"Tom Sixkiller" wrote in
The Wrights
and the innovators who followed them--giants like Boeing, Cessna, and
Lear--were motivated by more than just the challenge of overcoming
scientific obstacles: they sought to make money and profit from their
achievements. Courts protected the pioneers' intellectual property
rights--granting the Wright brothers a broad patent for their invention--and
government left the field of aviation free to innovate.
Really? That sounds just a bit revisionist.
The courts did indeed grant a fairly broad patent to the Wrights -
they had the patent on three axis control. Their insistence on
enforcing said patent arguably made the machines of the first decade
of powered flight less safe than they could have been, and the death
toll higher. In the end, Curtiss developed the aileron as an end-run
around the Wright patent. A lengthy legal battle ensued. In the end,
the lawyers got everything, and the only possibility of survival for
the two companies was merger. It is for that reason that we all know
about the Curtiss-Wright company.
Prior to 1926 there
were no pilot's licenses, no aircraft registrations, not even any rules
governing the carrying of passengers--and the aviation industry took off.
Actually, the industry of the time consisted mostly of barnstormers
carrying passengers in WW-I surplus trainers.
In this climate of political freedom, airplanes evolved from wooden, scary
deathtraps to capable traveling machines.
No, pretty much all the machines of 1926 and prior (when certification
became required) were scary wooden deathtraps.
Yet by the 1930s the government had begun regulating the airlines, master
planning route structures and suppressing competition.
But it was in the 1930's that real airliners (metal, multiengine,
capable of sustained single engine flight) were developed.
Today, innovation has
ground to a halt under the weight of government control. Unlike the first 25
years of flight, the last 25 have seen few major advances--and regulatory
barriers suppress the adoption of new technology.
Certainly, but I note that we're skipping the interesting 50 years in
between, which saw most of the important advances.
For instance, most
FAA-certified aircraft today are still the same aluminum-and-rivets
construction pioneered more than 50 years ago, while for at least a decade
non-certified experimental aircraft builders have preferred composite
materials, which make their aircraft stronger, roomier, cheaper, and faster
at the same time.
Composite materials have been a major staple in transport category
aircraft for decades. It's only the light GA fleet that remains
(mostly - there are exceptions like the Lancair and Cirrus) mired in
the past. There's no problem with getting new technology into
airliners, because the level of regulation for airliners is
appropriate to the money available and the risk to public safety.
Even after the supposed airline "deregulation" in the 1970's, FAA
requirements, TSA standards, antitrust regulation, municipal airport
regulations, environmental restrictions, and a multitude of taxes and fees
have crippled American aviation. Instead of the growth and innovation one
might expect from a dynamic industry safely providing an invaluable service,
aviation has stagnated--mired in billion-dollar losses and bankruptcy.
In fact, air transport (as a whole industry) has never been
consistently profitable.
If we truly want to see continued progress--in aviation and
elsewhere--we must embrace it wholeheartedly, and we must leave our giants
of industry free to innovate without being taxed, regulated, and sued out of
existence.
But it's not the giants of industry that innovate. Pretty much all
innovation comes from the small companies. The last innovative thing
Boeing did was the 707, and the management bet the company to do it.
In today's financial climate, where Wall Street writes the rules, such
an action would be unthinkable. Cessna is still offering warmed-over
designs decades old, as are Piper and Beech. Only a handful of small
upstarts are offering anything new.
Michael
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