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Aerospace Industry – America’s Future? Shawn Paul Boike Copyright 2011-2012 1
AEROSPACE INDUSTRY - AMERICA’S FUTURE?
THE FLYING MACHINE THAT CHANGED THE WORLD
© 2011 Shawn Paul Boike, Long Beach, California
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any
form or by any means without written permission from the author.
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If you want someone to be able to copy or distribute portions of the book, place
exceptions here (AIAA, AIA, Boeing)
Table of Contents
AEROSPACE INDUSTRY - AMERICA’S FUTURE? 1
THE FLYING MACHINE THAT CHANGED THE WORLD 1
Table of Contents 2
List of Illustrations 6
Epigraph Page 9
Introduction 10
The Flying Machine that Changed the World 10
Chapter 1 12
The Beginning & Buildups 12 THE US AEROSPACE INDUSTRY – The Early Days 15 THE ACORN DAYS 16
From a speech given by Mr. Denham S. Scott to the AIA on March 19, 1968 16
from: http://www.navworld.com/navhistory/acorndays.htm Reprinted from NAAR (North American Aviation Retirees Bulletin) - Summer 2001 20
The Growing Days 1930-1990 20 An International Industry 24 A Post-Cold War World 26
Chapter 1B 28
HELICOPTERS 28
"The Helicopter is the most versatile way of getting in and out anywhere in the world” 28 HISTORY OF HELICOPTERS 28 The Chinese 28 Leonardo Da Vinci 28 Fifteenth through the Twentieth Centuries 29 Early Twentieth Century 29 World War I Advancements 29 Autogyros are invented 30 Sikorsky's Advancements 30 1950 Advancements 31 The Turbine Engine's Impact 31 1960s & 1970s: The Vietnam War and how the helicopter changed 31 1980s and the Helicopter 32
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Early 1990s and the Helicopter 32 Conclusion of Helicopter Evolution 33
Chapter 1C 34
ROCKET SHIPS 34
"The Rocket ship is the way to get into Space because it carries its complete propellant” 34 HISTORY OF ROCKET SHIPS 34 Rocketry Becomes a Science 37
Modern Rocketry Begins 38
Chapter 2 43
Changing Times 43 America's defense companies are turning dual-purpose 43
Jul 18th 2002 | from the print edition 43 Downsizing: Merger & Acquisitions 44
A survey of the defense industry: Getting it together? 44 Two-way traffic 47 The Total Quality Management Farce 49 When Government Gave US Away 51 Sidebar: A License to Steal Jobs 51 Pres. Clinton’s Transferring Technology to China 52
Sanctions and Technology Transfer Policy 52 Change Maybe Coming-but not soon Enough 53
Chapter 3 55
Where We Are Today… 55
We're falling behind. 55
By Norm Augustine (Ret. Chairman & CEO Lockheed Martin)55 America’s Lost Leadership 58 Lockheed Martin 59 General Dynamics-old 62 McDonnell Douglas-now Boeing 64 Boeing Aircraft 65 Northrop Grumman 65
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Chapter 4 67
The Economic Importance 67 Economic Importance 67 World Economy vs. USA 67 Industry Economic Histories 69 America’s Aerospace Economic Case 69 TRADABLE EMPLOYMENT 69
Economic Value – A Comparative Model 75 Aerospace & Defense: Least Understood Industrial Sector 76
By guest author Robert H. Trice 76 Lost: America's Industrial Base 77 Fading Space Industrial Base 80
Chapter 5 82
The Future Forecasts 82 The World’s Growing Competition 82 U.S. faces foreign competition — in space 82
By Peter N. Spotts, The Christian Science Monitor 11/7/2005 6:28 PM 82 Where All the Money Is: 85 Boeing’s Future Forecast 87
The US Commercial Aerospace Industry and Defense 2012-203187
http://www.boeing.com/boeing/commercial/cmo/ 87 Airbus Future Forecast 87 Asia’s Future Forecast 87 Forecast Considerations: 87
Chapter 6 88
Our Future Focus and Plans 88 Where’s our Flying Car? 89 The Super Sonic Cruiser 90 Hypersonic - The Orient Express 91 Space Tourism 92 Space Based Solar Power-Energy 92 Tomorrows new Bomber 95 Educating Tomorrow’s People 96 10 Incredible Airplane Designs of the Future 96
In the middle of this century, telecommunications will be so 104
Boeing’s 797 Concept 104
Conclusion 106
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References & Contributors: 109
Chapter 1: Beginnings & Buildups 110
Higham, Charles. Howard Hughes: the Secret Life. New York: Putnam's, 1993 113
On-Line References: 117
“Early Martin Planes.” http://www.martinstateairport.com/ 118
“F-22 Raptor.” http://www.boeing.com/history/boeing/f22.html118
“McDonnell Douglas History.” http://www.boeing.com/history/boeing/f22.html 119
“Northrop YB-49.” U.S. Air Force Museum. http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/ 120
“The Nurflugel Page.” http://www.nurflugel.com/Nurflugel/nurflugel.html 120
“Project Bumblebee.” http://www.xsouth.freeserve.co.uk/project_bumblebee.htm 120
Industries Economic History: 122
Bibliography 122 The History of the Aerospace Industry 123
Posted Mon, 2010-02-01 18:21 by Anonymous 123 The First Half-Century 124 The Cold War 126
Notes to Add: 128
The King is Rising Again…Part-1 of 3 129
It all starts with a view into outer space… 129
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List of Illustrations
Figure 1. Spirit of Exploration .............................................................................................. 9
Figure 2. George Cayley & described a modern airplane .................................................. 13
Figure 3. Bernoulli’s Principle for Wing Airflow ............................................................... 14
Figure 4. Courtesy of "History of Helicopters ". ................................................................ 28
Figure 5. Built for US Army Air Force by Georgrij Bothezat (USSR). Courtesy of "History
of Helicopters". ................................................................................................................... 30
Figure 6. Modern Autogyro courtesy of "History of Helicopters". ................................... 30
Figure 7. One of Sikorsky's earlier models. Courtesy of "History of Helicopters". .......... 31
Figure 8. Hiller's flying platform courtesy of "History of Helicopters". ........................... 31
Figure 9. Mc Donnell's helicopter courtesy of History of Helicopters. ............................ 31
Figure 10. Bell 209 Cobra "Snake" courtesy of "History of Helicopters". ........................ 32
Figure 11. Bell/Beoing 609 courtesy of "History of Helicopters". .................................... 32
Figure 12. Revolution Helicopter Corp. Mini 500 courtesy of "History of Helicopters". 33
Figure 13. Hero Engine ....................................................................................................... 35
Figure 14. Chinese Fire Arrow ............................................................................................ 35
Figure 15. Chinese Fire Arrow Launch............................................................................... 36
Figure 16. Surface Running Torpedo ................................................................................. 36
Figure 17. Wan-Hu Flying Chair ........................................................................................ 37
Figure 18. Tsiolkovsky Rockets .......................................................................................... 38
Figure 19. Goddard’s 1926 Rocket ..................................................................................... 39
Figure 20. German V2 Rocket ............................................................................................ 41
Figure 21. Aerospace & Defense Sales................................................................................ 44
Figure 22. Defense Industry Consolidation 1993-2007 .................................................... 46
Figure 23. Aerospace & Defance Stock Trends .................................................................. 47
Figure 24. A View of Earth from the Shuttle ..................................................................... 50
Figure 25. Norm Augustine ................................................................................................ 55
Figure 26. F22 (Fwd) & F15 (Aft) ....................................................................................... 60
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Figure 27. F35 JSF in Vertical Flight and Forward Flight ................................................ 61
Figure 28. A12 Avenger Concept ........................................................................................ 62
Figure 29. A12 Avenger Concept ........................................................................................ 63
Figure 30. Atlas2AS ............................................................................................................ 64
Figure 31. F18 E/F Carrier Landing ................................................................................... 66
Figure 32. World GDP (past 50 years) ............................................................................... 68
Figure 33. USA GDP vs. the rest of the World (50 years) ................................................. 68
Figure 34. Tradable Industry Jobs, 1990–2008 (Majors)9 ............................................... 71
Figure 35. Cost Comparison ............................................................................................... 72
Figure 36. Tradable Industry Jobs 1990-2008 ................................................................. 73
Figure 37. Aerospace and other Transport Industries (Tradable) .................................... 74
Figure 38. ............................................................................................................................ 86
Figure 39. SVC’s Vertical Take-off & Landing Aerocraft .................................................. 89
Figure 40. Boeing Sonic Cruise vs. Better ......................................................................... 90
Figure 41. Boeing Sonic Cruiser ......................................................................................... 91
Figure 42. Hypersonic Aircraft .......................................................................................... 92
Figure 43. SBSP Concepts .................................................................................................. 93
Figure 44. Next Generation Bomber .................................................................................. 95
Figure 45. 10) Icon-II Supersonic flight ............................................................................ 96
Figure 46. 9) Green Supersonic Machine .......................................................................... 97
Figure 47. 8) Blended Wing ............................................................................................... 98
Figure 48. 7) X-45A UCAV ................................................................................................. 99
Figure 49. 6) Solar Eagle .................................................................................................... 99
Figure 50. 5) SUGAR ........................................................................................................ 100
Figure 51. 4) Lockheed Martin ......................................................................................... 100
Figure 52. 3) Bigger is Better............................................................................................. 101
Figure 53. Northrop Grumman ......................................................................................... 101
Figure 54. The Puffin ........................................................................................................ 102
Figure 55. Airbus Solar Aircraft ....................................................................................... 104
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Epigraph Page
“Global leadership is not a birthright. Despite what many Americans believe, our nation does
not possess an innate knack for greatness. Greatness must be worked for and won by each new
generation. Right now that is not happening. But we still have time. If we place the emphasis we
should on education, research and innovation we can lead the world in the decades to come. But
the only way to ensure we remain great tomorrow is to increase our investment in science and
engineering today”.
Norm Augustine (retired chairman and CEO of Lockheed Martin)
Figure 1. Spirit of Exploration
“The spirit of exploration is truly part of what it is to be human. Human history has been a
continual struggle from darkness toward light, a search for knowledge and deeper
understanding, a search for truth. Ever since our distant ancestors ventured forth into the world,
there has been an insatiable curiosity to see what lies beyond the next hill, what lies beyond the
horizon. That is the fire of the human spirit that we all carry”.
Steve Robinson (STS-114 Mission Specialist)
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“The desire to fly is an idea handed down to us by our ancestors who looked enviously on
the birds soaring freely through space on the infinite highway of the air”
Wilbur Wright
Introduction The Flying Machine that Changed the World
It’s been over a 110 years since powered controlled flight was proven by the Wright
Brothers from Dayton Ohio, in Kitty Hawk in North Carolina. We had conquered space
flight and put a man on the moon and delivered him home safely over half a century ago.
We have commercial aircraft able to travel halfway around the world without refueling.
The most significant industry change of the last two decade’s is in some materials and
Northrop’s flying wing as the Stealth B2 bomber design. America maybe close to losing
its leadership and become second place in the World for producing Aircraft in the near
future.
This loss in standing in the Aerospace Industry is, unfortunately too similar to the
Automotive Industry. It’s a shame to see the nation's largest Gross Domestic Product
(GDP) export base diminishing and losing its edge.
This book “Aerospace Industry America’s Loss?” is an in depth look at the
Aerospace Industry, a compilation of facts, figures, events, and some personal accounts
in the biggest economic base & technologically influential industry in the world. The
economic advantage this industry brings Nation’s and their work force a better Standard
of Living and higher wages. Those who lead in this key industry will lead in GDP. This
tradable industry which can be exportable is currently valued at $7 ½ Trillion in 20
years or $4 Trillion in commercial aircraft only. The nations that have grown the most
have pursued this from engineering and building automobiles then aerospace and
selling them outside of their nation, this creates a higher standard of living. You will see
the evolution and buildup of the Aerospace Industry to the fall/demise of America’s
Aerospace Industry the largest U.S. GDP creation and the economic impact on this
exportable product of trade. We conclude with valuable Future Focus with realistic
programs and plans that will generate huge growth and prosperity into the next decades
or century to lead the World both in aviation & space markets along with finding a
future energy solution.
We have recently seen the retirement of the U.S. Space Shuttles after its final mission to
the International Space Station. Now, the U.S. is regressing in technology 50+ years
and use rockets with a capsule. Russian expendable Launch Vehicles (ELV) at a higher
price than our Space Shuttle, just to get the U.S. back to the International Space Station.
So we should ask: Where is the Space Shuttles replacement? Or, what about the C-17
replacement? And the (super) Sonic Cruiser? What happened to the National Aerospace
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Plane (NASP) Hypersonic aircraft (mach25) also known as the Orient Express LA to
Tokyo in 2 hours?
Why is it we are still flying slowly commercially? Where is our flying car? What
about that jet pack which looks kind-of unsafe, especially to those grown-ups that ride a
bicycle with a helmet? We technically have overcome the sonic boom with a sonic burp
by intelligent design. So, why does our own NASA have plans only go Mach 5 (like SR-
71 5o years ago) as a prototype out to 2020 because, that’s all we’ve allowed ourselves to
progress in the last 20 plus years? Boeing had great plans to build the Sonic Cruiser
until they changed course and put all their eggs in the basket to produce the 787 (even
slipping delivery date-seven times) almost twenty five years after they helped build the
composite wings of the B2 Bomber. Much of this may have to do with Economics from
the foreign suppliers investing to become a partner in manufacturing prior to its market
existence. With an optimistic belief the next generation can learn from past mistakes
and understand the future doesn’t have to be like the past and demanding to make the
Future better - similar to our Race to Space and the moon. In this pursuit one’s destiny
is limitless.
Shawn Paul Boike
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Chapter 1
The Beginning & Buildups
“It is my belief that flight is possible and, while I am taking up investigation for pleasure rather
than profit, I think there is a slight possibility of achieving fame and fortune from it.”
Wilbur Wright Sept. 3, 1900
What do you think about the beginning of the Aircraft & Aerospace Industry, most
people think about the Wright Brothers at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina? This is where
Orville Wright made the first flight for 12 seconds and 120 feet at Kill Devil Hills near
Kitty Hawk, NC at 10:35 a.m. on December 17, 1903. In fact over 1000 BC the Chinese
had sent men aloft tethered to kites to provide surveillance at war time.
I was at an American Institute of Aeronautics & Astronautics (AIAA) meeting in early
1992 Seattle Washington to Listen to Phil Condit VP of the 777 my new Bosses Boss and
accidently or fortunately sat at a table with him his wife & Alan Mulally. His speech was
terrific it was all about the evolution of flight and even before Wright Brothers. His
speech was very similar to what was written in a book on the Centennial celebration of
the Wright Brothers which I heard the Author speak at the Dearborn Library in
Michigan almost a decade after Phil’s speech.
The history of Aircraft (excluding balloons & rockets) starts with of course Leonardo
Divinci’s sketches and flight studies and plans for a glider, this inspired Heserfin Ahmed
Salevy to build a glider to glide down from a 183 foot tower in Istanbul in 1638. English
baronet named Sir George Cayley whose contribution was the 1799 definition of an
airplane as a machine with fixed wings, a fuselage and a tail which has separate systems
to provide lift, propulsion and control. Cayley had successfully built and flew his
successful model glider in 1804.
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Figure 2. George Cayley & described a modern airplane
He later made two other gliders with a pilot which made brief glides for his efforts he
was often referred to as the “Father of Aerial Navigation”.
A French electrical engineer named Clement Ader which attempted to fly a light weight
steam powered - bat like craft called the Eole’s. His added value in flight evolution was
the need for propulsion. Ader made a piloted “uncontrolled hop of 165 feet and altitude
of only eight inches with the airplane”. “The Eole was devoid of all the other elements
necessary for a practical flying machine and contributed little to the eventual
achievement of human mechanical flight”.
Another contributor to human controlled flight prior to the Wrights was an American
living in England Sir Hiram Maxim famous for the invention of the machine gun.
Following in a similar path to Ader and noted in 1892 “Without doubt the motor is the
chief thing to be considered”. “Scientists have long said, give us a motor and we will
very soon give you a successful flying machine”. Maxim built a four ton biplane fitted to
a test track & guardrails where in July 31, 1894 his rough aircraft travelled 600 feet at 42
miles per hour and rose over the guard rails and crashed. His contribution much like
Ader was that a powerful light weight engine for propulsion could lift an aircraft.
The most noted contributor prior to the Wright brothers was a German engineer named
Otto Lilienthal with his experimentation with gliders. He began aeronautical research
from the 1860’s to 1896 and produced the most complete, accurate body of
Aerodynamics that showed beyond doubt that a curved wing profile produced optimum
lift. Thus incorporating Bernoulli's principle works on the idea that as a wing passes
through the air, its shape make the air travel more over the top of the wing than beneath
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it-thus creating lift. This creates a higher pressure are beneath the wing than above it.
The pressure difference cause the wing to push upwards and lift is created.
Bernoulli's principle works on the idea that as a wing passes through the air the shape make the air travel more over the top of the wing than beneath it. This creates a higher pressure are beneath the wing than above it. The pressure difference cause the wing to push upwards and lift is created.
Figure 3. Bernoulli’s Principle for Wing Airflow
Otto Lilienthal had produced 16 different glider designs from 1891-1896 with calculated
wing area and controlled them by shifting his body weight right to left (starboard to
port) thus altering his center of gravity. Also moving his body and fore and aft to
maintain equilibrium. Lilienthal’s fame came after he had made the Boston news as
“Here was a flying machine, not constructed by a crank…but by an engineer of ability…A
machine not made to look at, but to fly with. His experiments came to an end in August
9th 1896 where while soaring, a gust of wind put the glider nose up and into wasteland
crashed down 50 feet breaking his spine where he died the next day in a Berlin hospital.
The Wright Brothers first performed a literature search to find out the state of
aeronautical knowledge at their time. They wrote to the Smithsonian and obtained
technical papers regarding aerodynamics. They read about the works of Cayley, and
Langley, and the hang-gliding flights of Otto Lilienthal.
They corresponded with Octave Chanute (a French-born American
railway engineer and aviation pioneer) concerning some of their
ideas. They studied the problems which had been encountered by
previous flyers and they talked about possible solutions to the
problems. They looked for answers to the problems of flight by observing large gliding
birds. They decided that control of the flying aircraft would be the most crucial and
hardest problem to solve and they had some ideas for solving that problem.
The Wright Brothers were kite enthusiasts and they used the kite flights in the same way
that modern engineers use wind tunnels and flight testing to try out their ideas
concerning flight control. Kitty Hawk, North Carolina was chosen for their early flight
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experiments because its consistent high winds off the ocean are perfect for kite flying.
The brothers correctly reasoned that a free flying object had to be controlled about all
three primary axes; roll, pitch, and yaw. Their aircraft were built with movable surfaces
on the wing, elevator, and rudder. Control of the surface shape was in the hands of the
pilot. They extensively tested these ideas by glider flights of the aircraft. (NASA
http://wright.nasa.gov/overview.htm)
The Wright Brothers took all they could learn from those before them and added their
inventiveness to create the fully controllable manned machine powered flight. This
included inventing and designing the propeller system for propulsion, a wind tunnel and
many plans and techniques we take for granted today. That time in history was a battle
for first powered manned controlled flight was in competition with Samuel Pierpont
Langley and Glenn Curtiss. We all know the winners were those Dayton men in 1903
where the US Air Force base and museum now stands.
THE US AEROSPACE INDUSTRY – The Early Days
“Curtiss Aeroplane Company turned out such good planes that the Wright designs could not
compete”
Before there was an aviation industry, there were inventors who built their own airplanes. Wilbur
and Orville Wright, of Dayton, Ohio, made the first successful flights in 1903 and had a well-
controlled aircraft two years later. They set up the Wright Company in 1909, which started by
building airplanes but soon lost out in a bitter rivalry with another plane builder, Glenn Curtiss of
Hammondsport, New York.
The Wrights claimed that Curtiss was stealing their inventions and sued in federal court.
But Curtiss had shrewd lawyers who kept the suits from causing damage, and went on
building airplanes. His own firm of Curtiss Aeroplane Company turned out such good
planes that the Wright designs could not compete. The company eventually changed its
name to Wright Aeronautical Company and turned to building aircraft engines.
The Wright and Curtiss companies both were in business before the outbreak of World
War I, in 1914. A California plane builder, Glenn L. Martin, established a firm called,
logically, the Glenn L. Martin Company. These outfits all did plenty of business during
that war. But after it ended, in 1918, they faced the question of what to do next.
Most of the numerous planes built in the United States during the war were of British
design. Following that conflict, there was little demand for new aircraft, for there was
plenty of war surplus planes and engines. Still, there were opportunities. Curtiss had
built the wartime JN-4 trainer, the famous Jenny. It still was beloved by pilots during
the 1920s. A flight school might charge $500 for lessons, and then throw in a Jenny as a
graduation present. Martin built some of the earliest bombers--one sank a captured
German battleship in a 1921 exercise. This made it clear that bombers had a future.
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Other plane builders also went into business: Donald Douglas, William Boeing, and Alan
Loughead, who pronounced his name "Lockheed." To avoid mispronunciations such as
Loghead or Loafhead, his company used that spelling as well. All three found good
prospects. Donald Douglas got started by working with a wealthy enthusiast who wanted
a plane that could cross the country nonstop. By building it, Douglas gained experience
that allowed him to develop a long-range Army plane, the World Cruiser. Two World
Cruisers flew around the world in 1924 in a succession of short hops.
Airmail held promise for it earned federal subsidies for mail carriers that made it easy to
turn a profit. A few brave travelers also began buying airplane tickets. Boeing gained an
important success in 1926 with a single-engine plane that was well suited for carrying
mail and passengers over the Rocky Mountains. Lockheed won its own advantage
during that same year. The company's engineers included the talented Jack Northrop,
who later founded his own plane-building firm. He crafted the Vega, which set speed
and altitude records and became popular as an airliner.
THE ACORN DAYS
From a speech given by Mr. Denham S. Scott to the AIA on March 19, 1968
“This technological explosion had some very humble and human beginnings. The Acorns took
root in some strange places: a church, a cannery, a barbershop, but from them mighty Oaks
have indeed come to fruition”.
How many of you know that in 1910 the mighty Martin Marietta Company got its start in
an abandoned church in Santa Ana, CA? That's where the late Glenn L. Martin with his
mother Minta Martin and a mechanic named Roy Beal, built a fragile contraption with
which Glenn taught himself to fly.
It has often been told how the Douglas Company started operations in 1920 by renting
the rear of a barbershop on Pico Boulevard in Los Angeles. The barbershop is still there.
The Lockheed Company built its first Vega in 1927 in what are now the Victory Cleaners
and Dryers at 1040 Sycamore Avenue in Hollywood. Claude Ryan, who at 24 held a
reserve commission as a flyer, had his hair cut in San Diego one day in 1922. The barber
told him how the town aviator was in jail for smuggling Chinese across the border.
Claude investigated and stayed on in San Diego to rent the old airfield from the city at
fifty dollars a month and replace the guy in the pokey. He agreed to fly North instead of
South.
In 1928, the Curtiss Aeroplane and Motor Company, Transcontinental Air Transport
(now TWA) and the Douglas Company chipped in enough money to start North
American Aviation, a holding company. The present company bearing the Northrop
name came into being in a small hotel in Hawthorne. The hotel was conveniently vacant
and available because the police had raided it and found that steady residents were a
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passel of money-minded gals who entertained transitory male guests.
After Glenn Martin built his airplane in the church, he moved to a vacant apricot
cannery in Santa Ana and built two more. In 1912 he moved to 9th and Los Angeles
Streets in downtown Los Angeles. Glenn Martin was then running a three-ring-circus.
Foremost, he was a showman who traveled the circuit of county fairs and air meets as an
exhibitionist aviator; secondly, he was an airplane manufacturer. He met his payroll and
bought his lumber, linen and bailing wire from the proceeds of his precision exhibition
flying. His mother, Minta and two men ran the factory when Glenn was risking his neck
and gadding about the country. One of these was 22-year old Donald Douglas who was
the whole of his engineering department and the other was a Santa Monica boy named
Larry Bell who ran the shop.
The third circus ring was a flying school. It had a land plane operation in Griffith Park
and later at Bennett’s Farm in Inglewood, and a hydroplane operation at a place that's
now part of the Watts District. A stunt flyer named Floyd Smith ran it. One of his first
pupils was Eric Springer, who later became an instructor and then Martin's test pilot,
still later the test pilot for the early Douglas Company, and then a Division Manager.
Between Eric and Floyd, they taught a rich young man named Bill Boeing to fly. Having
mastered the art; Boeing bought a Martin biplane, hired Ross Stem, Glenn's personal
mechanic, and shipped the airplane to Seattle. Later, when it crashed into the lake and
Boeing set about to repair it, he ordered some spare parts from Martin in Los Angeles.
Martin, remembering the proselytizing incident with Ross Stem, decided to take his
sweet time and let Boeing stew. Bill Boeing said, To Hell with him, and told Ross Stern
to get busy and build one of their own. Boeing had a friend named Westerfelt and they
decided to form a company and build two airplanes. These two BW airplanes bore a
remarkable resemblance to the Martin airplane which, in turn, had been copied from
Glenn Curtiss. There seems to be a moral about customer relations and product support
mixed up in this episode.
During WWI, a bunch of sharpies from Wall Street in New York got control of the
Wright Company in Dayton and the Martin Company in Los Angeles. They merged the
two companies into the Wright-Martin Company. They sent a young man named Chance
Vought to be their Chief Engineer. Donald Douglas lost no time in quitting and went to
work for the U.S. Signal Corp.
The Wright-Martin Company started building obsolete Standard biplanes and Hispano-
Suiza engines, with the latter under a license agreement with the French Government.
Martin told them what they could do with them, and took off for Cleveland, taking Larry
Bell and Eric Springer with him. Having the backing of a baseball mogul to build a new
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factory, he was soon joined by Donald Douglas who went to work and came up with the
design of the Martin Bomber. It came out too late to see service in WWI, but showed its
superiority when General Billy Mitchell made everyone mad at him by sinking the
captured German battle fleet. The deathblow to the allegedly Dreadnaught Osfriesland
was delivered by the Douglas designed Martin Bomber.
At Cleveland, a young fellow called Dutch Kindelberger joined the Martin Company as
an engineer. Also a veteran Army pilot from WWI named Carl Squier became Sales
Manager. His name was to become one of the most venerable names in Lockheed
history. Back in 1920, Donald Douglas had saved $60,000 and struck out on his own.
He returned to Los Angeles, found a backer, David Davis, rented the rear of a
barbershop and some space in the loft of a carpenter's shop where they built a passenger
airplane called The Cloudster.
Claude Ryan bought this a couple year’s later, and made daily flights between San Diego
and Los Angeles with it. This gives Ryan the distinction of being the owner and operator
of the first Douglas Commercial Transport, and certainly a claim to be among the
original airline passenger operators.
In 1922, Donald Douglas was awarded a contract to build three torpedo planes for the
U.S. Navy; Douglas lived in Santa Monica, but worked in Los Angeles. Way out in the
wilderness at what is now 25th Street and Wilshire Boulevard in Santa Monica, there
was an abandoned barn-like movie studio. One day Douglas stopped his roadster and
prowled around to investigate. The studio became the first real home of the Douglas
Aircraft Company.
With the $120,000 Navy contract, Donald Douglas needed and could afford one or two
engineers. He hired my brother Gordon Scott newly over from serving an apprenticeship
to the Martinside and the Fairey Aviation Companies in England. Gordon was well
schooled in the little known science of Aviation by 1923.
My first association with some of the early pioneers occurred when I visited my brother
Gordon at the barn at 25th Street. I found him outside on a ladder washing windows.
They were dirty and he was the youngest engineer. There were no janitorial services at
the Douglas Company in those days.
Gordon introduced me to Art Mankey, his boss and Chief Draftsman, and four of his
fellow engineers. There was a towhead guy called Jack Northrop, a chap named Jerry
Vultee, and a fellow named Dick Von Hake who was a reserve Army flyer. Jack Northrop
came from Santa Barbara where he had worked during WWI for the Lockheed Aircraft
Manufacturing Company. The fourth member of the Engineering Group was Ed
Heinemann*. They were all working on the design of the Douglas World Cruisers.
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Shortly afterwards, Jack Northrop left the Douglas Company in 1926. Working at home,
he designed a wonderfully advanced streamlined airplane. He tied back with Allan
Loughead who found a rich man, F.E. Keeler, willing to finance a new Lockheed Aircraft
Company. They rented a small shop in Hollywood and built the Northrop designed
Lockheed Vega. It was sensational with its clean lines and high performance.
In May 1927, Lindberg flew to Paris and triggered a bedlam where everyone was trying
to fly everywhere. Before the first Vega was built, William Randolph Hearst, publisher of
the Hearst newspaper chain, bought it and entered it in the Dole Race from the
Mainland to Honolulu, which was scheduled for 12 August 1927.
In June 1927, my brother Gordon left the Douglas Company to become Jack Northrop's
assistant at Lockheed. He also managed to get himself hired as the navigator on the
Golden Eagle, the name chosen by Mr. Hearst for the Vega which hopefully would be the
first airplane to span the Pacific. The race was a disaster! Ten lives were lost. The Golden
Eagle and its crew, including my brother, vanished off the face of the earth.
With its only airplane lost under mysterious circumstances, a black cloud hung heavily
over the little shop in Hollywood. However, Captain George H. Wilkins, later to become
Sir Hubert Wilkins, took the Number Two airplane and made a successful polar flight
from Nome, Alaska to Spitsbergen, Norway. After that a string of successful flights were
to put the name of Lockheed very much in the forefront of aviation.
At Lockheed, Jack Northrop replaced the lost Gordon Scott with Jerry Vultee.
In 1928, Jack quit the Lockheed Company to start a new company in Glendale called
Avion. Jerry Vultee then moved up to become Chief Engineer at Lock heed. He hired
Dick van Hake from the Douglas Company to be his assistant. A young man named Cliff
Garrett joined the Lockheed Company as the driver of their pick-up truck.
I went to work at Lockheed shortly after the Golden Eagle was lost. I became the 26th
Lockheed employee. The Vegas were made almost entirely of wood and I became a half-
assed carpenter, generally known as a wood butcher.
In 1929, Jerry Vultee quit the Lockheed Company to start the Airplane Development
Company, which became the Vultee Aircraft Company, a division of E.L. Cord, the
automobile manufacturer. He later merged with Reuben Fleets Consolidated Aircraft
Company to become Convair. When Vultee left Lockheed, Dick van Hake became the
Chief Engineer.
In the meantime, Glenn Martin closed his Cleveland plant and moved to Baltimore. His
production man, Larry Bell, moved to Buffalo to found the Bell Aircraft Company. Carl
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Squier left Martin to tie in with the Detroit Aircraft Company which had acquired the
Lockheed Aircraft Company and seven others. They hoped to become the General
Motors of the aircraft business! They appointed Carl Squier as General Manager of the
Lockheed plant, which moved to Burbank in 1928. (A lot of P-38s were made at that
Burbank plant - added by L. Cruse Nov. 2007)
At this time, General Motors had acquired North American Aviation, which consisted of
several aircraft companies in the East. Ernie Breech, formerly with Bendix but now with
General Motors, hired Dutch Kindelberger away from Douglas to head up the aircraft
manufacturing units. Dutch took Lee Atwood and Stan Smithson with him. The
companies involved were Fokker Aircraft, Pitcairn Aviation (later Eastern Airlines),
Sperry Gyroscope and Berliner-Joyce. Kindelberger merged Fokker and Berliner-Joyce
into a single company and moved the entire operation to Inglewood, California.
(Kindelberger and others at the North American Los Angeles plant designed the P-51
Mustang that helped win WWII - added by L. Cruse Nov. 2007)
Thus, a handful of young men played roles which profoundly affected all of our lives and
the lives of millions of other Americans. They changed Southern California from a
wasteland with a few orange groves, apricot and avocado orchards and the celluloid
industry of Hollywood to a highly sophisticated industrial complex with millions of
prosperous inhabitants. This technological explosion had some very humble and human
beginnings. The Acorns took root in some strange places: a church, a cannery, a
barbershop, but from them mighty Oaks have indeed come to fruition.
(Essentially all of those Aircraft Plants are now GONE from Southern California - added
by L. Cruse Nov. 2007)
from: http://www.navworld.com/navhistory/acorndays.htm
Reprinted from NAAR (North American Aviation Retirees Bulletin) - Summer 2001
The Growing Days 1930-1990
Airliners, indeed, became mainstays of the industry during the 1930s. The Army and
Navy bought few airplanes during that decade, but people were beginning to fly. Boeing
brought out the 247, a fine twin-engine job that carried ten passengers where the Vega
had room for only six. But it wasn't fine enough; it lost out in competition with the
Douglas DC-2, which carried fourteen. An enlarged version, the DC-3, had twenty-one
seats. Entering service in 1936, it had the range to fly nonstop from New York to
Chicago. Within a few years, it swept most of its rivals from the skies.
There were some military orders, even if they were not large. Martin built a good twin-
engine bomber, the B-10. Boeing, licking its wounds after losing with its 247, found new
business by crafting a much better bomber: the B-17. It had four engines, which gave it
greater speed and allowed it to carry more gasoline for longer range. It first flew during
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1935 in tests for the Army. The first of the B-17s crashed, and the company might have
crashed with it. But Army officials liked it, and ordered a few. This gave Boeing a leg up
on building bombers for use in World War II.
That war brought an enormous surge of business to the aircraft industry. Several
companies built the important warplanes of the era:
Boeing: B-17, B-29 bombers
Convair: B-24 bomber
Lockheed: P-38 fighter
Curtiss: P-40 fighter, C-46 transport
Douglas: C-47, C-54 transports
North American: P-51 fighter
Republic: P-47 fighter
Fleets of B-17s and B-24s, escorted by P-47, and P-51 fighters, destroyed many of Nazi
Germany's factories and railroads. B-29s carried firebombs that burned Japan's cities to
the ground. The C-46 carried supplies to China, helping that nation fight Japan and
tying down a million Japanese soldiers who were fighting the Chinese. The C-47, a
military version of the DC-3, carried troops as well as cargo. Over ten thousand of them
entered service. General Dwight Eisenhower, the top U.S. commander, counted it as one
of the items that did the most to win the war.
The end of the war brought a swift collapse of the aviation industry. According to Boeing
historian Harold Mansfield, company officials learned of a sudden cancellation of army
orders and rushed to shut down the plant before the next shift of workers came in at
four p.m. At North American, employment dropped from 100,000 to 6,500 in only two
months. As had been true after World War I, following World War II the nation again
was awash in used aircraft that were available cheaply. A C-47 could be had for $25,000,
payable at $4,000 per year, and could easily convert into a DC-3.
For airlines, the DC-3 remained popular. Most air routes were short and carried
relatively few passengers on each flight, and the DC-3 served such connections quite
effectively. However, after the war there also were coast-to-coast routes along with
connections that crossed the Atlantic. For these, only new four-engine aircraft would do.
Two became popular: the Lockheed Constellation and the Douglas DC-6 (along with a
later and faster version, the DC-7). Their builders competed for advantage by offering
improvements. The rivalry between Lockheed and Douglas defined progress in
commercial aviation until the coming of the jets.
The first jets were military. Lockheed, Republic, and North American built the first jet
fighters: the P-80, F-84, and F-86. The F-86 was the best of them, shooting down
Russian-built fighters and ruling the skies during the Korean War of 1950-1953.
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Missiles and jet bombers also drew attention. North American made a strong and early
commitment to develop a missile of intercontinental range, the Navaho. This project
needed rocket engines, guidance systems, and advanced designs that called for close
understanding of supersonic flight. At the outset, in 1945, the pertinent fields of
engineering simply did not exist. No matter, North American brought in good scientists
and developed the necessary know-how on its own.
Boeing showed similar leadership with jet bombers. The company used scientific data
from the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, supplementing it with data from
its own wind tunnel, a research facility that helped to determine the best shapes for
aircraft flying close to the speed of sound. This allowed the company to develop the
earliest important jet bomber, the B-47. It first flew in 1947, with the Air Force
purchasing over two thousand of them as it remained in production from 1948 to 1956.
The B-47 introduced the shape of things to come, for it had swept wings, jet engines
mounted in pods below the wings, a swept tail, and a slender fuselage. During the 1950s,
these design features also appeared in the first successful jet airliners: the Boeing 707
and Douglas DC-8.
Boeing and Douglas competed vigorously to sell these planes. The way to win an order
was by offering a custom version of a basic design, a modification that would serve an
airline's specific needs. These could include a shorter fuselage, a larger wing for long
range, or more powerful engines. Such modifications were costly, and Boeing proved to
have the deeper pockets, for it was selling planes to the Air Force in large numbers.
Boeing paid for and built new airliner versions that Douglas could not afford, thus
winning an important advantage.
The 707 entered service in 1958, the DC-8 in 1959. Both aircraft had four engines and
could fly nonstop across the Atlantic as well as from coast to coast. In addition, there
also was great interest in a jetliner of shorter range, which could serve more routes.
Boeing brought out its 727and went on to sell more than 1,800 of them. But Douglas
stayed in the game as well, with its twinjet DC-9 that served routes that were shorter
still. Many of these connections were only a few hundred miles in length, but they were
highly popular because they spared the need to drive a car over that distance.
The Navy and Air Force had their own requirements. Convair built the B-36, which had
six and later ten engines. Boeing countered with the B-52, which mounted eight jet
engines. It became the main bomber of the Air Force's Strategic Air Command. In
addition, the decade of the 1950s brought a host of fighter aircraft. Almost every
company in the industry built some, including Douglas, Grumman, Lockheed,
McDonnell, North American, Northrop, Republic, and Vought.
Missiles and space flight brought new opportunities. In 1954, the Air Force launched a
major push toward rockets of intercontinental range, able to carry a hydrogen bomb to
Moscow. These included the Atlas from Convair and the Titan, built by Martin. Douglas
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helped as well with the Thor, based in England, which had less range but was available
sooner. These missiles evolved into launch vehicles for the space program.
Within that program, the civilian National Aeronautics and Space Administration
(NASA) came to the forefront. During the 1960s it sponsored the Apollo program, which
landed astronauts on the moon. Again there were a number of participants, including
Douglas, Grumman, McDonnell, and Boeing. North American did the most, drawing on
its experience with the Navaho. This company built rocket engines, a major rocket stage,
as well as the spacecraft that carried Apollo's astronauts. It went on to build the Space
Shuttle, including its main engines.
During the drawdown at the conclusion of the Vietnam war, in the early 1970s, Boeing,
Lockheed, and Douglas (which had merged with McDonnell) all fell into serious
economic trouble.
For Boeing, the source of difficulty was the enormous new 747 airliner. The company
went deeply into debt to fund its development and initial production. But it couldn't
deliver the early models, because their engines were not ready. Then the nation went
into a recession, and orders dried up. Boeing came close to going bankrupt, but survived
by selling improved versions of earlier jets, including the 707 and 727.
The 747 was too large for most routes, which opened up an opportunity for an airliner of
slightly smaller size. Lockheed came in with its L-1011, while McDonnell Douglas offered
its DC-10. This was a mistake; there was room for one such airliner, but not both.
However, neither company would back down, and both lost a great deal of money
because they could not sell enough planes. Lockheed stopped building airliners
altogether and became purely a military plane builder. McDonnell Douglas stayed in the
commercial world. But it now was financially weak, and lacked the funds to develop
anything more than variations of its DC-9 and DC-10.
This raised the prospect that Boeing would reign over the airlines, holding a near
monopoly. Airline executives chaffed at this possibility, for they enjoyed the competition
and the lower prices by multiple plane-building companies bid against each other. But
during the late 1970s, European plane builders came to their rescue. France and Great
Britain had a strong aviation industry; they had built the Concorde, the world's only
supersonic airliner. Now these countries combined with West Germany to create Airbus
Industrie. During the 1980s, it competed vigorously with Boeing, winning a large
number of orders.
While airliner sales remained very strong, military demand fell off sharply with the end
of the Cold War, in 1991. During earlier periods of demobilization, the Pentagon had
helped keep its planebuilders in business with a number of small orders spread out over
the range of major manufacturers. However, fighters and bombers now were quite
costly, and the Pentagon could afford only a limited number of such programs.
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Officials of the Defense Department responded by facilitating a series of mergers, to
consolidate the industry within a small number of companies that would have enough
business to remain strong. Boeing, holding great power due to its success in selling
airliners, bought out McDonnell Douglas and Rockwell International. Lockheed merged
with Convair and with Martin Marietta, forming the firm of Lockheed Martin. A similar
merger created the firm of Northrop Grumman. Today, these three U.S. companies
dominate the American market for commercial airliners, military aircraft, and launch
vehicles for space flight.
During the 1980s, it competed vigorously with Boeing, winning a large number of
orders.
While airliner sales remained very strong, military demand fell off sharply with the end
of the Cold War, in 1991. During earlier periods of demobilization, the Pentagon had
helped keep its planebuilders in business with a number of small orders spread out over
the range of major manufacturers. However, fighters and bombers now were quite
costly, and the Pentagon could afford only a limited number of such programs.
Officials of the Defense Department responded by facilitating a series of mergers, to
consolidate the industry within a small number of companies that would have enough
business to remain strong. Boeing, holding great power due to its success in selling
airliners, bought out McDonnell Douglas and Rockwell International. Lockheed merged
with Convair and with Martin Marietta, forming the firm of Lockheed Martin. A similar
merger created the firm of Northrop Grumman. Today, these three U.S. companies
dominate the American market for commercial airliners, military aircraft, and launch
vehicles for space flight.
An International Industry
International politics has always played a role in aviation. Aircraft in flight easily
transcended national borders, so governments jointly developed navigation systems and
airspace protocols. Spacecraft overflew national borders within seconds so nations set
up international bodies to allocate portions of near-earth space. INTELSAT, an
international consortium modeled on COMSAT (the American consortium that
governed operations of commercial satellites) standardized the operation of
geosynchronous satellites to start the commercialization of space. Those who dreamed
of space colonization also dreamed it might be free of earthly politics.
Internationalization more clearly reshaped aerospace by helping firms from other
countries find the economies of scale they needed to forge a place in an industry so
clearly dominated by American firms.
Only the Soviet Union challenged the American aerospace industry. In some areas, like
heavy lifting rockets and space medicine, the Soviets outpaced the Americans. But the
Soviets and Americans fought solely in the realm of perceptions of military might, not
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on any military or economic battleground. The Soviets also sold military aircraft and
civil transports but, with few exceptions, an airline bought either Soviet or American
aircraft because of alliance politics rather than efficiencies in the marketplace. Even in
civil aircraft, the Soviet Union invested far more than their returns. In 1991, when the
Soviet Union fractured into smaller states and the subsidies disappeared, the once
mighty Soviet aerospace firms were reduced to paupers. European firms then stood as
more serious competitors, largely because they had developed a global understanding of
the industry.
Following World War II, the European aircraft industry was in shards. Germany, Italy,
and Japan were prohibited from making any aircraft of significance. French and British
firms remained strong and innovative, though these firms sold mostly to their nation's
militaries and airlines. Neither could buy as many aircraft as their American
counterparts, and European firms could not sufficiently amortize their engineering
costs. During the 1960s, European governments allowed aircraft and missile firms to fail
or consolidate into clear "national champions:" British Aircraft Corporation, Hawker
Siddely Aviation, and Rolls-Royce in Britain; Aerospatiale, Dassault, SNECMA and
Matra in France; Messerschmit-Bölkow-Blohm and VFW in Germany; and CASA in
Spain. Then governments asked their national champions to join transnational
consortia intent on building specific types of aircraft -- like the PANAVIA Tornado
fighter, the launch vehicles and satellites of the European Space Agency or, most
successfully, the Airbus airliners. The matrix of many national firms participating
variously in many transnational projects meant that the European industry operated
neither as monopoly nor monopsony.
Meanwhile international travel grew rapidly, and airlines became some of the world's
largest employers. By the late 1950s, the major airlines had transitioned to Boeing or
Douglas-built jet airliners -- which carried twice as many passengers at twice the speed
in greater comfort. Between 1960 and 1974 passenger volume on international flights
grew six fold. The Boeing 747, a jumbo jet with 360 seats, took international air travel to
a new level of excitement when introduced in January 1970. Each nation had at least
one airline, and each airline had slightly different requirements for the aircraft they
used. Boeing and McDonnell Douglas pioneered new methods of mass customization to
build aircraft to these specifications. The Airbus A300 first flew in September 1972, and
European governments continued to subsidize the Airbus Industrie consortium as it
struggled for customers. In the 1980s, air travel again enjoyed a growth spurt that
Boeing and Douglas could not immediately satisfy, and Airbus found its market. By the
1990s, the Airbus consortium had built a contractor network with tentacles around the
world, had developed a family of successful airliners, and split the market with
American producers.
Aerospace extends beyond the most industrialized nations. Walt Rostow in his widely
read book on economic development used aviation imagery to suggest a trajectory of
industrial growth. The imagery was not lost on newly industrializing countries like
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Brazil, Israel, Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore or Indonesia. They too entered the
industry, opportunistically, by setting up depots to maintain the aircraft they bought
abroad. Then, they took subcontracts from American and European firms to learn how
to manage their own projects to high standards. Nations at war -- in the Middle East,
Africa, and Asia -- proved ready customers for these simple and inexpensive aircraft.
Missiles, likewise, if derived from proven designs, were generally easy and cheap to
produce. By 1971, fourteen nations could build short-range and air-defense missiles. By
the 1990s more than thirty nations had some capacity to manufacture complete aircraft.
Some made only small, general-purpose aircraft -- which represent a tiny fraction of the
total dollar value of the industry but proved immensely important to a military and
communication needs of developing states. The leaders of almost every nation have seen
aircraft as a leading sector -- one that creates spin offs and sets the pace of technological
advance in an entire economy.
A Post-Cold War World
When the Cold War ended, the aerospace industry changed dramatically. After the
record run up in the federal deficit during the 1980s, by 1992 the United States Congress
demanded a peace dividend and slashed funding for defense procurement. By 1994, the
demand for civil airliners also underwent a cyclical downturn. Aerospace-dependent
regions -- notably Los Angeles and Seattle -- suffered recession then rebuilt their
economies around different industries. Aerospace employed 1.3 million Americans in
1989 or 8.8 percent of everyone working in manufacturing; by 1995 aerospace employed
only 796,000 people or 4.3 percent of everyone working in a manufacturing industry. As
it had for decades, in 1985 aerospace employed about one-fifth of all American scientists
and engineers engaged in research and development; by 1999 it employed only seven
percent.
Rather than diversify or shed capacity haphazardly, aerospace firms focused. They
divested or merged feverishly in 1995 and 1996, hoping to find the best consolidation
partners before the federal government feared that competition would suffer. GE sold its
aerospace division to Martin Marietta, which then sold itself to Lockheed. Boeing
bought the aerospace units of Rockwell International, and then acquired McDonnell
Douglas. Northrop bought Grumman. Lockheed Martin and Boeing both ended up with
about ten percent of all government aerospace contracts, though joint ventures and
teaming remained significant. The concentration in the American industry made it look
like European industry, except that in the margins new venture-backed firms sprang up
to develop new hybrid aircraft. Funding for space vehicles held fairly steady as new
firms found new uses for satellites in communications, defense, and remote sensing of
the earth. NASA reconfigured its relations with industry around the mantra of "faster,
better, and cheaper," especially in the creation of reusable launch vehicles.
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Throughout the Cold War, total sales by aerospace firms has divided one-half aircraft,
with that amount split fairly evenly between military and civil, one quarter space
vehicles, one-tenth missiles, and the rest ground support equipment. When spending for
aerospace recovered in the late 1990s, there was the first significant shift toward sales of
civil aircraft. After a century of development, there are strong signs that the aircraft and
space industries are finally breaking free of their military vassalage. There are also
strong signs that the industry is becoming global -- trans-Atlantic mergers, increasing
standardization of parts and operations, aerospace imports and exports rising in
lockstep. More likely, as it has been for a century, aerospace will remain intimately tied
to the nation state.
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Chapter 1B
HELICOPTERS
"The Helicopter is the most versatile way of getting in and out anywhere in the world”
HISTORY OF HELICOPTERS
By: Katie Kimmet and Amanda Nash
“The vertical flight of the helicopter is an advantage to the world” “because, it allows
flight and landings without runways almost anywhere in the world”
Introduction to Helicopters
The development of the helicopter, perhaps one of man's most complex flying machines,
is an example of the effects of technological evolution (Sadler 1). The helicopter began as
a basic principle of rotary-wing aviation and evolved into something much greater as
human ingenuity and technology in America and elsewhere contributed to its
development. The precision of parts due to the Industrial Revolution enabled the
helicopter to evolve into the modern machines we see flying today. The need of accurate
machinery and fixtures was evident when the earliest helicopter models lacked the
efficiency and flying capability of modern helicopters.
Early Concepts of the Helicopter
The Chinese
The first concept of rotary-wing aviation came from the Chinese in the Fourth Century
A.D. (Fay 125-126). A book called "Pao Phu Tau" tells of the "Master" describing flying
cars (fei chhe) with wood from the inner part of the jujube tree with ox-leather straps
fastened to returning blades as to set the machine in motion (huan chien i yih chhi chi)
(Fay 125-126). "Joseph Needham, the author of Science and Cilivization, also suggests
that although this was no more than a design for a toy, it is indeed the first recorded
pattern of what we might understand as a helicopter" (Sadler 1). The concept of rotary-
wing aviation had unquestionably been found, but the technology needed to create a
helicopter had not been produced.
Figure 4. Courtesy of "History of Helicopters ".
Leonardo Da Vinci
Da Vinci's vaunted spiral design created in 1490, called the Helical Air Screw, has often
been cited as the first serious attempt to produce a working helicopter (Sadler 1). Da
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Vinci himself quoted on the device: "...I have discovered that a screw-shaped device such
as this, if it is well made from starched linen, will rise in the air if turned quickly..."
(History of Helicopters 1). However, this was only an experimental design and was never
put into practical use. "Da Vinci was in this instance no more than an experimental
engineer, putting onto paper age-old principles" (Sadler 1). Without adequate
technology the ability to create such machines was virtually impossible during this time.
Fifteenth through the Twentieth Centuries
A wide amount of minor inventions contributed to the advancement of the helicopter.
Between the Fifteenth and Twentieth Centuries, adequate machinery needed to produce
helicopters, like turbine engines and rotors, was not yet made possible by assembly
lines, but as the Industrial Revolution prompted factories and technology accelerated,
the helicopter evolved. One of the first breakthroughs in helicopter advancement was by
George Cayley who produced a converti-plane in 1843 (Sadler 1). A man named Bourne
flew the helicopter-like aircraft a year later. This model was apparently powered by
spring-like contraptions inside (Fay 127). All helicopter models at this time lacked
suitable power to achieve flight and were both bulky and heavy.
Early Twentieth Century
The early Twentieth Century produced many historic moments in rotary-wing aviation.
Brothers Louis and Jacques Breget rose some two inches off the ground in their
helicopter model on August 24, 1907 (Sadler 2). A Frenchman named Paul Cornu also
achieved free flight in his model in 1907 (Fay 132). The flight lasted only twenty seconds
and acquired an altitude of thirty centimeters but was still a landmark development in
helicopter evolution. The start of the Industrial Revolution had created a way for
technology to advance.
World War I Advancements
Military Interest in the helicopter during World War I contributed to its advancement
also. The first recorded example of this involved the Germans Von Karman and
Petrosczy and the Hungarian Asboth. These men produced a lifting device intended to
replace kite balloons for observation. "It consisted of two superimposed lifting
propellers" (Fay 133). This autogyro model, called the PKZ-2, failed because of various
difficulties. It was not until the late period of World War I that major helicopter
advances were made. The quality and quantity of production materials increased, and
great improvements were made in the field of engine technology in many parts of the
world including Europe and the United States. An aircraft model for military
advancement was needed for more versatile and precise war tactics. With better
technology and more need, the next step in helicopter advancement would soon come.
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Figure 5. Built for US Army Air Force by Georgrij Bothezat (USSR). Courtesy of "History
of Helicopters".
Autogyros are invented
The autogyro evolved from earlier models during this time. A Spaniard named Juana de
la Cierva experimented with autogyros for the allies in Great Britain until his death in
1936 (Sadler 2). Two Cierva C.40 autogyros were used for Air Observation Post during
World War I. They did have some setbacks, however. Autogyros could neither hover nor
descend vertically like the modern helicopter. Relying on forward motion, the
autogyros's primitive engine lacked the power to run as efficiently as the helicopters.
The helicopter's superiority was made readily apparent by the planned replacement of
the RAF's No. 529 Squadron's autogyros with the Sikorsky aircraft in 1944 (Sadler 2).
Figure 6. Modern Autogyro courtesy of "History of Helicopters".
Sikorsky's Advancements
The success in the field of rotary-wing aviation was due almost entirely to a man living
in America named Igor Sikorsky. Sikorsky was a Russian who had fled from the
Bolshevik Revolution in 1917 to France (Sadler 2). After years of private development,
he encouraged the United States Government to agree to a considerable budget of two
million dollars for rotary-wing research in 1938 (Sadler 2). The government ended up
choosing a joint Sikorsky-Vought effort to be funded, and the project evolved into the
VS-300 model helicopter. It formed the most tangible link between the early design
concept of rotary-wing aviation and the practical aircraft that is capable of military
operation (Sadler 2). The machine was indeed quite different from earlier models. It was
an incredible advancement in helicopters, but others soon followed.
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Figure 7. One of Sikorsky's earlier models. Courtesy of "History of Helicopters".
1950 Advancements
During the 1950s many new advancements in helicopters were made. Sikorsky crafted
the world's first certified commercial transport helicopter, the S-55 Chickasaw (H-19).
Another man named Hiller created the flying platform called the Hiller XROE-1
Rotorcycle.
Figure 8. Hiller's flying platform courtesy of "History of Helicopters".
The Turbine Engine's Impact
The creation of the turbine engine advanced the helicopter's capabilities even further.
With assembly lines brought about by the Industrial Revolution, these engines could be
produced with high efficiency and increased precision. The world's first turbine gas-
powered engine was the Kaman K-225 (History of Helicopters 3). Mc Donnell made the
first successful helicopter with horizontal winged flight from a vertical rotor powered by
the turbine engine (History of Helicopers 3). He continued to create newer models in
the proceeding decades.
Figure 9. Mc Donnell's helicopter courtesy of History of Helicopters.
1960s & 1970s: The Vietnam War and how the helicopter changed
The 1960s and the 1970s marked a widespread advancement in helicopters because of
the Vietnam War. Beginning in 1964 this war lasted for almost a decade (Garraty 1078).
The military's need for advanced helicopters can be seen in historical pictures of the
machines flying through the jungles of Vietnam to retrieve wounded troops. Helicopters
were also used as weapons during this time. Many new helicopters appeared with
missile capabilities. The Bell 209 Cobra "Snake" is one such helicopter. Large missiles
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protruded from the sides of the machine on metal bases above. Another example is the
Gyrodyne QH-50 (History of Helicopters 4). This helicopter used infrared cameras to
observe at night for better protection (History of Helicopters 4). This helicopter is still
being utilized today.
Figure 10. Bell 209 Cobra "Snake" courtesy of "History of Helicopters".
1980s and the Helicopter
During the 1980s helicopter advancement was evidently seen as the machinery was
refined. Mc Donnell continued to produce helicopters like the Tiltrotor Unmanned Air
Vehicle and the Bell/Boeing 609, the world's first commercial tiltrotor (History of
Helicopters 1). Smaller helicopters were produced to fulfill the public's needs. The
Ultrasport Helicopters and the Air Command International Commander 14/A are
appreciable examples. Many helicopters used jet thrust rather than blades to give the
directional stability, which made them extremely quiet (History of Helicopters 5).
Figure 11. Bell/Beoing 609 courtesy of "History of Helicopters".
Early 1990s and the Helicopter
During the early 1990s helicopters were produced by large corporations like the
Eurocopter Industry (Sparaco 57) and the Civil Helicopter Industry (Proctor 88). The
Revolution Helicopter Corporation created a single-seat helicopter that can be built by a
person at home in forty to sixty hours (History of Helicopters 4). The machines were
used in all areas of the public including the police force and hospitals. Helicopters are
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still used in this way in the late 1990s. They are evolving to become more efficient and
capable of reaching their goals.
Figure 12. Revolution Helicopter Corp. Mini 500 courtesy of "History of
Helicopters".
Conclusion of Helicopter Evolution
The vertical flight of the helicopter is an advantage to the world. Because of advanced
machinery such as turbine engines and pistons contributed by technology, the
helicopter can be seen flying today. Since history the idea of rotary-wing flight has been
accounted by curious individuals recognizing its potential. These ideas have evolved
from a dream to a reality because of technology and will continue to evolve through time
with the advancement of it.
Add the Helicopter existence:
o Igor Sikorsky vs. years to develop controlled Vertical Lift.
o Vertical Lift blade, Counter Rotating as start
o Then Counter separated Main Rotor split to the side which worked and
evolved into the Chinook Heavy Lifting Aircraft.
o Factor of three:
Vertical Lift blade
Engine(s)
Tail Rotor (McDonnell Douglas Notar
o V-22 our Nation bet the 50 year future on this technology, it didn’t succeed as
well as expected because: Noise and transitioning wasn’t always simple.
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Chapter 1C
ROCKET SHIPS
"The Rocket ship is the way to get into Space because it carries its complete propellant”
HISTORY OF ROCKET SHIPS
“This technological explosion had some very humble and human beginnings. The
Acorns took root in some strange places: a church, a cannery, a barbershop, but from
them mighty Oaks have indeed come to fruition”. Whoever wrote it
Today's rockets are remarkable collections of human ingenuity. NASA's Space Shuttle,
for example, is one of the most complex flying machines ever invented. It stands upright
on a launch pad, lifts off as a rocket, orbits Earth as a spacecraft, and returns to Earth as
a gliding airplane. The Space Shuttle is a true spaceship. In a few years it will be joined
by other spaceships. The European Space Agency is building the Hermes and Japan is
building the HOPE. Still later may come aerospace planes that will take off from
runways as airplanes, fly into space, and return as airplanes.
The rockets and spaceships of today and the spaceships of the future have their roots in
the science and technology of the past. They are natural outgrowths of literally
thousands of years of experimentation and research on rockets and rocket propulsion.
One of the first devices to successfully employ the principles essential to rocket flight
was a wooden bird. In the writings of Aulus Gellius, a Roman, there is a story of a Greek
named Archytas who lived in the city of Tarentum, now a part of southern Italy.
Somewhere around the year 400 B.C., Archytas mystified and amused the citizens of
Tarentum by flying a pigeon made of wood. It appears that the bird was suspended on
wires and propelled along by escaping steam. The pigeon used the action-reaction
principle that was not to be stated as a scientific law until the 17th century.
About three hundred years after the pigeon, another Greek, Hero of Alexandria,
invented a similar rocket-like device called an aeolipile. It, too, used steam as a
propulsive gas. Hero mounted a sphere on top of a water kettle. A fire below the kettle
turned the water into steam, and the gas traveled through pipes to the sphere. Two L-
shaped tubes on opposite sides of the sphere allowed the gas to escape, and in doing so
gave a thrust to the sphere that caused it to rotate.
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Figure 13. Hero Engine
Just when the first true rockets appeared is unclear. Stories of early rocket like devices
appear sporadically through the historical records of various cultures. Perhaps the first
true rockets were accidents. In the first century A.D., the Chinese were reported to have
had a simple form of gunpowder made from saltpeter, sulfur, and charcoal dust. It was
used mostly for fireworks in religious and other festive celebrations. Bamboo tubes were
filled with the mixture and tossed into fires to create explosions during religious
festivals. lt is entirely possible that some of those tubes failed to explode and instead
skittered out of the fires, propelled by the gases and sparks produced by the burning
gunpowder.
Figure 14. Chinese Fire Arrow
It is certain that the Chinese began to experiment with the gunpowder-filled tubes. At
some point, bamboo tubes were attached to arrows and launched with bows. Soon it was
discovered that these gunpowder tubes could launch themselves just by the power
produced from the escaping gas. The true rocket was born.
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The first date we know true rockets were used was the year 1232. At this time, the
Chinese and the Mongols were at war with each other. During the battle of Kai-Keng,
the Chinese repelled the Mongol invaders by a barrage of "arrows of flying fire." These
fire-arrows were a simple form of a solid-propellant rocket. A tube, capped at one end,
was filled with gunpowder. The other end was left open and the tube was attached to a
long stick. When the powder was ignited, the rapid burning of the powder produced fire,
smoke, and gas that escaped out the open end and produced a thrust. The stick acted as
a simple guidance system that kept the rocket headed in one general direction as it flew
through the air. It is not clear how effective these arrows of flying fire were as weapons
of destruction, but their psychological effects on the Mongols must have been
formidable.
Figure 15. Chinese Fire Arrow Launch
Following the battle of Kai-Keng, the Mongols produced rockets of their own and may
have been responsible for the spread of rockets to Europe. All through the 13th to the
15th centuries there were reports of many rocket experiments. In England, a monk
named Roger Bacon worked on improved forms of gunpowder that greatly increased the
range of rockets. In France, Jean Froissart found that more accurate flights could be
achieved by launching rockets through tubes. Froissart's idea was the forerunner of the
modern bazooka. Joanes de Fontana of Italy designed a surface-running rocket-powered
torpedo for setting enemy ships on fire.
Figure 16. Surface Running Torpedo
By the 16th century rockets fell into a time of disuse as weapons of war, though they
were still used for fireworks displays, and a German fireworks maker, Johann
Schmidlap, invented the "step rocket," a multi-staged vehicle for lifting fireworks to
higher altitudes. A large sky rocket (first stage) carried a smaller sky rocket (second
stage). When the large rocket burned out, the smaller one continued to a higher altitude
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before showering the sky with glowing cinders. Schmidlap's idea is basic to all rockets
today that go into outer space.
Nearly all uses of rockets up to this time were for warfare or fireworks, but there is an
interesting old Chinese legend that reported the use of rockets as a means of
transportation. With the help of many assistants, a lesser-known Chinese official named
Wan-Hu assembled a rocket- powered flying chair. Attached to the chair were two large
kites, and fixed to the kites were forty- seven fire-arrow rockets.
On the day of the flight, Wan-Hu sat himself on the chair and gave the command to light
the rockets. Forty-seven rocket assistants, each armed with torches, rushed forward to
light the fuses. In a moment, there was a tremendous roar accompanied by billowing
clouds of smoke. When the smoke cleared, Wan-Hu and his flying chair were gone. No
one knows for sure what happened to Wan-Hu, but it is probable that if the event really
did take place, Wan-Hu and his chair were blown to pieces. Fire-arrows were as apt to
explode as to fly.
Figure 17. Wan-Hu Flying Chair
Rocketry Becomes a Science
During the latter part of the 17th century, the scientific foundations for modern rocketry
were laid by the great English scientist Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727). Newton organized
his understanding of physical motion into three scientific laws. The laws explain how
rockets work and why they are able to work in the vacuum of outer space.
Newton's laws soon began to have a practical impact on the design of rockets. About
1720, a Dutch professor, Willem Gravesande, built model cars propelled by jets of
steam. Rocket experimenters in Germany and Russia began working with rockets with a
mass of more than 45 kilograms. Some of these rockets were so powerful that their
escaping exhaust flames bored deep holes in the ground even before lift-off.
During the end of the 18th century and early into the 19th, rockets experienced a brief
revival as a weapon of war. The success of Indian rocket barrages against the British in
1792 and again in 1799 caught the interest of an artillery expert, Colonel William
Congreve. Congreve set out to design rockets for use by the British military.
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The Congreve rockets were highly successful in battle. Used by British ships to pound
Fort McHenry in the War of 1812, they inspired Francis Scott Key to write "the rockets'
red glare," words in his poem that later became The Star- Spangled Banner.
Even with Congreve's work, the accuracy of rockets still had not improved much from
the early days. The devastating nature of war rockets was not their accuracy or power,
but their numbers. During a typical siege, thousands of them might be fired at the
enemy. All over the world, rocket researchers experimented with ways to improve
accuracy. An Englishman, William Hale, developed a technique called spin stabilization.
In this method, the escaping exhaust gases struck small vanes at the bottom of the
rocket, causing it to spin much as a bullet does in flight. Variations of the principle are
still used today.
Rockets continued to be used with success in battles all over the European continent.
However, in a war with Prussia, the Austrian rocket brigades met their match against
newly designed artillery pieces. Breech-loading cannon with rifled barrels and exploding
warheads were far more effective weapons of war than the best rockets. Once again,
rockets were relegated to peacetime uses.
Modern Rocketry Begins
In 1898, a Russian schoolteacher, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky (1857-1935), proposed the
idea of space exploration by rocket. In a report he published in 1903, Tsiolkovsky
suggested the use of liquid propellants for rockets in order to achieve greater range.
Tsiolkovsky stated that the speed and range of a rocket were limited only by the exhaust
velocity of escaping gases. For his ideas, careful research, and great vision, Tsiolkovsky
has been called the father of modern astronautics.
Figure 18. Tsiolkovsky Rockets
Early in the 20th century, an American, Robert H. Goddard (1882-1945), conducted
practical experiments in rocketry. He had become interested in a way of achieving
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higher altitudes than were possible for lighter-than-air balloons. He published a
pamphlet in 1919 entitled A Method of Reaching Extreme Altitudes. It was a
mathematical analysis of what is today called the meteorological sounding rocket.
In his pamphlet, Goddard reached several conclusions important to rocketry. From his
tests, he stated that a rocket operates with greater efficiency in a vacuum than in air. At
the time, most people mistakenly believed that air was needed for a rocket to push
against and a New York Times newspaper editorial of the day mocked Goddard's lack of
the "basic physics ladled out daily in our high schools." Goddard also stated that
multistage or step rockets were the answer to achieving high altitudes and that the
velocity needed to escape Earth's gravity could be achieved in this way.
Goddard's earliest experiments were with solid-propellant rockets. In 1915, he began to
try various types of solid fuels and to measure the exhaust velocities of the burning
gases.
Figure 19. Goddard’s 1926 Rocket
While working on solid-propellant rockets, Goddard became convinced that a rocket
could be propelled better by liquid fuel. No one had ever built a successful liquid-
propellant rocket before. It was a much more difficult task than building solid-
propellant rockets. Fuel and oxygen tanks, turbines, and combustion chambers would
be needed. In spite of the difficulties, Goddard achieved the first successful flight with a
liquid- propellant rocket on March 16, 1926. Fueled by liquid oxygen and gasoline, the
rocket flew for only two and a half seconds, climbed 12.5 meters, and landed 56 meters
away in a cabbage patch. By today's standards, the flight was unimpressive, but like the
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first powered airplane flight by the Wright brothers in 1903, Goddard's gasoline rocket
was the forerunner of a whole new era in rocket flight.
Goddard's experiments in liquid-propellant rockets continued for many years. His
rockets became bigger and flew higher. He developed a gyroscope system for flight
control and a payload compartment for scientific instruments. Parachute recovery
systems were employed to return rockets and instruments safely. Goddard, for his
achievements, has been called the father of modern rocketry.
A third great space pioneer, Hermann Oberth (1894-1989) of Germany, published a
book in 1923 about rocket travel into outer space. His writings were important. Because
of them, many small rocket societies sprang up around the world. In Germany, the
formation of one such society, the Verein fur Raumschiffahrt (Society for Space Travel),
led to the development of the V-2 rocket, which was used against London during World
War II. In 1937, German engineers and scientists, including Oberth, assembled in
Peenemunde on the shores of the Baltic Sea. There the most advanced rocket of its time
would be built and flown under the directorship of Wernher von Braun.
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Figure 20. German V2 Rocket
The V-2 rocket (in Germany called the A-4) was small by comparison to today's rockets.
It achieved its great thrust by burning a mixture of liquid oxygen and alcohol at a rate of
about one ton every seven seconds. Once launched, the V-2 was a formidable weapon
that could devastate whole city blocks.
Fortunately for London and the Allied forces, the V-2 came too late in the war to change
its outcome. Nevertheless, by war's end, German rocket scientists and engineers had
already laid plans for advanced missiles capable of spanning the Atlantic Ocean and
landing in the United States. These missiles would have had winged upper stages but
very small payload capacities.
With the fall of Germany, many unused V-2 rockets and components were captured by
the Allies. Many German rocket scientists came to the United States. Others went to the
Soviet Union. The German scientists, including Wernher von Braun, were amazed at the
progress Goddard had made.
Both the United States and the Soviet Union realized the potential of rocketry as a
military weapon and began a variety of experimental programs. At first, the United
States began a program with high-altitude atmospheric sounding rockets, one of
Goddard's early ideas. Later, a variety of medium- and long-range intercontinental
ballistic missiles were developed. These became the starting point of the U.S. space
program. Missiles such as the Redstone, Atlas, and Titan would eventually launch
astronauts into space.
On October 4, 1957, the world was stunned by the news of an Earth-orbiting artificial
satellite launched by the Soviet Union. Called Sputnik I, the satellite was the first
successful entry in a race for space between the two superpower nations. Less than a
month later, the Soviets followed with the launch of a satellite carrying a dog named
Laika on board. Laika survived in space for seven days before being put to sleep before
the oxygen supply ran out.
A few months after the first Sputnik, the United States followed the Soviet Union with a
satellite of its own. Explorer I was launched by the U.S. Army on January 31, 1958. In
October of that year, the United States formally organized its space program by creating
the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). NASA became a civilian
agency with the goal of peaceful exploration of space for the benefit of all humankind.
Soon, many people and machines were being launched into space. Astronauts orbited
Earth and landed on the Moon. Robot spacecraft traveled to the planets. Space was
suddenly opened up to exploration and commercial exploitation. Satellites enabled
scientists to investigate our world, forecast the weather, and to communicate
instantaneously around the globe. As the demand for more and larger payloads
increased, a wide array of powerful and versatile rockets had to be built.
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Since the earliest days of discovery and experimentation, rockets have evolved from
simple gunpowder devices into giant vehicles capable of traveling into outer space.
Rockets have opened the universe to direct exploration by humankind.
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Chapter 2
Changing Times
"The defense industry became detached from the rest of the economy"
America's defense companies are turning dual-purpose
Jul 18th 2002 | from the print edition
THE 1990s were an eventful time for America's defense industry. With the cold war at
an end, the number of big American contractors came down from 15 to five (Lockheed
Martin, Boeing, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman and General Dynamics) within a decade.
That was a dramatic consolidation, but as budgets shrank, it was not unexpected.
The other, more surprising development was that the defense industry turned into a
kind of ghetto, despite considerable efforts to make doing business with the Pentagon
easier and less bureaucratic. Barriers to entry were removed in the hope of turning
defense into something more like a normal business, but instead of an influx of new
blood, a mass exodus followed. IBM, General Motors, Ford, Chrysler, General Electric
(except engines) and Texas Instruments all sold or closed their defense companies. As
Merrill Lynch's Byron Callan put it, “The defense industry became detached from the
rest of the economy.”
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Figure 21. Aerospace & Defense Sales
The reasons are not hard to find: the federal government is a demanding customer;
defense profit margins are often tighter than in the private sector; and strict rules on
procurement have in the past caused some defense companies to lose money on fixed-
price development contracts. Many companies decided the defense game was not worth
the candle.
Downsizing: Merger & Acquisitions
A survey of the defense industry: Getting it together?
With just a handful of big American companies and a trio of European ones, each of
which dominates its home market and competes in places such as the Middle East and
Asia, proper globalization (in the sense of a number of transnational companies
competing worldwide) seems out of the question. But that does not mean that
globalization will have no part in the defense industry at all. Because electronics and
computing software play an increasing role in defense systems, the core defense
companies have to ensure they have access to a wider pool of technology.
What remains to be seen over the next decade is whether the ghetto model will survive,
or whether defense will eventually move closer to commercial business. The more it
does, the more global it could get at the level of the second- or third-tier suppliers, who
make components or equipment for the prime contractors. Lawrence Freedman of
King's College, London, who has written on the implications of RMA, sees the ghetto
walls coming down as the civil sector develops more technical dynamism. The trend
towards increased use of IT and systems integration in warfare should accelerate this
trend:
The old defense sector was based on dedicated programs with only a limited civilian
spin-off. This now exists side by side with a more dynamic industry, which can pass
through two generations of technology while the official defense-procurement
machinery is still working its way laboriously through its bureaucratic mechanisms.
Although the electronics and computing sectors originally took off on the back of
military investment, they have now developed their civilian markets to such an extent
that even the military is a minor player.
Underlying this is a worry that the defense industry, having consolidated so much with a
loss of competition on both sides of the Atlantic, might begin to lag in innovation, and
might not be up to supporting the transformation of the armed forces it serves. Even
though America's military might and technology is streets ahead of anyone else's, the
country cannot afford to be complacent. A recent study by RAND's National Defense
Research Institute looked at military revolutions throughout history and found that, by
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and large, new ways of waging war were usually developed by a country or a group that
was not dominant at the time.
Indeed, it could be argued that the most revolutionary military development to happen
in recent times was the hijacking last September of four kerosene-laden jetliners to use
as guided missiles in New York and Washington, DC. Modern electronic technology in
the form of e-mails and the Internet played a big part in the planning of this venture.
By contrast, the traditional defense industry grinds away slowly, with mighty systems
immutably determined by defense-department contracts. To take one example, the Joint
Strike Fighter could well go into service with electronics systems that, although state-of-
the-art in 2006, will be getting long in the tooth in 2012, unless something is done to
update them.
Jerry Daniels at Boeing, which lost the JSF contract, points to the dangers that
engineering teams will scatter and expertise will be lost when Lockheed Martin
eventually becomes the only company making fighters. “Twenty years ago we had 50-
odd defense contractors; today we have a handful. Then there were many rapid
opportunities to bid, there was always a new program coming along.” By contrast, he
explains, the trend now is towards fighters that combine many functions and can be
ordered in bulk. His (perhaps not entirely disinterested) suggestion is that it might be
better to go for upgrades every five years and put the work out to competitive bids. To
some extent, this is already being done. Boeing has recently won a contract to rethink
and upgrade the avionics on the C130 transport plane manufactured by its arch-rival,
Lockheed Martin. Then go onto Lockheed Martin to 2011, they turned out to be
finances to be how much per Aircraft? F-22 or F-35. My Brother In-Law finds humor in
games of the things their new Aircraft can Do. When asked at a certain range and sweep
what is the most effective aircraft? Most USAF Officials’ SAY f-22, answers was F-16.
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Figure 22. Defense Industry Consolidation 1993-2007
One reason why the defense department encouraged the mergers of the early and mid-
1990s (see figure 5) was that it was worried about the financial health of the industry as
budgets shrank. But by 1997, when a weak Northrop Grumman thought its best hope
was to become part of the much larger Lockheed Martin, the government had had
enough and blocked the merger on competition grounds. According to Pierre Chao of
CSFB, an investment bank, the defense department then got into a panic about the
collapse of defense shares as consolidation ended.
One concern in the Pentagon was that the defense contractors might have increasing
trouble attracting capital and talent for which other high-tech firms are also competing.
Mr Callan points out that a high-tech company such as Intel has a market capitalisation
of over $100 billion, whereas the top three defense groups together add up to only half
that. The concern is that top engineers will turn their back on defense companies and
work for high-tech firms where they can make more money through stock options.
The irony is that Silicon Valley itself evolved from defense contracts, and that civilian jet
aircraft, from the Boeing 707 to the jumbo jet, owed a great deal to military programs.
The same was true of computers. The defense industry pioneered the management of
complex systems that have now become routine in civilian applications, such as air-
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traffic control or telecommunications. It is no accident that the world's leading (non-
American) company in air-traffic control is Thales, a Paris-based defense-electronics
company that specializes in dual-use technologies which can be applied to the
commercial market.
Figure 23. Aerospace & Defance Stock Trends
According to Mr Krepinevich at the Centre for Strategy and Budgetary Assessment, the
American government will have to improve its policy towards the defense industrial
base if America is not to lose its technical lead. He thinks too much of what goes under
the name of R&D is really devoted to the engineering and manufacturing development
of incoming products. That may provide a nice cash cushion for companies, but it means
they do little innovative research of the sort needed to develop entirely new products. He
would like the Defense Department to take a hard look at future requirements to see
which areas of technology could best meet them. Money for this could be found by
chopping expenditure on mature technologies where extra R&D produces marginal
gains.
Two-way traffic
Commercial input into the defense industry is not a one-way process. Leading defense
companies such as Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman have been
changing their profile too, turning themselves into something more than makers of
fighters, missiles and rockets. It is no longer simply technologies that spread from
military to civil applications, as they did in the 1950s, when only the defense sector had
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big money to spend on R&D. Instead, the defense companies themselves are moving
into the commercial field, using the expertise they have developed in the military sector.
An obvious example is Lockheed Martin, a conglomerate that three years ago was losing
money and staggering under a debt burden of $12 billion. Integrating the various
businesses from Lockheed's takeovers of companies such as Martin Marietta was
proving difficult. Nothing was going right. The company's space rockets kept blowing up
on the launch pad, the update of its C130J transport plane was hitting problem after
problem, it lost a key satellite surveillance contract to Boeing, and losses kept piling up.
Now it is climbing back into profit and has slashed more than $4 billion from its debt by
selling parts of its business to BAE Systems, the British contractor which is becoming
more American by the day (of which more in this article). Lockheed's shares look good
largely because it beat Boeing for the JSF (F35) contract, which will ensure an inflow of
billions of dollars even if the order is trimmed from 3,000 to 2,000. Its main partners in
this deal are Northrop Grumman and BAE.
But there is more to Lockheed than big defense deals. About 30% of its sales are now in
the civil sector (although admittedly civil work for the government far outweighs its
private work). Lockheed buys in components and software from the electronics
industry, but it is itself a huge IT company, employing some 20,000 systems and
software engineers on top of its 50,000 mainstream scientists and engineers. The same
“system of systems” need for digital battlefields has commercial applications in
organizations such as America's postal service, the FBI, Medicare and the Social Security
system.
Boeing offers an even more striking instance of cross-fertilization between the
commercial and military sectors. It became big in defense when it bought McDonnell
Douglas in 1996. McDonnell had put itself up for sale after it was excluded from the JSF
competition in an earlier round, leaving Boeing and Lockheed in the final shoot-out. But
Boeing had also acquired North American Rockwell with its space business, and later
gained satellite expertise by buying parts of Hughes's electronics business.
Once Boeing's boss, Phil Condit, and his then number two, Harry Stonecipher (who had
been McDonnell's last boss), had bedded down the mergers, they realized they were
sitting on a collection of assets that could be used to sprout all sorts of businesses aside
from jetliners, rockets and satellites. Using military technology, Boeing is developing so
many new businesses in the commercial market that the share of its civil jet sales will
soon fall from 60% of the group's turnover to around half. For instance, the same
technology that guides missiles can be repackaged to provide satellite-based air-traffic
management systems. And a military radar antenna is the key piece of kit in a system to
bring broadband communications to passengers in commercial jets.
The mergers have also made it easier for Boeing to ride out the loss of the JSF contract.
Its space and communications division, based in Seal Beach, California, is the lead
contractor working on America's national missile-defense system, as well as the
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provider of the future combat system that is part of the integrated battlespace system for
the army. Like Lockheed, Boeing sees itself as an integrator of “systems of systems”. But
these established giants face competition at the electronics-systems end of defense
contracts.
Meanwhile, Northrop Grumman is still remaking itself. Its boss, Mr Kresa, says that
Northrop saw the rundown in bomber production coming in the early 1990s and started
to shift its emphasis to technology and systems. By acquiring Grumman, it got into the
big JointStars aerial surveillance plane contract. With its purchase of Logicon, it got into
information warfare. Brushing off the collapse of its planned merger with Lockheed
Martin, Mr Kresa continued to build up the group. With Westinghouse, it bought
electronics and radar; with Ryan, Global Hawk. Since then it has bought Litton
Industries and Newport News to become the world's largest naval shipbuilder. It has
successfully bid for TRW, an aerospace and car-parts group, against several
competitors, including BAE. If the deal is approved, Northrop will sell off the cars-parts
division and hold on to the missile and space business, which brings satellite know-how
with it.
Other defense companies are still trying to clean up their acts. Raytheon, a missiles and
radar group, is plugging on with reducing its huge debts by selling off some businesses,
though its cashflow is still negative and its civil business-jet subsidiary is suffering.
General Dynamics, which is big in ships, was blocked by the defense department in its
bid for Newport News, which allowed Northrop Grumman to sweep up that firm.
Northrop has also dealt General Dynamics a blow by winning a $2.9 billion contract to
design the navy's new DDX destroyer, which is expected to be the basic platform for a
range of ships that might produce contracts worth up to $60 billion.
The one newcomer that has dared venture into the defense ghetto is known as L-3
Communications, a company founded only five years ago by Frank Lanza, the former
president of Loral, a defense outfit that merged into Lockheed Martin in 1996. Having
supervised the integration, Mr Lanza persuaded Lockheed to sell him ten electronics
companies. L-3 puts together guidance and intelligence devices. It enjoys revenues of
$2.3 billion and is forecast to grow at 30% a year. It has also moved smartly into the
newly burgeoning field of homeland security, with baggage screening devices and
systems. Such civil business accounts for a quarter of its sales.
Despite some travails, Wall Street's glowing verdict on their shares gives a good
indication of American defense companies' financial prospects. European companies, by
contrast, face flat budgets and, except for the Anglo-American BAE, can hope to get little
more than crumbs from the world's biggest defense market.
The Total Quality Management Farce
Total Quality Management (TQM) was started by Edward Deming, sold to the
Japanese as Statistical Process Controls (SPC) and manufacturing techniques to help
rebuild their industrial base after the ruin of World WarII. In 1970’s GM brought
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Edward Deming in to be part of the First full CAD/CAM program in the World on the
Pontiac Fiero program. GM people disliked him thought of him as a traitor and boring
mathematician not a manufacturing specialist. I was fortunate to be part of this
program (sometime in Pontiac) for its fully Automated Engine Assembly & Test
production Line by Bendix Automation though my Dad’s BoiCo Engineering
Corporation. GM eas right Deming was boring to listen to but his Statistical Process
Controls (SPC) and involving full team empowerment did make a good difference. The
lessons learned here were data with SPC can pin point areas of error so you can drive up
its quality and predictability in process controls and to a six sigma repeatability.
Outlining much of these principles is a great book by MIT fellows James Womack,
Daniel Jones & Daniel Roo’s “The Machine That Changed The World”.
In the late 1980’s Aerospace tried to accomplish this at McDonnell Douglas with
Total Quality Management System (TQMS) later nicknamed “Time to Quit and Move to
Seattle”. This is where all managers and employees are to be judged by their peers. The
executives would have to prove their worth to keep their empire going from 32 Vice
President to only 13 VP positions.
Figure 24. A View of Earth from the Shuttle
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When Government Gave US Away
George W. Bush signing the technology offsets Law, and Bill Clinton opening up Space
secrets to China.
Exporting military know-how
Industrially advance countries prefer technology transfers to indirect offsets. Arms sales
are now routinely accompanied by arrangements for foreign buyers to produce weapon
systems or their components. If a buyer cannot rope with technology transfer, a service
and maintenance depot for the weapon system might be established.
Currently, U.S. law actually encourages the transfer of production technology to NATO
and "major non-NATO allies." This law treats the transfer of technology no differently
than the sale of armaments, merely requiring that Congress be notified of contracts
worth $14 million or more. Congress is then given 30 days within which to contest the
arrangement (15 days for NATO members).
The result is a different kind of proliferation-proliferation of military-industrial
complexes around the world. In the 1950s, only five developing countries made small
arms, ammunition, or major military equipment (aircraft, armored vehicles, missiles, or
naval craft). By the early 1980s this number had skyrocketed to 54, with 36 countries
producing major military equipment. The developing countries of Brazil, India,
Israel, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Taiwan, and Turkey all have a
significant arms industry today.
But co-production isn't a free ride. There's the cost of building the necessary
infrastructure, as well as licensing, royalty, and technical assistance fees. Licensed
production or co-production costs the buyer more than weapons bought off the shelf-but
the ability to manufacture high-tech weapons is alluring. To recoup their investment
costs and to reduce the unit cost, the buyer frequently seeks to market the weapon,
undercutting the U.S. firm from which it was originally purchased-as well as
undermining the interests of the selling government.
Perhaps the most important security implication of co-production deals is the
irrevocable transfer of industrial technology and manufacturing know-how needed not
only for conventional weapons production, but also for the possible development of
long-range missiles and weapons of mass destruction. U.S. sales of production
technology to the Shah formed the basis of Iran's current military industry, and licensed
production from the Soviet Union, China, Brazil, and others provided the foundation of
Iraq's weapons industry.
Sidebar: A License to Steal Jobs
When Congress was considering the Korean Fighter Program in August 1991, the GAO
was unable to calculate whether the sale would mean more or fewer U.S. jobs. U.S.
production would be limited, and South Korea would manufacture most of the the
airframe for 72 of 120 aircraft. Of the remaining 48 planes, European partners in the F-
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16 program were entitled to a 15 percent work-share from a previous offset. Only 12
planes were to be wholly U.S.-made; the other 36 would be exported in kits to be
assembled in Korea.
On June 25, 1992, thousands of F-16 production line workers gathered at the gates of
General Dynamics' Fort Worth, Texas factory (now Lockheed Martin) for a "Fairness
Rally" to protest the deal. George Kourpias, international president of the Machinists
and Aerospace Workers union, told them, "GD originally wanted to bring 500 Korean
workers here.... Our union put a stop to that scheme. At least for now. But the state of
mind of the company hs not changed. They still see no merit in working with us to
convert to become a part of the post-Cold War era.
"Right here in Fort Worth, 3,000 of our brothers and sisters have been laid off in the
past two years.... This week, another 500.... And the company wanted those of you left to
teach Koreans how to do your jobs." The Samsung Aerospace workers were later trained
in Turkey, where General Dynamics has another F-16 co-production facility.
Members of Congress had pushed for South Korea to purchase planes manufactured in
the United States. Cong. Richard Gephardt, a Missouri Democrat, said, "General
Dynamics, not unlike McDonnell Douglas in my district, has had to ... lay off a large
number of U.S. workers in the past year. These workers are capable of manufacturing a
majority of the parts to be used in the F-16 and the KFP, and they should be re-
employed for this purpose."
Pres. Clinton’s Transferring Technology to China
President Clinton had put a higher priority on U.S. exports than on national security, and in the
process strengthened the Chinese Army’s ability to target weapons on the U.S. and fostered
missile proliferation around the world. Here is what press accounts tell us:
Sanctions and Technology Transfer Policy
In the wake of the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster in 1986, U.S. companies began
using Chinese rocket launch services to place satellites into orbit.
However, following the Tiananmen Square massacre and the discovery of Chinese
missile technology transfers to Pakistan, Congress and President Bush levied a myriad of
sanctions against Communist China in 1990 and 1991.
These sanctions prohibited further technology transfers to that country, including satellite
exports. Since 1989, the sanctions imposed for the Tiananmen crackdown have been
waived 13 times in the name of national interest -- 3 times by President Bush and 10
times by President Clinton.
In March 1996, President Clinton announced that he was going to transfer control of
satellite exports from the State Department to the Commerce Department -- over the
opposition of then-Secretary of State Warren Christopher.
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By transferring licensing authority from the "security conscious" State Department to the
"use-at-any-time" Commerce Department, the export of U.S. satellites for launch in
China would be exempt from missile proliferation sanctions -- even if the U.S.
government concluded that China had sold missile components to Pakistan or Iran,
something China has been accused of several times.
In October and November of 1996, the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Export
Administration and the State Department issued regulations to formally implement the
transfer of commercial satellites from control under the State Department’s "Munitions
List" to the Commerce Control List.
In February 1998, President Clinton issued another waiver allowing Loral to export a
satellite to China. This new waiver will arguably make it impossible to prosecute any past
wrongdoing by Loral because the waiver effectively sanctions that company’s behavior.
In fact, the Justice Department argued just that point when it learned that the White
House planned to issue the new waiver.
According to a recent article in the Washington Post, newly released documents from the
White House suggest that the February 1998 waiver was not routine. The decision to
approve the satellite transfer was "treated as an urgent matter not because of its
importance to national security, but because the company was facing heavy fines for
delay," possibly losing a $20 million contract if the waiver was not granted by January
20, 1998.
In April the CIA concluded that 13 of China’s 18 long-range strategic missiles are aimed
at the U.S.
President Bill Clinton personally approved the transfer to China of advanced space
technology that can be used for nuclear combat. The documents show that in 1996
Clinton approved the export of radiation hardened chip sets to China.
"Waivers may be granted upon a national interest determination," states a Commerce
Department document titled "U.S. Sanctions on China."
"The President has approved a series of satellite related waivers in recent months, most
recently in November, 1996 for export of radiation hardened chip sets for a Chinese
meteorological satellite," noted the Commerce Department documents.
These special computer chips are designed to function while being bombarded by intense
radiation. Radiation hardened chips are considered critical for atomic warfare and are
required by advanced nuclear tipped missiles.
Change Maybe Coming-but not soon Enough
In October 2010 President Obama blamed Republicans Saturday for blocking bills that
would take away tax breaks for U.S. corporations that move jobs to subsidiaries in other
countries. Republicans in Congress, he said, "have consistently fought to keep these
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corporate loopholes open."
In the last four years, the president charged, "Republicans in the House voted 11 times to
continue rewarding corporations that create jobs and profits overseas -- a policy that costs
taxpayers billions of dollars every year" in revenue lost to the U.S. Treasury.
Obama wants action on a stalled Senate Bill that would end tax credits and tax deferrals for
companies with overseas operations. Instead, he wants to give tax breaks for American
firms to write off the cost of new equipment in 2011, and also make a tax credit for research
and experimentation permanent. "These are common sense ideas," he said in his weekly
Internet address.
But there is resistance to Obama's push against favorable treatment for overseas operations,
and it isn't coming solely from Republicans and business interests. Some Democrats also
fear that ending the tax help could put the United States at a competitive disadvantage. The
president acknowledged that "a lot of companies that do business internationally make an
important contribution to our economy." But he said "there's no reason why our tax code
should actively reward them for creating jobs overseas."
Republicans, in their weekly remarks, said the House of Representatives should return from
recess immediately to act on the Bush-era tax cuts due to expire in January. "The prosperity
of the American people is more important than the political fortunes of any politician or any
political party," said Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.) Democratic leaders say they will deal with
the tax issue after the Nov. 2 election. As we had seen the Democrats took a shellacking in
the Congress but held the Senate and of course still in the White House.
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Chapter 3
Where We Are Today…
“Global leadership is not a birthright. Despite what many Americans believe - Greatness
must be worked for and won by each new generation”
Announce in 2008 that the US or Boeing is number two in the Aerospace market,
second to Airbus of the European Union. This was two decade in the making ever since
Airbus was created in 1981 by suppliers which produced aircraft sub assemblies for
McDonnell Douglas and Boeing along with some Military Aircraft by the other supplier
to Defense like, Northrop, Grumman, and General Dynamics TX. now Lockheed
Martin.
We're falling behind.
By Norm Augustine (Ret. Chairman & CEO Lockheed Martin)
Figure 25. Norm Augustine
I’ve visited more than 100 countries in the past several years, meeting people from all
walks of life, from impoverished children in India to heads of state. Almost every adult
I’ve talked with in these countries shares a belief that the path to success is paved with
science and engineering.
In fact, scientists and engineers are celebrities in most countries. They’re not seen as
geeks or misfits, as they too often are in the U.S., but rather as society’s leaders and
innovators. In China, eight of the top nine political posts are held by engineers. In the
U.S., almost no engineers or scientists are engaged in high-level politics, and there is a
virtual absence of engineers in our public policy debates.
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Why does this matter? Because if American students have a negative impression – or no
impression at all – of science and engineering, then they’re hardly likely to choose them
as professions. Already, 70% of engineers with PhD’s who graduate from U.S.
universities are foreign-born. Increasingly, these talented individuals are not staying in
the U.S – instead, they’re returning home, where they find greater opportunities.
Part of the problem is the lack of priority U.S. parents place on core education. But there
are also problems inherent in our public education system. We simply don’t have
enough qualified math and science teachers. Many of those teaching math and science
have never taken a university-level course in those subjects.
I’ve always wanted to be a teacher; in fact, I took early retirement from my job in the
aerospace industry to pursue a career in education. But I was deemed unqualified to
teach 8th-grade math in any school in my state. Ironically, I was welcomed to the faculty
at Princeton University, where the student newspaper ranked my course as one of 10
that every undergraduate should take.
In a global, knowledge-driven economy there is a direct correlation between engineering
education and innovation. Our success or failure as a nation will be measured by how
well we do with the innovation agenda, and by how well we can advance medical
research, create game-changing devices and improve the world.
I continue to be active in organizations like the IEEE to help raise the profile of the
engineering community and ensure that our voice is heard in key public policy
decisions. That’s also why I am passionate about the way engineering should be taught
as a profession – not as a collection of technical knowledge, but as a diverse educational
experience that produces broad thinkers who appreciate the critical links between
technology and society.
Here we are in a flattening world, where innovation is the key to success, and we are
failing to give our young people the tools they need to compete. Many countries are
doing a much better job. Ireland, despite a devastated economy, just announced it will
increase spending on basic research. Russia is building an “innovation city” outside of
Moscow. Saudi Arabia has a new university for science and engineering with a
staggering $10 billion endowment. (It took MIT 142 years to reach that level.) China is
creating new technology universities literally by the dozens.
These nations and many others have rightly concluded that the way to win in the world
economy is by doing a better job of educating and innovating. And America? We’re
losing our edge. Innovation is something we’ve always been good at. Until now, we’ve
been the undisputed leaders when it comes to finding new ideas through basic research,
translating those ideas into products through world-class engineering, and getting to
market first through aggressive entrepreneurship.
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That’s how we rose to prominence. And that’s where we’re falling behind now. The
statistics tell the story.
U.S. consumers spend significantly more on potato chips than the U.S.
government devotes to energy R&D.
In 2009, for the first time, over half of U.S. patents were awarded to non-U.S.
companies.
China has replaced the U.S. as the world’s number one high-technology
exporter.
Between 1996 and 1999, 157 new drugs were approved in the U.S. Ten years
later, that number had dropped to 74.
The World Economic Forum ranks the U.S. #48 in quality of math and science
education.
Innovation is the key to survival in an increasingly global economy. Today we’re living
off the investments we made over the past 25 years. We’ve been eating our seed corn.
And we’re seeing an accelerating erosion of our ability to compete. Charles Darwin
observed that it is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent,
but rather the one most adaptable to change.
Right now the U.S. is not responding to change as we need to. But there is a way
forward. Five years ago, I was part of a commission that studied U.S. competitiveness.
We issued a report called Rising Above the Gathering Storm, which made some
important recommendations and specific actions to implement them. The
recommendations were:
Improve K-12 science and math education.
Invest in long-term basic research.
Attract and retain the best and brightest students, scientists and engineers in
the U.S. and around the world.
Create and sustain incentives for innovation and research investment.
Our report was received positively and enjoyed tremendous political support. I felt
confident that we were finally getting back on the right track.
In 2007, Congress passed the America COMPETES Act, which authorized official
support for many of the steps urged in the Gathering Storm report. When the stimulus
package was passed early in 2009, most of the COMPETES Act’s measures received
funding. There was an increase in total federal funding for K-12 education, the creation
of scholarships for future math and science teachers, and financial support to create the
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Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E), a new agency dedicated to high-
risk, high-reward energy research.
Since the completion of our study five years ago, however, 6 million more kids have
dropped out of high school in this country. What kind of future will they have? Likely
not a promising one. It is quite possible that our nation’s adults will, for the first time in
U.S. history, leave their children and grandchildren a lower standard of living than they
themselves enjoyed.
Global leadership is not a birthright. Despite what many Americans believe, our nation
does not possess an innate knack for greatness. Greatness must be worked for and
won by each new generation. Right now that is not happening. But we still have
time. If we place the emphasis we should on education, research and innovation we can
lead the world in the decades to come. But the only way to ensure we remain great
tomorrow is to increase our investment in science and engineering today.
Norm Augustine is an IEEE Life Fellow and retired chairman and ex CEO of Lockheed
Martin.
America’s Lost Leadership
In recent times where Companies cannot make Schedule, Cost Targets and Technical
Problems continuously arise, we need understand what went wrong. Almost all of the
Defense companies make a habit of being behind Schedule and Over Budget because it
is guaranteed percentage profit over costs. The DOD tried to improve this starting with
McNamara that did not take well in the military complex industry. Defense is extremely
important and has costing the taxpayers a tremendous amount in taxes going to keep
them alive.
Lost Leadership precludes you had leadership at one time then lost it. Companies are a
sum of the leading individuals and head of that Corporation, our Supreme Court allows
a Corporation to vote and politically contribute like an individual. Let’s look at a
Corporation by a once head of Chrysler who turned around a company and made it a
Leader-unfortunately turned it over to one not suitable to the office. Lee Iacocca
explains the Nine C’s of leadership being:
1) A Leader shows CURIOSITY and listens to people outside the Yes zone.
2) A Leader has to be CREATIVE and go out on a limb to try something
different or new.
3) A Leader has to COMMUNICATE to face reality and tell the truth, not
spout off at the mouth.
4) A Leader must be a person of CHARACTER, knowing the difference
between right and wrong.
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5) A Leader must have COURAGE (“have balls-even female CEO’s”) and take
a position on principle even if it is unpopular.
6) A Leader must have CONVICTION, a fire in your belly, passion to get
something done.
7) A Leader should have CHARISMA, an influential element that makes
people want to follow or be part of.
8) A Leader must be COMPETENT obviously an important ingredient for
ability to get things done right.
9) A Leader must have COMMON SENSE and be part of the Real World.
There are many Companies that showed tremendous Leadership back in the beginning
of this book and start of the Industry. One that comes to mind is Northrop’s proposing
to the USAF then producing a unsolicited superior and affordable fighter jet the F20,
showing many credits of Leadership. This book is to educate by pointing out the
greatness, “lessons learned” and faults in Aerospace, Defense Industry seeing a potential
growing loss in America’s Future. Leadership Lost refers to Companies and Country
losing its leadership edge by failure in technical requirement s met, schedule and cost
goals being met. Otherwise you must ask “What the heck Went Wrong?” we aren’t
talking doom and gloom just seeing our spiraling financial crisis and ineptitude to
achieve known milestones on the backs of the taxpayers.
It is well known that almost all defense companies bid on project below achievable
budget, just to win because the award goes to the lowest cost producer. After award they
add Engineering Change Notices or added Requirements (usually never meeting
original) based on the Operations Requirement Document (ORD) by the DOD and
Mission Requirements for Commercial.
Lockheed Martin
Since we just left off with a great statement from a Legend in Industry Norm Augustine
we begin to see where that company in excellence in Leadership is. Just a personal note:
The great Lockheed I like where the SR-71 and F117 came from was in California not the
GD Texas buyout. According to a great documentation book “Prophets Of War” by,
William D Hartung about Lockheed Martin and Making of the Military Complex. They
have made a habit of being over budget and behind schedule along with some bribery
cases called out. We American Taxpayers pay over $260 per household (2008 dollars)
just to keep them alive, agreed we need a strong functional Military to protect us. The
fact of recent Program’s the F22 USAF Fighter jet to replace the aging and unbeatable
F15 was to Cost: $25 Billion for 750 Aircraft. Americans ended up paying: $62 Billion
for 339 Aircraft and delivered late of course.
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Figure 26. F22 (Fwd) & F15 (Aft)
Boasting Points: The Aircraft flying along with the FA-22 in the last of these photos is
the F-15, which will be replaced by The FA-22 which is several times better. In Actual
In-flight (simulated) Combat Operations against the F-15, two FA-22s were able to
operate Without detection while they went Head to head against (8) F-15s. The FA-22s
scored Missile Hits (Kills) Against all the F-15 Aircraft and the FA-22s were never
detected by Either the F-15s or Ground Based Radar. Maj. Gen. Rick Lewis said: 'The
Raptor Operated against All Adversaries with Virtual Impunity; Ground Based Systems
Couldn't Engage and NO Adversary Aircraft Survived'!
In May 2011 the upgrade for the F22 is again behind schedule and over budget: The
latest hardware and software upgrade for the U.S. Air Force's F-22 Raptor stealth fighter
jet is over budget and behind schedule, top Defense Department officials told Congress
on May 19. "The Increment 3.2 that they working on for the F-22 for our war-fighting
customer is taking too long to implement," Air Force procurement chief David Van
Buren told members of the Senate Armed Services Committee. "We are working with
the company [Lockheed Martin] to try to speed that up and make it more affordable".
The upgrade will allow the F-22 to carry the AIM-9X infrared-guided air-to-air missile
and the AIM-120D medium-range air-to-air missile, and to attack eight ground targets
with eight 250-pound Small Diameter Bombs. Software development appears to be the
primary cause of the delay. Loren Thompson, an analyst at the Lexington Institute, said
the F-22's software is written largely in Ada, a programming language that was once a
DoD standard but whose use has waned in the past 15 years. "It tends to impede quick
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upgrades to the system to which it is the base software," Thompson said. Moreover, he
said, "The affordability of any upgrade becomes debatable when you purchase a
relatively small number of upgrades." Lockheed has built 187 Raptors, of which two
have been lost. The company said it is working with the Air Force to accelerate fielding
of the upgrade, which is split into two components, A and B, while trying to cut costs.
Despite Lockheed's confidence, the Defense Department's leaders are worried about the
program. "The F-22 modernization program is a concern to us," said Pentagon
procurement chief Ashton Carter, who testified alongside Van Buren at the May 19 2011
hearing. By DAVE MAJUMDAR Published: 19 May 2011 18:47
The F35 Joint Strike Fighter which was mocked up really great in the movie Live Free or
Die Harder is still 4 years behind schedule. It was supposed to be an Affordable
alternative to building more F22’s said Sec. of Defense Gates. Loren Thompson from
the Lexington Institute and who partially consults to Lockheed Martin made a claim
about the cost for the F35 would be no more than a current F16 fighter. The projected
cost is a record setting $300 Billion and counting, making it the costliest weapon in US
Defense History. Reading about the history of this company you would think the public
would be told the truth or have a clue of or learn a lesson of where so much government
waste is-I will not single them out of course there are many other lessons to be learned.
Figure 27. F35 JSF in Vertical Flight and Forward Flight
Pentagon acquisition chief Ashton Carter told the Senate Armed Services Committee
last month that without significant changes the plan to purchase more than 2,400 F-35
Joint Strike Fighter jets from Lockheed Martin will cost about twice as much as initially
estimated. "Over the lifetime of this program, the decade or so, the per-aircraft cost of
the 2,443 aircraft we want has doubled in real terms," said Carter, the undersecretary of
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defense for acquisition, technology and logistics. "Said differently, that's what it's going
to cost if we keep doing what we're doing. "That's unacceptable. It's unaffordable at that
rate." Using words such as "jaw-dropping" to describe the cost estimates to produce and
operate the fighter, several members of the Senate Armed Services Committee even
challenged U.S. Defense Department officials on the once-unthinkable: looking at
alternatives to the F-35, arguably the most technologically ambitious aircraft ever built.
Senators have called on the Department of Defense to come up with alternatives,
Reuters reported. The last cost estimate showed the plane well on its way to costing
more than one trillion dollars (PF, May '11). "People should not conclude that we will be
willing to continue that kind of support without regard to increased costs resulting from
a lack of focus on affordability," said Committee Chairman Carl Levin, D-Mich," Defense
News reported May 2011
General Dynamics-old
General Dynamics still has Land Systems and Electric Boat Divisions but before the
giant stock incentivized selloff of Aircraft & Space System was one of the largest
Aerospace powerhouses from the past. They owned the now Lockheed Martin Fort
Worth Texas and the GD Space Systems in San Diego which built the Atlas Missiles &
Rockets. Things started to change for them after they had mischarged the DOD on the
A12 Fighter which was a NAVAIR stealth flying wing. Then Secretary Of Defense Dick
Cheney had cancelled the program over problems. The DOD sued to regain around $1.3
Billion from them and had been in the Court of Appeals for decades.
Figure 28. A12 Avenger Concept
“SBJ Staff Report June 6, 2011 – For 20 years, the Federal government has been seeking
$1.35 billion from General Dynamics and Boeing, money paid to the two companies for
the development of the A-12 aircraft for the Navy, plus $2.5 billion in interest that has
now accumulated over that period.
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Figure 29. A12 Avenger Concept
It appears that both General Dynamics and Boeing have bought more time in repaying
the money when the Supreme Court ruled on May 23 that they would not rule on an
appeal of the two companies, and sent the case back to the Federal courts to decide.
General Dynamics Space Systems in San Diego build the minute man missile and the
USAF Atlas2, Atlas2AS, had a Company Manufacturing Senior Manager let (or go to
jail) for corruption embezzlement with Murdoch Incorporated which had a contract
doing tooling. I worked on the Atlas2as with some 3 retirees in writing the new
Manufacturing Plan. These 3 old guys which were a joy to work with, one nicknamed
Red even told me he was in the US Army and held Varner Von Braun and his family by
gun point to bring him to America. He boasted of his ability to walkthrough the factory
at a fast pace knowing where everything was. On my own time I had created and
proposed a new modern Automated Tank Assembly Cell (ATAC) manufacturing system
which would have been 140 time more efficient & cheaper than existing methods. I had
sent it up the ladder but fell on deaf ears because Management already was in cahoots
with Murdoch. I had also created and proposed recoverable Avionics pods which could
be build separately and installed in-situ or on site saving huge production & testing time
and money. Sent these up the ladder (my upper management and was soon after let go;
now I know why. Afterwards I had also sent this to the USAF Space Command Director
and Robert Roe the Head of the Office of Science & Technology in charge of the Space
Command.
Martin Marietta purchased General Dynamics Space Systems division on 2 May 1994 for
$208.5 million, consolidating 1 million square feet of office and manufacturing space for
Atlas production from San Diego with Titan facilities in Denver. Approximately 400 jobs
were eliminated in San Diego and Denver. Total savings over 10 years were initially
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estimated at over $300 million (subsequently raised to as much as $500 million); due in
part to filling excess factory space and sharing fixed costs for utilities and other property
expenses. This purchase by Martin Marietta of the Atlas launch vehicle gave Martin the
dominant role in the space launch business.
Figure 30. Atlas2AS
McDonnell Douglas-now Boeing
I had enjoyed working for McDonnell Douglas in the design engineering groups was
promoted and learned Project Management as part of the DOD’s Industrial
Modernization Incentive Program (IMIP) part of the C17. McDonnell Douglas was the
largest Aerospace Company once above $56 Billion per year in the mid 1988 period
when James Worsham (originally from GE) was the President in Long Beach. In one of
his speeches he was bragging of our Company being number one having a One, Two
Three & Four holes meaning the jets engines look like a hole from front view. At the
Time Boeing was number 2 at $38 Billion per year and Airbus was a parasite at less than
$11 Billion. Feeling no threat of competition at the time we were on top of the world.
Airbus was explained to be a European formed group which made parts for us at
McDonnell Douglas and Boeing and didn’t have the rich history in Aviation we did. I
remember meeting Jim once at his home in Palos Verdes, CA. because I was dating his
babysitter from which also was from Michigan. He had just arrived home after a large
sales trip and was discussing his terrific sale of Aircraft to a Middle Eastern Airlines
discussing the sales while sitting in a Jacuzzi with the greatest view. His home was
beautiful with a pool running into the home and a Jacuzzi that flowed down into the
pool. While he was running it until the Total Quality Management System TQMS
program which hit the Company in 1989 it was a Great Company. Once TQMS also
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nicknamed Time to Quit and Move to Seattle had pretty much changed the company in
ways meant to be Good which turned sour or Bad.
When management changed and noticing the board of Directors many were of Council
Foreign Regulations CFR thus demanding more of a Global image and no more
American Flag waiving only political correctness. The MD-90 was the first to have a
facility built in Shanghai to produce the fuselage.
The A12 was worked on from the military fighter jet group from the St. Louis once
known as McAir and to those in the company were still referred to each other as such.
Boeing Aircraft
I have a personal affection for Boeing because I worked in the design engineering groups
starting with the 777. Back in 1990’s Boeing had received partnership investment of $3
½ Billion from the 3 Japanese partners to workshare the 777. Fuji Heavy Industry
(FHI), Kawasaki (KHI) and Mitsubishi (MHI) have all partner on producing the Boeing
777. Boeing helped lay the longest, largest network line across the pacific as part of this.
The program was on schedule, on budget and met or exceeded its requirements, mlead
by Phil Condit and Alan Mulally. It almost fell behind because the Japanese suppliers
could not meet schedule and decision making milestones, requiring Boeing to send over
200 good engineers over to Japan to bring the program back on track.
Recently with the new 787 you see the innovation of using composites on the first
commercial aircraft. Let’s not forget Boeing produced the largest composite wing ever
for the B2 Bomber.
Northrop Grumman
I have a personal affection for Northrop because it got me started in the design
engineering in the Aerospace Industry back in 1985 from the B2, the F20, F18 and 747-
Air Force One fuselage. The B2 was over Budget and behind schedule but achieved
record achievements and today is still the most penetrating Bomber in the World. If
you’re somewhere hostile against US and have time to see it fly over, it’s already too late
your dead.
Boasting for Northrop they had proposed the F20 fighter which could have ended the
F16’s life and performed exception. The USAF could not break a commitment to the
then General Dynamics Company of Fort Worth but the F16 had to incorporate the
modernized cockpit we had on the F20 into their fighter.
The Navy’s replacement for the cancelled A12 was the F18 E/F where McDonnell
Douglas builds the fuselage and then McDonnell Douglas St. Louis finished it stuffing it
and winging it. This Program lead by Mike Sears had a schedule of 42 Months. This
was a totally new assembly line and many advances made fighter, to the materials and
process along with being stealthy was On Time On Budget and met requirements.
Kudos to my Team mates at Northrop Grumman El Segundo and McDonnell Douglas
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St. Louis. After much investigation the Northrop group has a superior record, outside of
the political influences.
Figure 31. F18 E/F Carrier Landing
The F18 E/F has a great future still because of its strength, power and affordable
cost as opposed to the JSF which costs continue to be outside of targeted cost. The
Boeing and Northrop Grumman team has evolved it into a new F18G Growler. The new
F18G has improved electronic warfare capabilities,
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Chapter 4
The Economic Importance
“Every dollar invested in the aerospace industry has a triple effect. It helps keep good jobs in
the United States create the products that bring enormous revenues from other countries”
Economic Importance
The Economic Importance of a Nation’s Aerospace & Technical Industry is the
difference between being a Modern World or a Third World society and average income.
Most importantly a Nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is its power and influence
in the world, unless it is non Tradable and totally consumed internally (like Health Care,
Housing, Services, etc). The reason Japan, Germany and others had grown to a large
economic Players in the 1980’s and 1990’s is because they export more than they
consume. Another big reason was in the Transportation manufacturing Aerospace and
Technical industries, requiring skilled workers and not shoes, clothing or simple
merchandise.
World Economy vs. USA
Would a Country save their own existence, knowing 50 years ahead in time compared to
the beginning? Will our US Government’s running over indebtedness hinder our own
future? Ever since the end of World War II when the US Dollar was declared to be the
only World tradable & tangible currency and “yes” some had to do with having the bomb
and could take & rule over the World. Hitler & Japan’s dream, we only made our
currency be the World currency.
Now look at the Gross Domestic Product of the World with science and data:
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Figure 32. World GDP (past 50 years)
Most of the Gross Domestic Product is created and consumed in the USA. This doesn’t
mean it will stay that way because as other countries mature, evolve and become a
higher technological creator, then their standards of living catch up in conjunction.
Over the last 50 years it has been the USA’s world domination, as see here in figure 33.
Figure 33. USA GDP vs. the rest of the World (50 years)
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Industry Economic Histories Commercial aviation is a vital engine for the American economy. The U.S. civil aviation
industry (which includes aircraft, engines and parts manufacturers, airlines, airports,
and general aviation) directly or indirectly generates over 12 million jobs and $1.5
trillion in economic activity.
Federal Aviation Administration, The Economic Impact of Civil Aviation on the U.S. Economy, 2007.
Every dollar invested in the aerospace industry has a triple effect. It helps keep good
jobs in the United States; creates the products that bring enormous revenues from other
countries; and yields the security and economic benefits that flow uniquely from
America’s civil aviation, space, and defense leadership. It is a privilege to contribute to
our nation’s success, and we must continue doing what we have shown we do best –
keep America strong and working. 2009 Aerospace Industries Association of America, Inc.
America’s Aerospace Economic Case
Aerospace has played a vital and exciting role in the growth of the United States and the
nation’s future is bright with the vast potential these two components, air and space,
offer. General data provided by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) indicates that
aerospace engineers and related professions declined between 2002 and 2012. However,
the events of September 11, 2001 have magnified the aerospace industry’s importance to
the national and economic security of our nation, and economic trends show the
workforce picture is beginning to turn around. Other sectors of the economy depend on
aerospace businesses and related disciplines for technical skills and technologies that
are critical elements of our security infrastructure and improve America’s position in the
global marketplace. The diverse sectors of aerospace include commercial, civil and
military aviation, space, and defense. They encompass a wide array of talent and
competencies. The industrial base includes researchers, engineers, technicians,
mechanics, skilled machinists, and precision production jobs. According to the
Aerospace Industry Association, the aerospace industry, including its supplier network
and the economic impact of products, totaled nearly $Trillion in sales and accounts for
one in seven U.S. jobs. Even with aerospace employment at its lowest level since the
great depression, the industry accounts for four percent of the U.S. manufacturing
workforce. This key industry is facing a critical human capital crisis.
(Future of the United States Aerospace Industry, Executive Summary)
TRADABLE EMPLOYMENT
The tradable part of the economy is the most important part of industry because it is a
Gross Domestic Product which can be sold to other nations thus getting paid by others
to produce and sell. This is what makes Japan with very few resources make their
Nation financially strong along with China, Germany, India and South Korea. US
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Tradable goods and jobs present a different picture. Figure 32 shows the larger or
major tradable sectors across three groups of manufacturing (see Figure 31).
Figure 31. Description of Manufacturing Industry Splits
Manufacturing I:
Food, beverage, and tobacco production; textile, apparel, footwear, and leather goods
Manufacturing II:
Wood and paper products; petroleum and coal; basic chemical products; synthetic
materials; nonmetallic mineral products; glass; and cement products
Manufacturing III:
Primary and fabricated metal products; heavy machinery; transportation
equipment;
computers and electronics; household appliances; semiconductors; and furniture
production Source: Summary of the North American Industry Classification System descriptors for manufacturing.
In Manufacturing III, we isolated electronics, autos, and other transportation (aero, rail, and ships)
to get a closer look at these industries. In Manufacturing II, we isolated
pharmaceuticals. Sticking with the methodology just described, those industries that are
not predominantly tradable have an asterisk to indicate that most of the industry is on
the nontradable side. (International Trade Administration, “Flight Plan 2010: Analysis of the U.S. Aerospace Industry,” www.trade.gov/mas/
manufacturing/OAAI/aero_reports.asp.)
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Figure 34. Tradable Industry Jobs, 1990–2008 (Majors)9
Source: Authors’ calculations using Bureau of Labor Statistics historical data series
*Industries that are not predominantly or entirely tradable include an asterisk.
The pattern is mixed but clear. The manufacturing sectors declined substantially in
employment in all three groups. Manufacturing III accounts for the largest drop in
jobs between 1990 and 2008 (2.2 million). Major industry job loss was in the electronics
industry (650,500), aerospace (337,400, see figure 32), and the auto industry
(172,400). Manufacturing I accounts for the second-largest drop over the period (1.3
million). In this sector, major industry job loss came from cut-and-sew apparel
manufacturing (597,300), and fabric mill (203,000). Manufacturing II accounts for the
third-largest drop (880,400), driven by the paper (-438,000) and chemical industries (-
165,600). Agriculture also posted losses of 535,000 jobs. Parts of agriculture are highly
capital intensive but others (like fruit and vegetables) remain labor intensive. The most
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notable increases in major tradable industries were in finance and in architectural and
engineering services. The tradable portion of information—the telecommunications,
data hosting, broadcasting, motion picture, recording, and publishing subindustries—
rose overall, but experienced a sharp rise and fall during the Internet bubble.
Looking at the Cost of Goods vs. Time:
Cost Comparison over the years
Weight $ Value 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010
Jet Fuel 7 Gal
Gasoline (US) 6.8 Gal
Automobile 3200 Avg, $12,750 $21,500 $28,700 $32,500
Aircraft 525000 747 18M 25M 75M 100M 125M 150M 180M 225M 318M
Gold x 16 = lb 1 oz. $38.90 $139.29 $594.90 $327.00 $386.20 $387.00 $272.65 $513.00 $1,420.25
Tax
GDP (US) 140T
Avg US Earnings
Figure 35. Cost Comparison
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Figure 36. Tradable Industry Jobs 1990-2008
Source: Authors’ calculations using Bureau of Labor Statistics historical data series
*Industries that are not predominantly or entirely tradable include an asterisk.
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Non auto transportation equipment production was a major contributor to job losses in
the tradable sector since 1990 (roughly 353,000 jobs). The vast majority of the loss
occurred in aerospace (roughly 340,000 between 1990 and 2008). In total, the nonauto
transport equipment industries saw a decrease in value added of 19 percent as one of
only two industries to see a decrease between 1990 and 2008; the other is mining (59
percent). Still, the drop in employment was enough to offset the drop in value added,
resulting in a positive increase of 20 percent in value added per job over the same
period.
To a large extent, the decline in aerospace value added reflected falling military
procurement after the end of the Cold War. However, since 2003, the industry has been
rebounding behind multifront military activities, and both employment and value added
are on the rise. Value added has grown more than 27 percent since 2003 alone
.
Figure 37. Aerospace and other Transport Industries (Tradable)
Source: Authors’ calculations using Bureau of Economic Analysis and Bureau of Labor
Statistics historical data series Notably, the United States had a trade surplus in the
aerospace industry in 2009, $47.2 billion, up 6.3 percent from 2008.29 According to the
International Trade Administration, the surplus in aerospace was the largest amongst
all U.S. manufacturing industries. It is the result of the top end of the value chain being
in the United States, accurately reflecting the global configuration of the supply chain.
This is the direct analog of China’s apparent surplus in electronics, which results from
the assembly piece of the value-added chain being performed substantially in China.
Whether the positive trends seen in recent years continue will depend in part on foreign
policy decisions.
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Economic Value – A Comparative Model The 747 is a Good example of the value growth an Aircraft program can have on the
economy and it’s Nation.
Airplane Families
2010 $ in
Millions Average
Weight-dry lb.
$ Per lb.
Avg. $ Per lb.
737 Family
737-600 56.9 95,440 $596.19 $709.43
737-700 67.9 97,750 $694.63
737-800 80.8 103,800 $778.42
737-900ER
85.8 111,650 $768.47
747 Family
747-8 317.5 525,900 $603.73 $605.44
747-8 Freighter
319.3 525,900 $607.15
767 Family
767-200ER
144.1 260,000 $554.23
$550.29
767-300ER
164.3 295,000 $556.95
767-300 Freighter
167.7 309,000 $542.72
767-400ER
180.6 330,000 $547.27
777 Family
777-200ER
232.3 330,000 $703.94
$741.82
777-200LR
262.4 354,600 $739.99
777-300ER
284.1 380,600 $764.45
777 Freighter
269.1 354,600 $758.88
787 Family
787-8 185.2 276,700 $750.71 $742.78
787-9 218.1 296,800 $734.84
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Aerospace & Defense: Least Understood Industrial Sector By guest author Robert H. Trice
Aerospace and defense (A&D) is among the least understood and appreciated of
America’s industrial sectors. Largely because of the politically charged, acronym-laden,
arcane and sometimes classified world of government contracting within which it
operates, its characteristics are much debated but seldom analyzed.
We begin with its modest size. There are about 140 million civilians in today’s U.S.
workplace. The Aerospace Industries Association estimates today there are about
819,000 private-sector A&D workers, down from 1.2 million in 1990, the end of the Cold
War. For context, there are roughly 2.8 million civilian federal government workers, 1.6
million uniformed military and 1.1 million lawyers in America.
A&D workers are well compensated. Production workers have an average hourly wage
higher than any other industry ($33), and they are twice as likely to be represented by a
union (16 percent) than the rest of the private sector. With average annual earnings for
all employees at $79,000 in 2009, A&D workers are second only to those working for
high-tech companies ($84,000). The average U.S. salary in 2009 was $38,000.
This small sector is also, year after year and by far, the leading positive contributor to
the U.S. balance of trade. Including commercial aircraft exports, A&D’s net exports in
2008 were about $58 billion. The second leading sector was semiconductors at roughly
$22 billion.
A&D is a major engine for research and development. While the average U.S. company
spends less than 3 percent of net sales on R&D, aerospace and defense companies
average over 13 percent. While the bulk of these funds come from the Department of
Defense and other federal agencies, many of the technologies spawned by these
investments find wide commercial applications. Examples are legion, from the Internet,
hydraulic brakes, cordless power tools, smoke detectors and airbags to GPS, satellite
communications and climate monitoring.
Ultimately the industry and the DOD acquisition community exist to develop, produce
and field the most militarily effective systems possible for those who protect this nation
and its freedoms, interests and allies. And when the U.S. government and the A&D
sector get it right – which is most but certainly not all of the time – they have repeatedly
delivered capabilities unmatched by any potential adversary.
Today’s A&D industry emerged from the post-Cold War consolidations of the 1990s. A
relatively small number of global “prime” contractors hold responsibility for delivering
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major systems to the government. Just below, at the first tier, are large, well-known sub-
primes and systems partners. What gets less attention are the 30,000+ lower-tier
suppliers that produce and deliver subsystems and materials on up the chain. On
average, between 60 and 75 percent of every dollar that goes to a prime is subcontracted
out for work performed by others, including more than 20,000 small, minority-owned
and disadvantaged businesses.
Some argue that A&D companies make too much money. Using a standard measure of
gross earnings (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, or
EBITDA) for various sectors from 2007-2009, A&D lagged most of its competitors, with
an average gross return of around 13 percent. The 2009 average net income or profit of
major U.S. primes was about 7 percent, in line with the average profit margin for the
S&P 500.
Like all other elements of the private sector, A&D companies compete for financial
capital and human talent, provide returns for their shareholders and pay taxes. What
differentiates them is that, with few exceptions (e.g., Boeing), most of their revenues—
and oversight—come from the federal government, which uses the goods and solutions
they produce to provide security and services for the nation, its allies and friends.
Despite its middling economic returns, the industry is able to attract sufficient private
capital because of its longer business cycles, strong cash flows and relatively lower
downside risks for investors. A&D companies are consistently able to hire and retain
top-tier engineering and scientific talent, not only because of relatively generous
economic benefits, but also the perceived importance of their work in support of U.S.
defense and foreign policy priorities.
Lost: America's Industrial Base
By, J. David Patterson
Like the F-22? Don’t like the F-22? Think we need more F-22s? Think 187 F-22s is
about the right number? Believe we need the capability the F-22 brings to the fight, or
think we don’t. The U.S. Senate’s vote Tuesday of 58 -- 40 to stop F-22 production at 187
aircraft is the next to the last nail in coffin of the Air Force’s premier fighter program. A
House-Senate conference still has to agree on the final result, but it seems like a long
shot that the program will be continued.
Regardless, of where you come down in the debate, what matters is that by not buying
more F-22s, the U.S. Air Force’s fifth generation fighter has won a very secure spot on
the side of “milk cartons” as the poster child for a “lost” industrial base.
Last week’s publication by the Aerospace Industry Association (AIA) of a report on the
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U.S. aerospace industrial base should have given the Department of Defense and
Congress pause. Not because the aerospace industrial base has been reduced to a state
that is not recoverable, but because the decisions being made in the Department have
not considered the impact on the aerospace and defense industry that the Department
depends on. Particularly, troubling is that the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) has
not considered in the past and is currently continuing to ignore the consequences of
what it is recommending on the U. S. aerospace and defense industrial base.
The fact that the QDR was not done before Secretary Gates announced the F-22
termination leaves a great analytical gap beneath that decision where a solid foundation
should be.
The issue is not just about jobs. Though much of the debate in favor of the F-22
centered on jobs, the real industrial base issue is about the kind of jobs that are on the
chopping block as defense strategy development moves forward without regard to the
availability of the skilled and experienced workforce necessary to build the weapons that
make the defense strategy actionable.
When the industrial base is defined -- more accurately -- it is 1) formed and experienced
developmental engineering design teams, 2) highly skilled and experienced aerospace
touch labor and 3) the financial capability to compete in future weapons programs, it is
clearly worse than anemic.
Since about 1986, there has been a steady decline in the number of aerospace research
and development scientists and engineers the U.S. has had available to ensure the
nation’s ability to build the necessary weapons,. From a high of about 145,000 in 1986,
the number of aerospace research and development scientists and engineers in the U.S.
had diminished to around 38,000 in 2007 according to the 56th Edition of Aerospace
Facts and Figures.
It’s not that the United States is losing research and development engineers in all
industries. In fact, during the same period the number of research and development
scientists and engineers in all industries has increased from around 670,000 to over one
million. But, in the aerospace sector the number of aerospace research and
development scientists and engineers as a percentage of the total in all industries has
plummeted from a high of about 22 percent in 1986 to just over 3 percent in 2007.
The real challenge in retaining engineering talent is with the part of the definition
offered here as “formed and experienced.” In their report the Aerospace Industries
Association noted that once lost, “Reconstituting lost production, design and
engineering capabilities could take many years.”
The picture for highly skilled aerospace touch labor doesn’t look much better. From
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1993 to 2007 the number of aerospace production workers declined by nearly 8 percent
from 390 thousand to 360 thousand. Often there is a mistaken notion that because in
the buildup of wartime manufacturing during World War II “Rosy the Riveter,” with
little training abandoned the ironing board to take up the soldering iron. Consequently,
the idea that rebuilding lost aerospace production skills today is very wrong-headed.
The training and experience necessary for an apprentice electrician or machinist to
become fully qualified in the aerospace industry takes between three to five years.
Modern fighter aircraft use composites and exotic metals that take significant training
and experience to manipulate.
Politicians are fond of saying that putting a new defense program in their district or
state will create so many thousands of new highly paid, highly skilled jobs. The facts are
that new defense programs won because some other company lost. Since the numbers
of production workers and engineers are declining, winning a contract means that jobs
are migrated and not created. Because the jobs are high paying as well, a certain
amount of wealth migrates with the jobs. But, for the country and the industrial base as
a whole, new defense programs are essentially a zero sum game.
It is a very expensive proposition to compete for major aerospace and defense weapons
and equipment programs. General Dynamics, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon,
Northrop Grumman and BAE SYSTEMS with its recent U.S. aerospace and defense
company acquisitions, are the six remaining aerospace companies. Down from over 50
aerospace companies capable of competing for large programs before the spate of
mergers. Ok, you say.
It’s survival of the fittest and the “Darwin Factor” has prevailed. The consolidation of
companies helped to reduce overhead and the remaining companies are more efficient.
I’m not sure that’s right, but maybe so. The point here is that because the “Big Six”
wield such financial power to invest in large defense programs, smaller companies that
might have a competitive product or service face a financial barrier to entry that is
daunting. Again, the AIA report put the issue differently, but the point is the same,
“Once a company decides to exit the modern defense industrial base, the expense of re-
entry is so high that the exit will likely be permanent.”
The F-22 fighter debate has highlighted a more immediate problem that could have
severe long-term consequences for America’s ability to attend effectively and
responsibly to future threats. National security strategy crafting like the Quadrennial
Defense Review is in no way precise. Even the most prescient of policy experts can only
see up to the current military operations horizon, not beyond it. Choosing a narrowly
focused national strategy with the necessary weapon systems to execute that strategy
without regard for the impact on the industrial base leaves our nation at risk.
Mr. Patterson is the Executive Director, National Defense Business Institute in the College of Business
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Fading Space Industrial Base
America is the only developed Country which does not have a manned space program
after the retirement of the Space Shuttles.
NASA's future is up for grabs in a Washington power struggle, but that's not what most worries Marshall Space Flight Center Director Robert Lightfoot.
"What keeps me awake is maintaining the capabilities and minimizing the loss of skills"
at the center he inherited from generations of space pioneers, Lightfoot said here
Tuesday. '"Everybody talks about retiring hardware," Lighfoot told the annual Center
Director's Breakfast update. "But we're also potentially retiring a lot of knowledge - a
whole lot of knowledge. And that has long-term implications for Marshall, this
community and this country." "I worry about that," Lightfoot said. "I am concerned that
the skills needed to take this nation beyond Earth orbit won't be there when we need
them." Any list of reasons why would begin with that fight in Washington, although
Lightfoot says that's far beyond his control.
President Obama wants to cancel the Constellation rocket program, which was to be
NASA's next big mission and which employs 2,200 NASA and contractor employees
here. Many in Congress want to continue it. The administration has proposed
privatizing spaceflight instead, while assigning Marshall to plan for a new deep-space
rocket and manage robot explorers aimed at other planets. Those initiatives "do provide
some new opportunities" and "represent good work for Marshall," Lightfoot said.
But will the experts here now - some of whose jobs are ending with the space shuttle
program - and rising new talent wait to see what comes next? "We knew we were going
to have a transition," Lightfoot said, referring to the shuttle's long-scheduled last flight
this year. "We've been working to minimize the loss of knowledge and skills. We've been
planning for several years on shuttle transition," Lightfoot said. "Of course, the
challenge is deepened with the proposed budget." Other agencies are eyeing NASA's
talent pool, too, Lightfoot said, including the Army, Marshall's Redstone Arsenal
landlord.
NASA and the Army have "a great partnership," Lightfoot said, adding that "our
thoughts and prayers are with them" after last week's fatal explosion. BRAC recruiters
trying to feed the Army's growing presence here are coming after NASA engineers,
technicians and other professionals, Lightfoot said.
And the Army isn't the only challenge. Lightfoot illustrated with the history of the
suspension bridge, invented in America and perfected in the world-famous Brooklyn
and Golden Gate spans. When it was time to build the Tacoma Narrows bridge in 2000,
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Lightfoot said, the American steel industry had collapsed and bridge expertise had
moved to Asia, where detailed engineering on the Tacoma bridge was outsourced. The
deck was built in South Korea and the 19,000 miles of wire inside the main cables were
manufactured in South Korea, China and England. "It's a fact of life," Lightfoot said.
"Expertise goes where the demand is." Marshall's challenge, Lightfoot said, is to
"nurture and encourage" a new generation of rocket scientists, so "the skills are ready
when the call comes" for America's next bridge into space. "It does keep me awake
sometimes," Lightfoot said. Lightfoot and Marshall honored three contractors and an
educational institution Tuesday. They were:
* Jacobs Engineering, Science and Technical Services (ESTS) Group, large business
service category.
* ATK Launch Systems, large business product category.
* Qualis Corp., small business service category.
* The Huntsville Center for Technology - the technical training and education center for
the Huntsville City School System and longtime NASA partner in the Great Moonbuggy
Race and other events. '
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Chapter 5
The Future Forecasts
“Global leadership is not a birthright. Despite what many Americans believe - Greatness
must be worked for and won by each new generation”
In the next 20 years the Aerospace & Defense market is valued at around 7 ½ Trillion
over 3 ½ Trillion is in the Commercial Aircraft Market. We have a pretty good pulse in
the Market Analysis for Forecasts; in some detail Boeing has produced a very good 20
Forecast Annually. The recent Leader Airbus then follows up with their own adjusting
or tweaking some details and inputting the European Union’s point of view.
The World’s Growing Competition
Many countries are becoming growing competition to US Aerospace Industry and
currently when I write this book, US is second in the world to Airbus & EADS the
European Community now the Number 1 Aerospace Company in the World. They do
not occupy just a single Country like the USA but a financial and working consortium of
Europe’s producing countries which is Headquartered in Tolouse France.
China has been trying hard to build up their own industry and India will help them
along with building up their own. The difference with India is they have so much
unbalanced wealth; corruption and their Government and business will not invest in the
infrastructures to make them capable
U.S. faces foreign competition — in space
By Peter N. Spotts, The Christian Science Monitor 11/7/2005 6:28 PM
The plan for human space exploration has a familiar ring: Launch probes to scope out
the moon, build rockets powerful enough to get people and supplies there, then send the
first lunar expedition — all before 2020.
These goals form the centerpiece of the U.S. manned spaceflight program. They now form the centerpiece of China's, too.
As lawmakers in Washington fret over how to pay for key elements of President Bush's blueprint for space exploration, which aims to send astronauts back to the moon in 2018, China is making a bid to place the first bootprints on the moon this century — perhaps in 2017.
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On one level, China's goals — plus those of other space-faring countries — are raising concerns among some analysts that the US space program may be on the verge of losing its preeminence in space exploration. The foreign competition also echoes a broader worry: the possibility that the global center of gravity in science and technology may start to shift toward Asia if the U.S. fails to adequately support its research enterprise.
NASA became the focus of those concerns as its administrator, Michael Griffin, told Congress last week that the agency needed to make difficult cuts in basic research and technology development. Some lawmakers worried about the agency's ability to attract the best and brightest and help draw more young people to science and technology.
Many experts worry about what might happen if those young people do something else. While the U.S. remains the world's R&D giant, "the Chinese are definitely moving faster than we are" in key areas, says James Lewis, director of the Technology and Public Policy Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. He cites information technology, aerospace, and biotechnology as examples.
"The rates of change in these areas favor China," he continues. "Whether it's enough to catch up remains to be seen."
With a gross domestic output of $7.3 trillion, second only to the United States in economic terms, China is projected to move into second place in the global R&D sweepstakes this year, overtaking Japan, according to projections from Battelle Memorial Institute in Columbus, Ohio, and R&D magazine. On a continental scale, Asia is projected to overtake the Americas this year in total R&D spending and
pull well ahead next year.
To a large degree, these changes are normal adjustments as economies devastated by World War II recovered and the communist economies gave way to more market-based approaches, analysts say.
Such a move has its benefits, says Kei Koizumi, director of the R&D budget and policy program at the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington. "It opens the door for expanded collaborations that didn't exist a decade ago."
Yet the question of who leads remains critical, many say.
"Certainly, a lot of the concern stems from self-interest," Mr. Lewis says. "But it also has to do with who sets the rules of international behavior. People from other countries train in the U.S. and take that exposure to innovation and democratic values back with them. I don't know who we'd feel comfortable handing that off to."
Check out how NASA
plans to use elements of
the Apollo and shuttle
programs for the next
moon mission.
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Last month in a major report from The National Academies, panel members expressed concern over what they saw as the erosion of America's R&D effort at a time when other countries are ramping up their R&D efforts. The panel recommended a set of remedies — from improving elementary and secondary science education to offering tax incentives for U.S. innovation and raising federal spending for R&D. Estimated cost: $9 billion to $20 billion a year.
Yet the competition for federal dollars is fierce, given the war in Iraq, the ballooning federal deficit, and the rising cost of federal entitlement programs. "We can see the path we would like to take," Mr. Koizumi says. "But getting there is not easy."
The challenges NASA faces, he continues, are a case in point. Many of the agency's troubles are self-inflicted, he acknowledges. Still, he adds, the agency can be viewed as a microcosm for the forces buffeting the U.S. R&D enterprise as a whole.
Budget strictures are forcing the agency to make hard choices. "NASA cannot afford everything on its plate today," Dr. Griffin told lawmakers last week. At issue: How the agency will make up what NASA estimates is a $3 billion to $5 billion shortfall in the space-shuttle program, even as it tries to accelerate development of the shuttle's replacement — the crew exploration vehicle (CEV) and the rockets to launch it.
Before the agency presented its plan for returning humans to the moon earlier this fall, NASA "cast its net very widely on research and technology development," he said. "Now we should be oriented toward projects we're actually doing. This requires canceling things that don't need to be done or don't need to be done right now."
The moves, which include layoffs at the agency, could mean fewer young people would sign on to the space program.
Yet the adjustments are necessary, Griffin argued, if the U.S. is to avoid a period when it has no homegrown means of putting astronauts in space. Failing to accelerate the program beyond the pace President Bush initially envisioned "would take the U.S. out of manned spaceflight for four years, when other nations are rising in ascendancy," Griffin said.
"We're seeing the dawning renaissance of NASA," said Rep. Sherwood Boehlert (R) of New York and chairman of the committee. "But a renaissance costs money. And I don't see any Medicis waiting in the wings to underwrite NASA."
Noting NASA's proclivity to over-promise on its projects and timetables, he said, "I don't want to see us go down that road again."
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Where All the Money Is:
The US Defense is the largest in the world well over everyone else put together.
This shows how the US Strength is the most Ultimate on Earth, but we will loose some
with new downsizing. NASA & the NSF should have more contribution than what has
been shelled out to them and with the upcoming changes predicted in the future, we
should not lose our Superpower.
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Figure 38.
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Boeing’s Future Forecast
The US Commercial Aerospace Industry and Defense 2012-2031
http://www.boeing.com/boeing/commercial/cmo/
Airbus Future Forecast
Many countries are becoming growing competition to US Aerospace Industry and
European Consortium has better manufacturing more automated techniques with the
exception in composite on the 787.
The Airbus Market Forecast from 2012-2031
http://www.airbus.com/company/market/forecast/
Asia’s Future Forecast
Asia & China’s Future Forecast well they don’t publish one yet but in 1994 while I was in
South Korea consulting ultimately to Samsung Aerospace through Martin Marietta
which became Lockheed Martin at that time.
Forecast Considerations:
Additional considerations to eh Asia & China’s Future Forecast well they don’t publish
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Chapter 6
Our Future Focus and Plans
The Worlds future was at the hands of America when Japan stood on the deck of the
Missouri and signed their surrender to US at the end of World War 2. At that moment
in time the world was the USA’s apple to take because we had the Atomic bomb and
nobody else did. The US had already beaten Germany and Russia was nothing of a
threat nor a mighty power in comparison. From that point forward America has directly
rebuilt, industrialized and modernized those countries which have been devastated by
war much to the effect to compete against US. This One Nation under God, indivisible
with Liberty and Justice for All with endowed Rights by our Creator did not push World
Domination because it is not American to do so.
Now, America’s Future depends mostly on all of us citizens to stand up for it’s
importance politically, then win economically. The secret of the value is known
worldwide for boosting society’s standards of living and economic prosperity. China has
been trying hard to build up their own industry and India will help them along with
building up their own. The difference with India is they have so much unbalanced
wealth; corruption and their Government and business will not invest in the
infrastructures to make them capable
The future focus will belong to those who can dream, design and build the ultimate way
to transport people and goods the fastest, cheapest and safest ways possible. On land
ultra high speed rail from coast to coast, seems to be a no brainer although Amtrak
(traveling at 70MPH) cannot stay alive without government aid. Personal aerocraft or
the flying car should be our goal because 3 dimensional travel allowing one to avoid
streets with traffic, pollution, potholes (infrastructure) and personal limits speed and
your desire to live near work or school. This is the next phase for us, just like the
automobile brought us out of the train & buggy age in the 20th century.
At an AIAA conference in Los Angeles early 1990’s a NASA Director had spoke of us
getting into our own flying vehicle, telling it or punching in our destination and it would
take you there safety with Global Positioning System (not known at the time) and the
National Advanced Air Traffic Control System by the year 2012.
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Where’s our Flying Car?
We have all seen articles in Popular Science or movies that have flying cars, well where
are they? Maybe the insurance Companies which almost killed the private Aircraft
Companies like, Moonie, Bonanza, Piper, Cessna and others back in the 1970’s. At an
AIAA Conference in Los Angeles in 1990 was NASA official talking about the year 2012 a
day when you get into your flying craft/car, tell it where you want to go or punch in the
destination and we would get you there. This was to performed using a new Global
Positioning Satellite (GPS) system and an Advanced automated Air Traffic Management
(ATM) System for Air Traffic Control and safety. Thanks to handing the GPS over to the
USAF for a successful delivery and what we take for granted today. Not so lucky with
the Air Traffic Management system, which some events have made headline news. In
2011 Air Traffic Controllers were sleeping on the job and a dangerously close condition
with the first Lady Michelle Obama.
The most important part of flying cars isn’t only the car themselves but, the safety of a
crowded skyway and when a craft fails it cannot pull over to a cloud and wait for AAA to
come and help. If a aircraft fails in the sky it must land on something somewhere and
you don’t want it to be your house or head. This means safety in design and reliability
must be incorporated. I happen to have a thrust vectoring design for this originally
proposed to the US Army back in 1990, now it has many technical improvements put
into it. The propulsion would use super conductive electro-magnetic for thrust and lift.
Figure 39. SVC’s Vertical Take-off & Landing Aerocraft
There have been many attempts at the flying car since 1917 Curtiss Aircraft made an
Autoplane which was a modified production automobile with wings mounted to the roof
but never really seen true flight just a few hops and skips. In 1929 a German Engineer
J.H. Maykemper made a convertible flying car with folding wings. His car would
transfer power from the forward wheels to a front mounted propeller and was capable at
takeoff within 100 yards.
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Fortunately I’ve already worked on or engineered or managed the entire development of
Electric Vehicles, so research and capability runs deep into been there, done that.
The Super Sonic Cruiser
Anyone who has flown overseas, understands the lengthy painful experience even in
first or business class and coach, you must be of a small stature to even handle it. Why
is it we still fly Sub Sonic because it is easier to make micro adaptations than go for the
gusto of the new way to do things. France tried it with the Concord to find it barely
broke even. Back in Feb. 26, 2002 Boeing showcased the Sonic Cruiser in Singapore
and was proceeding in the preliminary design and investigation for a Super Sonic
blended wing body Aircraft called the Sonic Cruiser.
Figure 40. Boeing Sonic Cruise vs. Better
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The airplane has a dramatic new configuration and is designed to fly as fast as Mach
0.98, shortening travel times with fuel consumption per passenger comparable to
today's best performing widebody twinjets. The program remains targeted for 2008
entry into service.
Figure 41. Boeing Sonic Cruiser
Hypersonic - The Orient Express
In the late 1980’s and early 1990’s McDonnell Douglas, Rocketdyne, Pratt and Whitney
were investigating and building some techniques for going Hypersonic or flying from
Los Angeles to Tokyo in 2 Hours.
The National Aerospace Space Plane: We made a fuselage section in 1988 for the NASP
at McDonnell Douglas CA. back in 1988-89 creating very high tech material processes.
We laser and plasma sintered powdered called “Rapid Solidification Rate” (RSR)
process and matrixed metals (titanium-aluminide, with reinforced silicon-carbide
fibers) then rolled sheets and superplastic formed (SPF) and diffusion bonded (DB) to
create shape and Hot Isostatic Processed (Hipped) for molecular stabilization and heat
treating. The superplastic formed multi-sheet assembly created a center core for semi
cryogenic hydrogen slurry to flow thru both carrying the fuel and cooling the hypersonic
aircraft to 20 time the speed of sound at mach20 and over 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit.
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Figure 42. Hypersonic Aircraft
The X-51 WaveRider team is focused on developing a free-flying vehicle that will fly
longer hypersonically than all of it predecessors combined. Hypersonic speeds are those
in excess of Mach 5 (five times the speed of sound).
The X-51 program is a consortium between Boeing and Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne.
The customers are the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory and the Defense Advanced
Research Projects Agency, with support from NASA.
The Boeing X-51 team purposely developed the vehicle to package a specific engine type
into a soon-to-be-demonstrated platform. When this jet-fueled, air breathing hypersonic
vehicle flies in late 2009 and early 2010, it will demonstrate a reliable system capable of
operating continuously on jet fuel and accelerating through multiple Mach numbers
Space Tourism
Today you can buy tickets to travel into space around $200,000 per seat on the Virgin’s
Galactic. This is very Low Earth Orbit to fly around in free space for less than an hour,
never having to go outside of Space where –re-entry is dangerous and not found in
SirVigin ….
Space Based Solar Power-Energy
Why Space Energy: Us Humans have found the way to convert solar radiation to
electrical energy, at this moment still DC creation. In space you have un interrupted
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energy and less the diffusion of clouds. The ultimate clean energy known to man is the
Space Based Solar Power Stations thought of back in the 1968 by NASA. When I was
working at General Dynamics Space Systems in San Diego in 1990, I remember the
proposal department was always working on and submitting this Space Based Solar
Power system to our Government they even included it in our Annual Christmas book
with all the other space technologies being proposed. (unfortunately NASA-“at times
Great” now being a puppet of politics (i.e, Praising Muslims working on US Projects,
what about the Jews, Buddhists, Hindu, Christians? Could this add to the demise of
America the Great Land of Freedom, when a choice looks or prejudice flavor is to be
allowed in America?
http://www.thefutureschannel.com/dockets/realworld/space_based_solar_power/
In Christmas 2009 I had a Jobs Forum and Christmas party from friends from Vought
Aircraft of LTV (now Triumph), Northrop Aircraft of El Segundo and my personal
friends from Boeing. In this Jobs Forum lead by Valerie Jarrett I mentioned this as a
great way to achieve energy independence. The Energy I know we can do is over 1
Terawatt per year per space system that equals 114.5 Kw per hour.
Figure 43. SBSP Concepts
The concepts shown are not the high powered techniques proposed to the DoD but are
valuable to understand easy accomplishable goals. We (humans) have sent microwaves
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down to Earth at levels to do this and Europe has sent it via Laser Beam, Japan mainly
Mitsubishi has dedicated Billions for this to be Japans source by or before 2040.
Unfortunately our White House was looking through Oil Tainted/Tinted glasses. This
would be a reason self resourcefulness which would eliminate most suppliers to
household energy systems. For Mankind: If you provide the Material, Energy and
Production Capability to any Nation they can create industry to have “Developmental
Self Support and Civilization Improvement”.
I would like to quote a Letter sent to the President Obama from an Organization
dedicated to this:
As developing countries continue to grow and embank on major electrification efforts,
energy shortages will become one of the most serious challenges facing governments
this century. China and India alone will need to raise energy generating capacity by a
staggering 4 to 5 times over the next 20 years in order to meet demand – an equivalent
of bringing on-line two large coal-fired power stations per week, every week.
“The risk of energy shortages could mean more than high prices. In the 20th century,
many wars were motivated in part by the need to secure future energy supplies - and,
according to the U.S. Pentagon, the risk of such conflict remains high in the 21st
century. (See the paper "War Without Oil.")
Safe, reliable, renewable, base-load power that is affordable and widely available has
long been the ‘holy grail’ of researchers and scientists in the energy industry. Aside from
averting conflict associated with resource wars, abundant clean energy has the potential
to truly improve life around the world in many ways. Rural electrification can offer one
of the fastest ways out of poverty for developing areas. It can ensure that food and
medicines are preserved and made available where they are needed the most. It can
provide power for water purification and desalination and light so that children can
study and develop their potential.
This is why Space Energy is committed to harnessing existing and new methods for
clean energy generation and transmission, such as from ground-based solar power and
space-based solar power.
Space Energy seeks to improve the lives of millions of people, provide viable alternatives
to polluting energy sources and help abate some of the challenges caused by increasing
demand for energy and declining natural resources.
It intends to become the leading commercial enterprise in the field of renewable energy
by harnessing the benefits of traditional and new methods for clean, safe, reliable, power
generation and transmission. This includes developing owning and operating ground
based solar parks in the United States and internationally through the mobilization of
existing and proprietary technologies.
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Moreover it intends to be the world’s first private enterprise to successfully
commercialize Space-Based Solar Power (SBSP) – a proven technology, now made
commercially viable by changed market conditions and further advancements. SBSP
uses arrays of solar panels to harvest the abundant supply of clean solar energy in
Earth’s orbit to transmit a safe, uninterrupted supply of electricity anywhere on Earth at
affordable, fair market prices.
Tomorrows new Bomber Northrop Grumman knows how and competes with Boeing and Lockheed Martin
which are working closely at all levels to capture the best of industry to develop and
provide an effective and affordable solution for the warfighter. (Maybe if our Senate
and White House People where mostly from Lockheed & Boeing States they would get
the program much like the last Decade.)
Figure 44. Next Generation Bomber
This collaborative effort for a long-range strike program will include work in
advanced sensors and future electronic warfare solutions including advancements in
network enabled battle management, command and control, and virtual warfare
simulation and experimentation. The work performed by the Boeing/Lockheed
Martin team is designed to help the Air Force establish capability-based roadmaps for
technology maturation and date certain timelines for the 2018 Bomber program.
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Educating Tomorrow’s People
The next generation of students going into Engineering and Aerospace to take up the
reigns of tomorrow has been dwindling in the last couple decades. We have more
Lawyers graduating Universities than we do the creators of tomorrow.
10 Incredible Airplane Designs of the Future
by Michele Collet
NASA awarded three contracts this fall for designs of aircraft that will be flying in 2025
to Boeing, Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin. Each one has to be less noisy,
more fuel efficient and have cleaner exhaust than planes flying now.
Other specifications by NASA are that they should "fly up to 85 percent of the speed of
sound; cover a range of approximately 7,000 miles; and carry between 50,000 and
100,000 pounds of payload, either passengers or cargo."
Here are the three concept designs as well as some from April and earlier. Not all of
them will make it beyond the design stage and some may have already been scrapped,
while others could be very close to being seen on our runways in the future.
10. An Iconic Idea
Figure 45. 10) Icon-II Supersonic flight
Photo: NASA/The Boeing Company
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The Icon-II is a design for supersonic flight over land that comes from Boeing. Apart
from fulfilling the specifications, it also reduces fuel consumption and airport noise.
9. Green Supersonic Machine
Figure 46. 9) Green Supersonic Machine
Photo: NASA/Lockheed Martin Corporation
This concept design by Lockheed Martin is one that the company presented to NASA in
April of last year and is designed for overland supersonic flight. It showed that by using
the inverted V engine under the wing configuration, one can really lower the level of
supersonic booms.
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Figure 47. 8) Blended Wing
Photo: NASA/The Boeing Company
These blended wing concept aircraft are from Boeing and one of the three that was
shown to NASA when the contract awards were granted in the fall.
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7. X-45A UCAV
Figure 48. 7) X-45A UCAV
Photo: Boeing
The UCAV air vehicle was unveiled at a special exhibition in Missouri, along with two
other elements of the UCAV system, a mission control and air vehicle storage system.
6. Solar Eagle
Figure 49. 6) Solar Eagle
Photo: Boeing
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The Solar Eagle is Boeing's entry into the Vulture program by the defense program to
create an ultra-long endurance aircraft.
5. SUGAR
Figure 50. 5) SUGAR
Photo: NASA/The Boeing Company
SUGAR is a Boeing concept aircraft presented in April 2010 that stands for Subsonic
Ultra Green Aircraft Research. It combines gas and battery technology.
4. Lockheed Martin,
Fall
Figure 51. 4) Lockheed Martin
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Photo: NASA/Lockheed Martin
Lockheed Martin's concept plane this fall doesn't look so different on the outside except
for the wing structure being all one, but it is revolutionary inside, as are all the others.
3. Bigger is Better
Figure 52. 3) Bigger is Better
Photo: NASA/MIT/Aurora Flight Sciences
This aircraft was presented in April by MIT. Known as the Hybrid Wing Body H series, it
is designed to fly at Mach 0.83, carrying 354 passengers over 7,600 nautical miles.
2. Northrop Grumman,
Fall
Figure 53. Northrop Grumman
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Photo: NASA/Northrop Grumman
This is Northrop Grumman's artist concept, which was presented in the fall of 2010.
Figure 54. The Puffin
Photo: NASA
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This amazing design is the Puffin Personal Aircraft. It is designed to go about 150 miles
an hour for about 50 miles. Needless to say, it has been one of NASA's most viral
images.
But there is a limit to solar energy. And the question that leaves engineers scratching
their heads now, is how to make that leap from the light aircraft we’ve seen make a
major technological breakthrough today, to fuelling the passenger airliners of
tomorrow? If an entire aircraft were to be covered with 100 percent efficient solar
panels, it would still not be enough to sufficiently propel a large aircraft. Even greatly
increasing the output of photovoltaic cells wouldn’t make an airliner fly. In the more
immediate future solar power could provide electricity on board the aircraft once it has
reached altitude. But who knows what the future will bring!
The motto of tomorrow will be flexibility.
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Figure 55. Airbus Solar Aircraft
In the future there will be so many different ways to fly. For your personal travel, not far
from home, you’d choose your own vehicle – perhaps the much-vaunted ‘flying car’. But
as soon as you want something more economical or faster for longer distances you’d
need something else that allows for mass
transportation. So your ‘car’ of the future could be a capsule you keep in your garage,
then drive or fly to dock onto an enormous ‘mother ship’ that takes you to your final
destination.
But what about ground-space? How do we avoid sprawling airports and extending
runways?
Vertical take-off would be one way of gaining space in cities.
We could have flying aircraft carriers for our long distance flights, which circle the globe
and on which small aircraft can dock.
In the middle of this century, telecommunications will be so
perfect that we will have to travel far less for our work. On the other hand, it will be easy
to work… as we travel! Communication technology will be as accessible on a plane as it
is in an office. But it still won’t replace the benefits of face-to-face meetings, the
sensation of holding a new grandchild or the excitement of visiting a new country for the
first time. Telecommunications will never replace the sights and sounds of real travel.
We will want to arrive at our destination in ever shorter time frames, whatever the
distance: so will anyone bring back ‘The Supersonic Plane’? Or perhaps we’ll see the
‘Hypersonic Plane’, which would travel above the atmosphere and reach Australia, for
example, in just two to three hours. Unless we decide to take our time and enjoy a trip
with every comfort: swimming pools, spas, tennis courts etc. The next generation of air
tourism will be ‘cruise ships of the sky’ with packages to suit the individual.
And on these flying palaces, that will make their money from casino takings, restaurants
and other attractions, the ticket may even be for free!
Travel in the future will be about choice. You will be able to choose if you want fast
travel, luxury travel or basic leisure travel. To make this choice you could be assisted by
a personal cyber assistant that is always around you, knows what you want and what you
feel and will make the travel booking according to your personal preference.
The final frontier will be space. We are already seeing the first serious steps towards
space tourism today,
but an orbital space station could become the ultimate holiday destination. Experience
the joys of weightlessness… and the unrivalled view of our very own Earth, the planet
that we have been able to preserve in all its splendid diversity.
Boeing’s 797 Concept
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Conclusion Re-quote the introduction
100 years evolution
Little innovation in 30 years, except material & powerplant
GDP Importance
Society Std of Livings
Need for Far sighted improvements and growth for New Markets & niches (flying
cars, space tourism)
In the past 100 years we have come along way, from the birth of powered flight to
supersonic flight without an afterburner. Over the last 30 years the commercial side
of flight has made very little advancement from the barrel with swept wings
developed 60 years ago. The materials may have improved for strength to weight
improvements and most improvement have been in the Jet propulsion made the
greatest improvements in efficiencies, many thanks to the ultra high bypass system.
Many of these achievements could not exist without the fostering of technology
evolution by Defense Systems.
We currently are in program development and GDP market share of less than ½ due
to competition. In the future there will be so many different ways to fly. For your
personal travel, not far
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References & Contributors:
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Chapter 1: Beginnings & Buildups
History:
"Airbus Industrie: An Economic and Trade Perspective." Congressional Research
Service, U. S. Library of Congress. U. S. Government Printing Office, March 1992.
Allen, Richard Sanders. Revolution in the Sky. New York: Orion Books, 1988.
Ambrose, Stephen E. The Wild Blue: The Men and Boys Who Flew the B-24s Over
Germany. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2001.
Anderson, Fred. Northrop: An Aeronautical History. Los Angeles: Northrop, 1976.
Angelucci, Enzo. The American Fighter. New York: Orion, 1987.
and Matricardi, Paolo. World Aircraft, 1918-1935. Chicago: Rand McNally & Co., 1976.
. World Aircraft: Origins – World War I. Chicago: Rand McNally & Co., 1975.
Biddle, Wayne. Barons of the Sky. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1991.
Bilstein, Roger E. Flight In America: From the Wrights to the Astronauts Revised
Edition. Baltimore, Md.: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994.
. Stages to Saturn: A Technological History of the Apollo/Saturn Launch Vehicles.
Washington, DC: NASA SP-4206, 1980.
. The American Aerospace Industry: From Workshop to Global Enterprise. New York:
Twayne Publishers, 1996.
Bledsoe, Marvin V. Thunderbolt: Memoirs of a World War II Fighter Pilot. New York:
Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1982
Bowers, Peter M. Boeing Aircraft Since 1916. Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press,
1989.
. The DC-3. 50 Years of Legendary Flight. Blue Ridge Summit, Penn.” Tab Books, 1986.
Bowman, Martin W., compiler. Douglas - Images of America. Stroud, Gloucestershire,
England: Tempus Publishing Limited, 1999.
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. Lockheed. Images of America. Stroud, Gloucestershire, England: Tempus Publishing,
Ltd., 1998.
. Boeing: Images of America. Stroud, Gloucestershire, England: Tempus Publishing,
Ltd., 1998.
Boyne, Walter J. Beyond the Horizons – The Lockheed Story. New York: St. Martin's
Press, 1998.
. Boeing B-52: a Documentary History London; New York: Jane's, 1982.
. The Smithsonian Book of Flight. New York: Wing Books, 1987.
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Citation: Bugos, Glenn. "History of the Aerospace Industry". EH.Net Encyclopedia,
edited by Robert Whaples. August 28, 2001. URL
http://eh.net/encyclopedia/article/bugos.aerospace.industry.history
The History of the Aerospace Industry
Posted Mon, 2010-02-01 18:21 by Anonymous
Glenn E. Bugos, The Prologue Group
The aerospace industry ranks among the world's largest manufacturing industries in
terms of people employed and value of output. Yet even beyond its shear size, the
aerospace industry was one of the defining industries of the twentieth century. As a
socio-political phenomenon, aerospace has inflamed the imaginations of youth around
the world, inspired new schools of industrial design, decisively bolstered both the self-
image and power of the nation state, and shrunk the effective size of the globe. As an
economic phenomenon, aerospace has consumed the major amount of research and
development funds across many fields, subsidized innovation in a vast array of
component technologies, evoked new forms of production, spurred construction of
enormous manufacturing complexes, inspired technology-sensitive managerial
techniques, supported dependent regional economies, and justified the deeper incursion
of national governments into their economies. No other industry has so persistently and
intimately interacted with the bureaucratic apparatus of the nation state.
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Aerospace technology permeates many other industries -- travel and tourism, logistics,
telecommunications, electronics and computing, advanced materials, civil construction,
capital goods manufacture, and defense supply. Here, the aerospace industry is defined
by those firms that design and build vehicles that fly through our atmosphere and outer
space.
The First Half-Century
Aircraft remained experimental apparatus for five years after the Wright brother's
famous first flight in December 1903. In 1908 the Wrights secured a contract to make a
single aircraft from the U.S. Army, and also licensed their patents to allow the Astra
Company to manufacture aircraft in France. Glenn Curtiss of New York began selling his
own aircraft in 1909, prompting many American aircraft hobbyists to turn
entrepreneurial.
Europeans took a clear early lead in aircraft manufacture. By the outbreak of the Great
War in August 1914, French firms had built more than 2,000 aircraft, German firms had
built about 1,000, and Britain slightly fewer. American firms had built less than a
hundred, most of these one of a kind. Even then aircraft embodied diverse materials at
close tolerances, and those who mismanaged the American wartime manufacturing
effort failed to realize the need for special facilities and trained workers. American
warplanes ultimately arrived too late to have much military impact or to impart much
momentum to an industry. When contracts were cancelled with the armistice the
industry collapsed, leading to the reconfiguration of every significant aircraft firm. By
contrast, seven firms built more than 22,500 of the 400-horsepower Liberty engines,
and their efforts laid the foundation for an efficient and well-concentrated aircraft
engine industry -- led by Wright Aeronautical Company and Curtiss Aeroplane and
Motor.
Still, the war induced some infrastructure that moved the industry beyond its
fragmented roots. National governments funded testing laboratories -- like the National
Advisory Committee for Aeronautics established in May 1915 in the United States -- that
also disseminated scientific information of explicit use to industry. Universities began to
offer engineering degrees specific to aircraft. American aircraft designers formed a
patent pool in July 1917 -- administered by the Aircraft Manufacturers Association --
whereby all aircraft firms cross-licensed key patents and paid into the pool without fear
of infringement suits. The post-war glut of light aircraft, like the Curtiss Jenny trainers
in America, allowed anyone who dreamed of flying to become a pilot.
Most of the companies that survived the war remained entrepreneurial in spirit, led by
designers more interested in advancing the state of the art than in mass production.
During the 1920s, aircraft assumed their modern shape. Monoplanes superceded
biplanes, stressed-skin cantilevered wings replaced externally braced wings, radial air-
cooled engines turned variable pitch propellers, and enclosed fuselages and cowlings
gave aircraft their sleek aerodynamic shape. By the mid-1930s, metal replaced wood as
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the material of choice in aircraft construction so new types of component suppliers fed
the aircraft manufacturers.
Likewise, the customers of aircraft grew more sophisticated in matching designs to their
needs. Militaries formed air arms specifically to exploit this new technology, which
became dedicated procurers of aircrafts. Air transport companies began flying
passengers in the 1920s, though all those airlines were kept afloat by government
airmail contracts. European nations developed airmail routes around their colonies --
served by flag-carriers like the British Overseas Airways Corporation, Lufthansa, and
Aeropostale. Pan Am's routes to Asia and Latin America, linked by flying boats built by
Sikorsky, Douglas and Lockheed, was the equivalent in the American empire.
The United States was the only country with a large indigenous airmail system, and it
drove the structure of the industry during the 1920s. The Kelly Air Mail Act of 1925 gave
airmail business to hundreds of small pilot-owned firms that hopped from airport and
airport. Gradually, these operations were consolidated into larger airlines. In 1928 -- in
a mix of stock market euphoria and aviation enthusiasm following Charles Lindbergh's
transatlantic flight -- Wall Street financiers formed holding companies that integrated
airlines with the manufacture of aircraft and engines. United Aircraft and Transport, for
example, combined United Airlines with Boeing, North American Aviation, and the
Aviation Corporation. These holding companies struggled for profitability following the
stock market crash of 1929, and were ultimately undone in 1934 through legislation that
split manufacturers and airlines -- a separation that continued thereafter.
The United States was also the only country large enough for air travel to challenge rail
travel, and in the 1930s airlines competed for passengers by forging alliances with
aircraft manufacturers. The Boeing 247 airliner, based on its B-9 bomber design,
marked the start of American dominance in transport aircraft. The Douglas DC-3,
introduced in 1935, gave airlines their first shot at solvency by carrying people rather
than mail. Many advances in aircraft design during the 1930s addressed the comfort,
efficiency and safety of air travel -- cabin pressurization, retractable landing gear, better
instrumentation and better navigational devices around airports. Britain and Germany
produced the best large bombers at the start of the 1930s, though by the start of the
World War II American designs were better. American firms, by contrast though, were
producing very few of them.
During the 1930s, the European states had begun ramping up production of military
aircraft, training pilots to fly them, and building airfields to host them. Once the war
began, though, factories were bombed and supply lines cut off. As it became less likely
they would overwhelm their enemies with vast fleets of aircraft, German and British
aircraft firms instead invested in research and engineering to create better aircraft.
Under the exigency of war, Europeans developed the strategic missile, the jet engine,
better radar, all-weather navigation aids, and more nimble fighters. The German
Messerschmitt 262 fighter aircraft -- which combined a strong turbine engine with the
innovation of swept wings -- approached the speed of sound. The Europeans also
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innovated in tactics and logistics to use fewer aircraft more effectively. The discipline of
operations research grew out of British needs to use patrol aircraft more efficiently.
Though American designers also proved innovative in the crucible of war, American
firms clearly triumphed in mass production.
In the six-year period 1940 through 1945, American firms built 300,718 military
aircraft, including 95,272 in 1944 alone. In the previous six-year period, American firms
built only 19,587 aircraft, most of those civil. In 1943, the aviation industry was
America's largest producer and employer -- with 1,345,600 people bent to the task of
making aircraft. A vast array of firms -- especially automobile makers -- fed this rapid
escalation of production. Engineers disaggregated aircraft into smaller parts to parcel
out to subcontractors, managed distributed manufacturing, and devised the concept of
the learning curve to forecast when cost reductions kicked in. By the end of the war,
Americans firmly believed in the doctrine of air power. They invested in their belief, and
for the next half-century Americans would set the agenda for the aircraft industry
around the world. Mass production, though, slipped from that agenda. On VJ Day the
American military cancelled all orders for aircraft, and assembly lines ground to a halt.
Total sales by American aircraft firms were $16 billion in 1944; by 1947 they were only
$1.2 billion. Production never again reached World War II levels, despite a minor blip
for the wars in Korea and Vietnam. Instead, research ruled the industry.
The Cold War
The Berlin airlift of 1947 marked the start of the Cold War between the United States
and the Soviet Union, a symbolic conflict in which perceptions of aerial might played a
key role. Once they divested themselves of their surplus plants, American aircraft firms
rushed to incorporate into their designs the technological advances of World War II. The
preeminent symbol of these efforts, and of the nature of the Cold War, was the massive
Boeing B-47 long-range strategic bomber, with six engines and swept wings. Boeing
built 2,000 B-47s, following its first flight in December 1947, and emerged as the
dominant builder of strategic bombers and large airliners -- like the B-52 and the 707.
Also symbolizing this conflict was the needle-thin rocket-powered Bell X-1 which, in
December 1947, became the first aircraft to break the sound barrier. The X-1 was the
first in the X-series of experimental aircraft - sleek, specially built research aircraft that
jousted with Soviet aircraft to set speed and altitude records. More importantly, the
aerospace industry made new types of vehicles to join the half-century old propeller-
driven airplane in the skies.
New technologies prompted a massive restructuring of the industry. Established
airframe firms shifted from manufacturing to research, while the military channeled
funds to technology-specific startup firms. For example, Sikorsky, Hiller and Bell
quickly dominated the market for new type of airframe known as a helicopter.
Electronics specialists like Raytheon, Sperry, and Hughes became prime contractors for
the new guided missiles, while airframe manufacturers subcontracted to them. Turbojet
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engines were the most disruptive new technology. Turbojets shared little in common
with piston engines so two firms specializing in steam turbines -- General Electric and
Westinghouse -- grabbed the bulk of jet engine orders until Pratt & Whitney caught up.
Aircraft firms also struggled to modify their airframes for the greater speeds and
altitudes possible with jet engines. Those firms that failed were superceded by those that
succeeded -- notably McDonnell Aircraft and Lockheed.
Intercontinental ballistic missile programs, started in 1954, fueled the micro-level
restructuring of the industry. ICBMs were touted as "winning weapons" to replace
massive numbers of aircraft, so missile firms invested in smaller but better factories --
with clean rooms and test chambers -- rather than in cavernous assembly buildings.
Because of the complexity of the designs, the reliability required of each part, and the
hurry in which the missiles had to be designed and built, new management models
emerged from the military and aerospace firms. The Aerospace Corporation, Space
Technology Laboratories of TRW Inc., and Lockheed Missiles & Space were three firms
that proclaimed proprietary expertise in this new aerospace management. The ICBM
efforts introduced, to all high-tech industries worldwide, the ideal and techniques of
program management and systems engineering. When Europeans fretted over The
American Challenge in the 1960s, they meant not so much American technology as
management methods like these that generated technical innovation so relentlessly.
Young men flocked to aerospace because it was cool and cutting-edge.
Also revolutionary were the spacecraft and the rockets that lifted them into orbit. The
neologism "aerospace" reflected the shape of the money that flowed into the industry
following the Soviet launch of Sputnik in October 1957. The U.S. Aircraft Industries
Association changed its name to the Aerospace Industries Association of America, so the
public might think it natural that the firms that built aircraft should also build vehicles
to travel through air-less space. Furthermore, the laboratories of the National Advisory
Committee for Aeronautics formed the kernel of the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration, then bent the efforts of academic aeronautics toward hypersonics and
space travel. In 1961, NASA got the mission to send an American to the Moon and return
him safely to Earth before the decade was out. NASA built enormous space ports in
Florida and Texas, enhanced its arsenal of research laboratories, bolstered its own
network of hardware contractors, opened up new areas of material science, and
pioneered new methods of reliability testing. Following the success of Apollo, in the
1970s NASA invested ahead of demand to create the space shuttle for regular access to
space, then struggled to find ways to industrialize space.
Program management and systems engineering were applied to military aircraft in the
1960s, as the Defense Department took a more active role in telling the industry what to
make and how to make it. Because of a uniformity in contracting rules, this was one of
the few epochs in which the aerospace industry approached monopsony -- dominated by
a single customer. This systems engineering mentality drove greater design costs up-
front. Aircraft grew more expensive, so the fewer produced were expected to have longer
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lives with more frequent remanufacturing. To get more diverse types of engineering
talent involved in design, the Defense Department insisted that airframe firms -- former
competitors -- team to win aircraft contracts. Key members in these teams were avionics
firms, as airframes became little more than platforms to take electronic equipment aloft.
Fewer contracts meant that Congress, voicing concern over the defense industrial base,
made more procurement decisions than experts in the military or NASA. Meanwhile,
profits among American aerospace firms remained high compared with almost any
other industry.
Amidst all the other shocks to the American economy in the 1970s, in 1975 the United
States would record its last trade surplus of the twentieth century. While other American
industries lost ground to European or Japanese competitors, American aircraft have
remained in consistent demand. Since the mid-1960s, aerospace products have
comprised between six and ten percent of all American merchandise exports. The U.S.
Export-Import Bank was nicknamed the "Boeing Bank" for its willingness to lend other
countries money to buy American airliners. Yet increasingly, the aerospace industry was
seen as a cause of American economic failure. So much federal research and
development funding filtering through the aerospace firms distorted innovation so that
American consumer products suffered. Conglomerates formed in the late 1960s around
aerospace firms -- like LTV and Litton -- suggested that their core competence was not
aerospace systems but the ability to read government contracting trends. Aerospace
firms that were not consolidated in the mid-1970s, after aircraft lost in Vietnam were
replaced, pursued diversification strong in the belief that the engineering skill that made
American aircraft so dominant could also make world-class busses and microwave
ovens. They failed. Waste, fraud and abuse dominated discussion of military aerospace.
Persistent cost overruns and delays suggested no one in the industry took efficiency
seriously.
Matters got worse in the 1980s. Republican administrations channeled enormous funds
into the aerospace firms dotting the American sunbelt, without a concomitant increase
in aircraft actually built. Efforts to build a space-based missile defense system
symbolized the accepted futility of this spend-up. Likewise, NASA poured money into
Space Shuttle operations without an increase in flights. NASA engineers sketched, then
resketched plans for an international space station to create a permanent base in space.
American aerospace firms seemed overly mature, and European firms took advantage.
Notes to Add:
Jim Worsham bragging of McDonnell Douglas ($56B)leading the World Aircraft
with all one, two, three & four holers (jets), Boeing @ $38B & Airbus $11-13B.
AIAA Boeing’s Phil Condit & Alan Mulally meeting speech & help.
Boeing’s Mort Wahlin saying they are too conservative to do new things, only if
Airbus does it and flies for 10 years then they would look at it.
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Boeing’s Kansas VP, stating it is Boeing’s GOD given right to Market share.
Dr. Lee of Korean Aerospace Industry & Samsung Aircraft, sharing 50/50 with China
Aerospace Industry, then getting shafted as the Chinese bought 100 MD-90s
Vought biting off more than they can handle with 787.
F-22 Overruns and Lockheed $260 per family tax in 2008 ($36 B)
Jack Northrop not selling out to Don Douglas
Future needs: SbSPower and means to get there
Future: personal 3D travel (ICON, jet ski of the sky)
Infrastructure needs: contain Tribal knowledge, education; Morphing and logic
based design (rules, guidelines) like I did for EDS
New learning techniques, Video & interactive knowledge training systems.
Global Climate Change Control System-mentioned to save us on this planet
Add: Rocketships/spaceships along with friends or Collegues of mine on
ATLASIIAS Mfg. Plan including the officer who took Van Braum by Gun point and
his family to move to America post Texas then San Diego.
The King is Rising Again…Part-1 of 3
It all starts with a view into outer space…
Where (on screen) you see space tow vehicles moving space debris to manageable
heaps of trash of containment.
You see Hotels being built, and space launch vehicles bringing them from Earth to
Space…
You then see a Space Vehicle enter the celestial cemetery and hear a voice to unlock
vault 777.
This vault contain my brain and it goes through a story board of when Elvis was the
King of Earth from the 1950’s, 1960’s His comeback concert in 1968.
Then Ultimately he does his Aloha from Hawaii in 1972 live via satellite….
In this you see his name written in every language known to common man
You see his rise to stardom; from the 50’s, 60’s, 70’s & then even into the 80’s after
his death in 1977.
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Some amazing photos of Elvis with Richard Millhouse Nixon and the handing of a
US Marshall badge over to Elvis.
You hear of the Elvis concert where he see’s the fans stand up and lift a banner which
reads; “ELVIS is the King”
He Stops the Music, points up to the sign and says;
“There is only one king of this Earth and that’s the Lord Jesus Christ”.
The fans shamefully sit down with the banner and he continues his concert all the
way to the end when you hear him sing:
Wise men say only fools such in, but I can’t help falling in Love with You…
“Elvis has left the building….
Then up rises a Large white Blinding Light Cross made up of millions of images from
those good people who have gone before us.
On the edges is fire burning with images of the Evil people who have lived before us,
such as; MAO, Stalin, Hitler, Jack the Ripper, Caligula, Napoleon, and all others.
The camera pulls back and you see the new space shuttle and the cosmonauts saying
“Well there was another King of this Planet called Earth named Jesus Christ” Lets
investigate that…
A voice in the background says “Time to open up Vault 333”….
This is the second movie explaining all the truth’s and fiction of the Christ-Jesus,
it is just like a History Channel Documentary…
The third is:
From the Spaceship you look out onto the World after devastation and they said how
to we rebuild it?
Then we build all my good project to make good from my life: Solar Based Power,
EV’s everywhere, my flying vehicle A-STAR using superconductive electro- magnetic
propulsion, Solution Mobile, NVH automated testing center, Automated welding
aircraft & automated composite aircraft, the American Health Improvement
Machine (AHIM) and (BHIM) Body Health Improvement Machine.