[irishjuggler]

Whenever I fly, I can’t help but marvel at the stagnation that has existed in the aviation industry over past half century or so. Other than personal video screens, smoking bans and a much cushier business class, commercial air travel is pretty much the same passenger experience I remember as a kid in the 1970s. Someone (Chuck Yeager?) pointed out a few days ago that from the Wright Brothers’ flight to supersonic flight was a mere 44 years. That’s a pretty stunning rate of innovation. The last 44 years? Meh.

[Magnum44]

I can’t help but marvel at the stagnation that has existed in the aviation industry over past half century

Some things are limited by physics. We can control the aircraft design, make them cheaper, more efficient, etc, etc. But we can hardly control the atmosphere around the plane that it must fly through. We might as well try to control the weather as try to harness shock waves in the atmosphere. God gave us a universe to explore (within its rule set). It will come as a disappointment to some that humans cant overcome everything. Some limits we will have to live with.

In the meantime I have to attend to some important business in 1955...

[TalonDJ]

“That’s a pretty stunning rate of innovation. The last 44 years? Meh.”

Cars have not changed much either.

The exterior shape of aircraft is dictated by the air and was pretty well optimized early on.

If you pull the body off of cars from all the years since Henry Ford you might be surprised how little has changed.

There is actually a pretty stunning amount of progress that has gone into the cockpit of airplanes but most people don’t look at that, or don’t know what they are seeing when they look.

Go look up how many major plane crashes happened in the 1970’s and then look at the same numbers for the 2010’s

[BobL]

“Whenever I fly, I can’t help but marvel at the stagnation that has existed in the aviation industry over past half century or so”

...but try flying round trip from the US to Asia for $500 in 2017 dollars (and 2/3’s of that being taxes) 44 years ago. That’s where all the effort has been put, because that’s what most people wanted. Every time some operator (existing or new) promises ‘better service’ or better seating, for more money, they get rejected by the flying public.