Aviation on the Clyde, Aviators, Navigating the Clyde
Glasgow Seaplane Terminal is a new seaplane airport terminal in Glasgow, Scotland. It opened in August 2007. The terminal is located on Pacific Quay by the Glasgow Science Centre, on the River Clyde, in the city centre. The city also has two international airports, Glasgow International Airport and Glasgow Prestwick International Airport, although both are located outside the city. The terminal maiden scheduled service from Glasgow to Oban began in August 2007. It is currently Europe\'s only city centre commercial seaplane service in operation. The terminal was opened by Loch Lomond Seaplanes, in August 2007, to allow the first commercial seaplane service in nearly 50 years to start from the city centre, initially from Glasgow to Oban, in the former Pacific Quay shipbuilding yard, near Glasgow Science Centre. A new service to Tobermory on the Isle of Mull started in 2008. Loch Lomond Seaplanes also offer charter services from the terminal. Future plans include services to Arran, Bute, and potentially intercity services between Glasgow and Edinburgh.
Aviators are those people who fly an aircraft or plane. The first recorded use of the term (aviateur in French) was in 1887, as a variation of \'aviation\', from the Latin avis (meaning bird), coined in 1863 by G. de la Landelle in Aviation Ou Navigation Aérienne (Aviation or Air Navigation). The term aviatrix (aviatrice in French) is used for a female aviator. The term is often applied simply to pilots, but can be extended to include aviation navigators, bombardiers, Weapon Systems Officers, Electronic Warfare Officers. This should not be confused with the term naval aviator, which refers to crew members in the U.S. Navy, U.S. Marine Corps and U.S. Coast Guard. The term "aviator", as opposed to "pilot" or other terms, was used more in the early days of aviation, before anyone had ever seen an airplane fly, and it was used to show connotations of bravery and adventure. For example, the Wright brothers were described as aviators.
Improving the navigation of the Clyde. In 1768 John Golborne advised the narrowing of the river and the increasing of the scour by the construction of rubble jetties and the dredging of sandbanks and shoals. A particular problem was the division of the river into two shallow channels by the Dumbuck shoal near Dumbarton. After James Watt\'s report on this in 1769, a jetty was constructed at Longhaugh Point to block off the southern channel. This being insufficient, a training wall called the Lang Dyke was built in 1773 on the Dumbuck shoal to stop water flowing over into the southern channel. In the late 18th and early 19th centuries hundreds of jetties were built out from the banks between Dumbuck and the Broomielaw quay in Glasgow itself. In some cases this resulted in an immediate deepening as the constrained water flow washed away the river bottom; in others, dredging was required