Search Results

This abstract and the following paper are written in conversational, rather than technical, language. The only technical element of the paper is the statistical analysis of the information collected, thoroughly but informally, from Reference 1, Jane's “All the World's Aircraft.” It started as a personal curiosity on my part, but when I had the statistical results I thought they would be of interest to aircraft buffs of all ages, not just old codgers like me. I was curious if the sporty looking new personal airplanes really are better performing than the groovy (is that term used anymore?) looking airplanes of my youth. I divided old and new by the year 1970, giving plenty of candidates in both groups (about one hundred in total) and compared their max cruising speeds for the horsepower installed. The groups include two and four place models, each with a logical subcategory of fixed or retractable gear. Do the new ones get more speed for the horsepower they carry?

In a recent publication NASA has declared the channel wing, usually referred to as the Custer channel wing after its inventor, to be an aerodynamic flow control approach with potential for expanding the performance envelope of aeronautical vehicles. This means there have been on the order of seventy years for the concept’s advocates to show that it deserves such an endorsement, and while theory, model tests and visionary airplanes incorporating it have created great enthusiasm, the performance of airplanes actually using the approach has been uniformly and severely disappointing.

The U.S. heartland city of Wichita has long been known initially, of course, as a cowtown but then as a hotbed of rock solid aviation, especially - but not solely - General Aviation. But few would associate it with either far out aeronautical research or, even less, international intrigue. Yet at just about the midpoint of the first century of flight it was the focal point for researchers from two sometime military adversaries of the U.S. to join with locals to perfect a system of lift enhancement that demonstrated performance measures never achieved before or, in practice, since. The routes that those foreign-born researchers took to get to Wichita provide a story as fascinating as the research itself. (Paper clips were an accommodating feature of relocation.)

The catastrophic decline of general aviation in the early1980’s – exemplified by the rapid fall in sales of single engine piston powered models – is old news. But as the industry, emboldened by legislative relief in product liability, now embarks on revitalization it is worth revisiting its history to see if there are any lessons for today. To an economist that history (starting post WWII) would include the impact of the evolving national economy on the industry and the contribution of “products” competing for the composite intercity travel and leisure markets in terms of price and changing tastes. Economists prefer statistical evidence to draw conclusions, and that has been gathered for addressing the specific competition with the airline industry as well as the market ceiling for general aviation airplanes. Quantitative, but non-statistical, evaluation of alternative ways of “flying” for recreation was also done. The results are not encouraging.