3-classes. The Airbus A380-800 is 72.72m (238 ft 7 in) in length and a wingspan of 79.75 m (261 ft 8in).
Into the Future
As time has passed, humans have studied and achieved manned flight. Major developments have occurred and have moved society to a modern era of flight that was hard to imagine when aviation first began. Accomplishments are continuously being striven for and achieved. Aviation is moving forward and is reaching new milestones every day.
For example, passenger aircraft are going to experience increases in size, like with the Airbus A380-800 and the Boeing Dreamliner, and also changes in their design, as researchers incorporate innovative technologies.
Space Tourism
Future aircraft designs will go beyond just flying in the sky and will actually go into the upper levels of the atmosphere. Space tourism is predicted to "take off" as flight into the atmosphere becomes less expensive, due to developing and innovative technologies. Not only will less expensive space flight be available to tourists, but also to researchers and scientists. More and more discoveries will be made possible due to the rapidly developing aviation technologies.
Some aircraft are being designed to not have pilots in the cockpit. Such aircraft are remotely flown by people sitting behind computers in a safe and comfortable location. Some aircraft are also able to be flown by computer programs. Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are being utilized more in the military currently, but may soon be incorporated into other areas of aviation.