Counterfactual Aviation

[Tony Jones]

Originally Posted by Magnificate

4. What if more emphasis is put on water-based instead of conventional land-based aircraft? What POD would be suitable for that? Heavier use of canals of transportation? Main inventors of heavier than air plane having links with the navy? Surely we could expect creation of floating airports on the shores and maybe even digging long trenches filled with water instead of asphalt runways on the mainland. Could squadrons of hydrofoils and a supply ship replace carries in ATL wars? What about crazier ideas: like aircrafts starting from below the surface of water – from submarine carriers?

I had this in Monarchy World; flying boats became the dominant form of air transport up to the jet age and the present day, giving airports that are complexes of shallow lakes rather than acres of concrete. This was partly due to the ease of creating landing sites for flying boats.

Originally Posted by Magnificate

6. (This is the place for your own ideas of planes of asymmetrical design with propellers installed on their rears and the like).

Well, I had these become the dominant type of aircraft (and other forms of transportation too) in Cliveless World, as the person who made the advances that pushed aircraft into general usability was keen of assymetrical aircraft (and for propellor planes they are actually more stable, as the torque from the engine is balanced by the off-centre weight of the plane). See here for more details and some links.

[Max Sinister]

Hindenburg wasn't the only accident of that kind; the difference was that the press was there and could take a photo that would go around the world.

Zeppelins with a hard hull might make it.

I wonder whether airships in pre-industrial ages would be possible. But you need hydrogen or helium for them (if you can't make a vacuum inside the hull, which is even more complicated).

[rewster]

Originally Posted by Max Sinister

I wonder whether airships in pre-industrial ages would be possible. But you need hydrogen or helium for them (if you can't make a vacuum inside the hull, which is even more complicated).

Not true... you can use hot air in an airship (and apparently steam): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_airship

Makes the whole thing a lot cheaper to transport, inflate, deflate, etc. And also takes away the need for helium or hydrogen (or a vacuum).

[MacCaulay]

I ran into the airship thing in my first drafts of stories for the Samuel Morey-timeline. Airships are just...more romantic. More epic. There's a grace to older, more anachronistic forms of travel. And if there's anything that alternate-historians like, it's anachronisms.