Aircraft Never Exisisted

[BrianP]

What if the human race never had the desire to fly? No aircraft of any kind was ever invented. No airplanes, gliders, balloons, anything that can keep a human in the air for longer than 5 seconds. How would the 20th century turn out?

[Mike Stearns]

World War I and World War II each take 20 or 30 yrs to fight and civilization is completely distroyed by the end.

[Forum Lurker]

I disagree with that conclusion. World War I was ended by exhaustion, and hardly destroyed civilization; while World War II is certainly impeded by the lack of air raids, it slows blitzkrieg as much as it does the Allied effort, and ultimately rocketry will extend the range of artillery enough to do the job as in OTL.

[rewster]

World War? Without airplanes?
World War I would be similar... long trench warfare conflicts. Actually the removal of airplanes would have the side benefit here of no civilian bombings.
World War II would be all about mobile armor and artillery. It too would have side benefits: no bombing, no atomic bombs dropped (though perhaps they would have been somehow propelled to their destination). The US probably would never have entered the war with no attack on pearl harbor... which could be a benefit or a tragedy, either way you look at it.

My guess is we'd be significantly less well off technologically... no airplanes means no spacecraft, which means no space age... unless we still develop unmanned craft?

[Mike Stearns]

World War? Without airplanes?
World War I would be similar... long trench warfare conflicts. Actually the removal of airplanes would have the side benefit here of no civilian bombings.
World War II would be all about mobile armor and artillery. It too would have side benefits: no bombing, no atomic bombs dropped (though perhaps they would have been somehow propelled to their destination). The US probably would never have entered the war with no attack on pearl harbor... which could be a benefit or a tragedy, either way you look at it.

My guess is we'd be significantly less well off technologically... no airplanes means no spacecraft, which means no space age... unless we still develop unmanned craft?

We'd definently be worse off technology wise, as for no atomic technology, maybe nuclear torpedoes and artillery shells?

[Forum Lurker]

Aircraft as defined only includes things which can lift people. This means that rockets still work as nuclear delivery or unmanned space flight.

Trains, especially mag-lev, will be king. You'll be able to step onto a train in New York, and get off that same train in Beijing within two days.

[rewster]

Hey, doesn't magnetic levitation constitute flying?

[David S Poepoe]

It would be a world without birds.

[Mike Stearns]

Trains, especially mag-lev, will be king. You'll be able to step onto a train in New York, and get off that same train in Beijing within two days.


Do you any idea how fast you'd have to go for that to be possible, not to mention the technical and logistical nightmares that would accompany any attempt to build a train tunnel under the Pacific Ocean.

[Forum Lurker]

Yes, I'm aware of both of those issues. Are you aware of how magnificently expensive our current network of airports, air traffic control, tens of thousands of airplanes (replaced regularly), massive fuel costs, and so forth are? I'm not, but I'd guess it's a sufficiently massive sum that it would be worthwhile to develop; perhaps the routing is across the Bering and Nova Scotia-Greenland-Britain, which would increase trip time a day or two.