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There is no Minimal Viable Product for commercial airliners. Either they fly with as close to 100% reliability as possible or almost no one will buy them. The c
by xenadu02 10y ago
There is no Minimal Viable Product for commercial airliners. Either they fly with as close to 100% reliability as possible or almost no one will buy them. The cost to an airline of even a single crash is way more than they could ever hope to save by buying from some unknown maker. It's also a massively capital-intensive business.
It isn't impossible that new competitors will emerge but it will be a long difficult road.
- dredmorbius 10y agoThere's not an MVP for a superjumbo, but you could start with UAVs, small planes, and start scaling up. The design challenges (and off-the-shelf parts) for smaller aircraft are more viable. Alternatively, you could start by building subsystems and expand to full aircraft.
- Gravityloss 10y agoThe trend has gone the other way though. Companies like Wright, Curtiss, Martin Baker and Vought did complete aircraft but ended up doing subsystems. The aircraft and development projects have grown. The market has matured to a few big players. If you look at the A350 construction videos, you get a little glimpse of the massive investment required just for that part. New technologies like vacuum infused out of autoclave composites might simplify manufacturing a lot though. IIRC Sukhoi Superjet uses them.
- dredmorbius 10y agoWright got into the business prior to its significant maturation, as I recall. I suspect you could divide the industry at some arbitrary point and argue signifibant maturity by then. 1950, 60, or 70 depending on whether you're considering manufacturers, technology, or airframes, by and large. Consolidation does seem to be a very strong trend, and one that may prove difficult to reverse.