9 ms·

So much happened in aviation between the Wright Flyer's first flight in 1903 and the 747's in 1969. Since then, at least from a passenger experience viewpoint,

So much happened in aviation between the Wright Flyer's first flight in 1903 and the 747's in 1969. Since then, at least from a passenger experience viewpoint, relatively little has changed. Is that because most new technologies eventually reach plateaus? Or have unique factors -- like environmental concerns about supersonic travel -- held back progress in aviation?

paulsutter 10y ago
You could say the transonic barrier is a big nonlinearity, and that it wasn't worth going further. Peter Thiel says it's caused by pessimism, and that's a much better explanation. https://www.technologyreview.com/s/530901/technology-stalled-in-1970/ https://www.technologyreview.com/s/530901/technology-stalled... (I'm not related unfortunately. Joe Sutter's father Frank Sutter was born Franc Suhadolc in Slovenia)
- pulse7 10y ago
  Maybe I am related, because I am also from Slovenia... ;-) Becuase we are a small nation (just 2 millions) I am very proud of him...
- hodgesrm 10y ago
  That's perhaps true to a small extent perhaps but I think simple economics have more explanatory power. Subsonic air travel is an 80/20 solution that meets the needs of a very large market. Once you can fly from New Your to London in 7-8 hours dropping the flight time to 3.5 hours has limited utility especially when you consider it does not drop overall travel time by anywhere near as much. For most passengers it's not worth the far greater cost to make SSTs safe. The same thing applies in a much bigger way to travel to low-earth orbit. Costs escalate dramatically.
blakeyrat 10y ago
Maximum speed and capacity aren't increasing because those aren't problematic factors. Right now the most important place for improvement is in fuel economy, and at that modern planes are doing much better than their 1970s equivalents. The 747-400 costs $47.34 per nautical mile, the 787-8 only $27.35. Sure it's not as visible to the passengers (except indirectly in the form of cheaper tickets), but that is a huge improvement in an important metric.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- brookside 10y ago
  Doesn't a 747 hold twice as many passengers though?
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - lostlogin 10y ago
    I'm pretty sure the metric has been a little distorted by the improved sardine packing.
  - hodgesrm 10y ago
    The 747 takes only about 50% more passengers in most seating configurations. However, that does not make it cheaper or more efficient to operate because it's harder to fill the plane especially when flying from smaller airports. Meanwhile many 747s are only in service now because fuel prices are relatively low. Once the prices go up they will likely be replaced by 777s or other models that are easier to fill up and cost less to operated. I confirmed this recently with a United Airlines 747 trainer who was booked on the same 747 flight as I was. He loved the plane and didn't want to fly anything else.
- chiph 10y ago
  It's the four-engine design. They just suck down fuel like crazy. As a passenger, I like the redundancy of having four engines for trans-ocean flight. But it looks like the modern two-engine planes with high-bypass engines have proven themselves to be "reliable enough", as well as more fuel-efficient.
  - hodgesrm 10y ago
    I can think of only one ETOPS-rated aircraft in recent history that got into trouble due to multiple engine failure. That was flight 38 at Heathrow in 2008, which crashed short of the runway due to ice buildup in the fuel system.[1] So it's definitely rare. Personally I love 777s--part of the attraction is the monster turbofans. Most long-range models have GE90 engines, which are total beasts. They incidentally have extremely low shutdown rates. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Airways_Flight_38 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Airways_Flight_38
WalterBright 10y ago
The driving force behind new airliner designs is usually fuel efficiency. The 757 used 35% less gas than previous designs, due to engine and wing improvements. The 787 is about 20% better than earlier designs. When you think about it, those are enormous gains, but the passengers don't see it other than in the ticket price.
- mercer 10y ago
  Wouldn't it be possible to make some of those wing improvements to the 747?
  - FigBug 10y ago
    The 747-8 got a new wing, making it 16% more fuel efficient.
  - blakeyrat 10y ago
    Yes; and Boeing does do that (the 747 that ships today is almost an entirely new plane from the one that shipped in 1969), but the limiting factor is the 4-engine design. We don't have engines available that would let you build a 2-engine 747, and as long as we don't, they're going to guzzle a lot more fuel than 2-engine designs. That said, apparently Airbus doesn't agree that 4-engined planes are going extinct, because they just recently finished a brand-new jet, the A-380, which requires 4 engines to fly. Go figure. Time will tell if that was a wise move on their part. But I'm guessing: no.
lordnacho 10y ago
Well, there's probably a confluence of causes: - People got quite nervous about the risks. Sure, there were a lot of highly publicised accidents involving aircraft, but it's still a heck of a lot safer than driving a similar distance (and especially motorcycling). For some reason, the whole world has decided that flying needs to be a huge amount safer than the alternatives, and that has a huge cost. - Terrorists. You could imagine a world where taking a flight was like taking a bus. It has certain similarities, right? But thanks to various events, everyone's got to go through the security theatre each time they're at an airport. That creates costs. - Oil prices and environment. Just about when the Concord was getting in the air, oil prices went up. More recently, we've figured out it might not be so wise to put more CO2 in the air. Costs go up. - Industry organisation. For some reason, a lot of countries decided they needed their own airlines. That's not necessarily economically viable, because a lot of countries are quite small. But there's a whole system of these airlines now, some subsidised, that fragment the industry. I don't know enough about whether there should be fewer airlines, but it certainly feels like it's something that is harder to evolve when various countries are propping up their local carrier. As for the tech, why shouldn't it just progress? All those costs I've listed would suck money out of research. If things were a bit different, there'd be more people looking at making better planes.
mseebach 10y ago
Very little in the immediate, physical execution of airliners have changed (but very many small things certainly has - and a 747-8 being delivered today is a rather different machine than a -100 rolling of the assembly line in 1970, and the 787 is an amazing machine to fly, the air pressure and humidity controls, enabled by the composite body, make a huge difference). But prices have dropped steeply, democratising air travel to an unprecedented degree with an unprecedented speed. Practically anyone who can afford to go on holiday at all can afford to fly somewhere, rather than being limited to the range/speed of ground transportation. The kind of trips to Greece/Spain etc that are completely routine these days in northern Europe were once-in-a-lifetime experiences for my (reasonably well to do) grandparents. Everybody loves hating on Ryanair/Spirit Airlines/increasingly dense economy class layouts, but the fact is that you can in many cases (if you're out early) buy a discounted premium economy ticket (or even if you're lucky business class) for what regular economy tickets would cost just 20 years ago, much less 40, and get a much better product.
digi_owl 10y ago
As of late i find that all tech development follows a s curve of sorts. It starts out flat, then goes near vertical as the idea catch on and all the low handing developments are plucked and marketed. then it flattens out again as new developments becomes harder, and the market consolidates. Flight seems to have hit that second flat around the time of the Concorde and the 747. And electronics seems to be hitting it right now.

paulsutter 10y ago

You could say the transonic barrier is a big nonlinearity, and that it wasn't worth going further. Peter Thiel says it's caused by pessimism, and that's a much better explanation. https://www.technologyreview.com/s/530901/technology-stalled-in-1970/ https://www.technologyreview.com/s/530901/technology-stalled... (I'm not related unfortunately. Joe Sutter's father Frank Sutter was born Franc Suhadolc in Slovenia)

pulse7 10y ago
Maybe I am related, because I am also from Slovenia... ;-) Becuase we are a small nation (just 2 millions) I am very proud of him...
hodgesrm 10y ago
That's perhaps true to a small extent perhaps but I think simple economics have more explanatory power. Subsonic air travel is an 80/20 solution that meets the needs of a very large market. Once you can fly from New Your to London in 7-8 hours dropping the flight time to 3.5 hours has limited utility especially when you consider it does not drop overall travel time by anywhere near as much. For most passengers it's not worth the far greater cost to make SSTs safe. The same thing applies in a much bigger way to travel to low-earth orbit. Costs escalate dramatically.

blakeyrat 10y ago

Maximum speed and capacity aren't increasing because those aren't problematic factors. Right now the most important place for improvement is in fuel economy, and at that modern planes are doing much better than their 1970s equivalents. The 747-400 costs $47.34 per nautical mile, the 787-8 only $27.35. Sure it's not as visible to the passengers (except indirectly in the form of cheaper tickets), but that is a huge improvement in an important metric.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
brookside 10y ago
Doesn't a 747 hold twice as many passengers though?
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- lostlogin 10y ago
  I'm pretty sure the metric has been a little distorted by the improved sardine packing.
- hodgesrm 10y ago
  The 747 takes only about 50% more passengers in most seating configurations. However, that does not make it cheaper or more efficient to operate because it's harder to fill the plane especially when flying from smaller airports. Meanwhile many 747s are only in service now because fuel prices are relatively low. Once the prices go up they will likely be replaced by 777s or other models that are easier to fill up and cost less to operated. I confirmed this recently with a United Airlines 747 trainer who was booked on the same 747 flight as I was. He loved the plane and didn't want to fly anything else.
chiph 10y ago
It's the four-engine design. They just suck down fuel like crazy. As a passenger, I like the redundancy of having four engines for trans-ocean flight. But it looks like the modern two-engine planes with high-bypass engines have proven themselves to be "reliable enough", as well as more fuel-efficient.
- hodgesrm 10y ago
  I can think of only one ETOPS-rated aircraft in recent history that got into trouble due to multiple engine failure. That was flight 38 at Heathrow in 2008, which crashed short of the runway due to ice buildup in the fuel system.[1] So it's definitely rare. Personally I love 777s--part of the attraction is the monster turbofans. Most long-range models have GE90 engines, which are total beasts. They incidentally have extremely low shutdown rates. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Airways_Flight_38 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Airways_Flight_38

WalterBright 10y ago

The driving force behind new airliner designs is usually fuel efficiency. The 757 used 35% less gas than previous designs, due to engine and wing improvements. The 787 is about 20% better than earlier designs. When you think about it, those are enormous gains, but the passengers don't see it other than in the ticket price.

mercer 10y ago
Wouldn't it be possible to make some of those wing improvements to the 747?
- FigBug 10y ago
  The 747-8 got a new wing, making it 16% more fuel efficient.
- blakeyrat 10y ago
  Yes; and Boeing does do that (the 747 that ships today is almost an entirely new plane from the one that shipped in 1969), but the limiting factor is the 4-engine design. We don't have engines available that would let you build a 2-engine 747, and as long as we don't, they're going to guzzle a lot more fuel than 2-engine designs. That said, apparently Airbus doesn't agree that 4-engined planes are going extinct, because they just recently finished a brand-new jet, the A-380, which requires 4 engines to fly. Go figure. Time will tell if that was a wise move on their part. But I'm guessing: no.

lordnacho 10y ago

Well, there's probably a confluence of causes: - People got quite nervous about the risks. Sure, there were a lot of highly publicised accidents involving aircraft, but it's still a heck of a lot safer than driving a similar distance (and especially motorcycling). For some reason, the whole world has decided that flying needs to be a huge amount safer than the alternatives, and that has a huge cost. - Terrorists. You could imagine a world where taking a flight was like taking a bus. It has certain similarities, right? But thanks to various events, everyone's got to go through the security theatre each time they're at an airport. That creates costs. - Oil prices and environment. Just about when the Concord was getting in the air, oil prices went up. More recently, we've figured out it might not be so wise to put more CO2 in the air. Costs go up. - Industry organisation. For some reason, a lot of countries decided they needed their own airlines. That's not necessarily economically viable, because a lot of countries are quite small. But there's a whole system of these airlines now, some subsidised, that fragment the industry. I don't know enough about whether there should be fewer airlines, but it certainly feels like it's something that is harder to evolve when various countries are propping up their local carrier. As for the tech, why shouldn't it just progress? All those costs I've listed would suck money out of research. If things were a bit different, there'd be more people looking at making better planes.

mseebach 10y ago

Very little in the immediate, physical execution of airliners have changed (but very many small things certainly has - and a 747-8 being delivered today is a rather different machine than a -100 rolling of the assembly line in 1970, and the 787 is an amazing machine to fly, the air pressure and humidity controls, enabled by the composite body, make a huge difference). But prices have dropped steeply, democratising air travel to an unprecedented degree with an unprecedented speed. Practically anyone who can afford to go on holiday at all can afford to fly somewhere, rather than being limited to the range/speed of ground transportation. The kind of trips to Greece/Spain etc that are completely routine these days in northern Europe were once-in-a-lifetime experiences for my (reasonably well to do) grandparents. Everybody loves hating on Ryanair/Spirit Airlines/increasingly dense economy class layouts, but the fact is that you can in many cases (if you're out early) buy a discounted premium economy ticket (or even if you're lucky business class) for what regular economy tickets would cost just 20 years ago, much less 40, and get a much better product.

digi_owl 10y ago

As of late i find that all tech development follows a s curve of sorts. It starts out flat, then goes near vertical as the idea catch on and all the low handing developments are plucked and marketed. then it flattens out again as new developments becomes harder, and the market consolidates. Flight seems to have hit that second flat around the time of the Concorde and the 747. And electronics seems to be hitting it right now.