Aircraft Industry Without World War I

Driftless

Donor
Does the US aircraft industry develop as heavily in California and Texas as it did OTL - if there's a delayed development curve. Wartime (more so WW2) needs for large numbers of aircraft require plants with larger tracts of land and airfields, which were more expensive to come by in the Northeast and Midwest.
 

kernals12

Banned
Does the US aircraft industry develop as heavily in California and Texas as it did OTL - if there's a delayed development curve. Wartime (more so WW2) needs for large numbers of aircraft require plants with larger tracts of land and airfields, which were more expensive to come by in the Northeast and Midwest.
Aircraft companies were establishing themselves on the West Coast long before WW2.
Martin was founded in 1912 in Santa Ana
Lockheed's predecessor Loughead was founded in Southern California in 1912
Douglas was founded in 1921 in Santa Monica
Hughes was founded in 1932 in Glendale
Boeing was founded in 1916 in Seattle
 
While most empires developed flying boats to visit their far-flung colonies, the biggest countries (Russia and USA) would develop airplanes for internal routes. Early airliners would still rely heavily on mail contracts.
ATL Without WW1, the Russian Tzar would remain on the throne, though hopefully he would encourage industry to expand (like in Tzar Peter the Great’s time). Small airplanes (up to 6 seats) would remain sports cars and limousines for the wealthy. Bushplanes - on floats or skis - would help coonect far-flung communities in Siberian wastelands. Gov’t owned bushplanes would patrol borders, coastal waters, fisheries, survey forests, connect mining towns, evacuate sick and wounded, etc.
Finally, medium-sized, twin-engined airliners would provide faster transport on the busiest routes. The distance between Petrograd and Moscow is 635 km or 400 statue miles, roughly 4 hours in a biplane airliner
 

Driftless

Donor
What companies were likely to emerge as the no-war commercial aviation business gets traction in the late teens and twenties? Handley-Page, Avro, Curtiss, Junkers, Ford, Fokker, Breguet,Caproni, Sikorsky (where depends on the POD of the Revolution), and who else ???? A lot of competition and probably little in the way of government contracts to keep lines running. Maybe some of the players who successfully emerged from WW1 don't make the cut under the OP's conditions
 
....... The passengers on the "luxury" Hindenberg had to share 1 bathroom and sleep in bunkbeds in rooms with virtually no furniture.
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Meanwhile, passenger trains had only one water-closet at the end of each car. Sleeper cars converted from seats to bunk beds.
What is your point?

New York to Chicago on the 20th Century Limited was $32
Hindenburg was $400
 
Worth noting that, absent a war to drive engine designs, aero engines might look very different from OTL.
Several parties, though chiefly the Germans, attempted to make aero diesels work.
However, the pool of knowledge derived from engine development during the war (and afterwards) was too great to allow any 'novel' design gain purchase.
It might be that the civilian aviation's future in the 1930s are large flying boats powered by opposed-piston two-stroke diesels.
 

kernals12

Banned
Worth noting that, absent a war to drive engine designs, aero engines might look very different from OTL.
Several parties, though chiefly the Germans, attempted to make aero diesels work.
However, the pool of knowledge derived from engine development during the war (and afterwards) was too great to allow any 'novel' design gain purchase.
It might be that the civilian aviation's future in the 1930s are large flying boats powered by opposed-piston two-stroke diesels.
Flying boats aren't very helpful for those who want to travel to Berlin or Paris. Given how obsessive airlines are about fuel economy, I think we'd have diesel powered aircraft, at least for regional routes that are currently serviced by turboprops, if they could work.
 

Driftless

Donor
Flying boats aren't very helpful for those who want to travel to Berlin or Paris. Given how obsessive airlines are about fuel economy, I think we'd have diesel powered aircraft, at least for regional routes that are currently serviced by turboprops, if they could work.

Airlines will need an economic edge above novelty; such as speed of business - hauling mail, or the early piston equivalent of the business jet for the big-wigs. Berlin to Paris is probably still dominated by rail for a longer time (Central city to central city quickly and efficiently). Britain to the continent, or St Petersburg or Moscow to the continent may be a different economic calculation. As noted earlier, any of the trans-oceanic routes; air travel starts to gain an edge as safety and reliability improve.
 
The Atlantic will be flown in 1914 not 1919. This will give the flying boat a huge endorsement. Aircraft will be disrupters for rail and sea travel. They have the infrastructure to support passenger growth and money to invest. There will be fewer but more skilled pilots and speed and stability will drive design not manoeuvreability. Engine power and speed was increasing at a faster rate prior to WW1 and dead ends like the rotary engine will be rejected earlier than the need to keep production going for war.
 

kernals12

Banned
The Atlantic will be flown in 1914 not 1919. This will give the flying boat a huge endorsement. Aircraft will be disrupters for rail and sea travel. They have the infrastructure to support passenger growth and money to invest. There will be fewer but more skilled pilots and speed and stability will drive design not manoeuvreability. Engine power and speed was increasing at a faster rate prior to WW1 and dead ends like the rotary engine will be rejected earlier than the need to keep production going for war.
Are you sure that wasn't just diminishing returns?
 
Might there be inland flying boat landing strips/lakes? Far cheaper to dig what are effectively no more than over-wide canals than build concrete runways. Virtually zero maintenance as well, apart from keeping them ice-free in extreme winter periods of course. A dam could be made dual-purpose for very little investment.
 
Wartime drives development simply because all of a sudden governments are throwing a lot of money at R&D that is not commercially important. True for aviation like everything else.

Wartime also results in vast amounts of spending going into military operations that have no economic value of themselves. but have to paid for and tend to impoverish the nation concerned, and a lot of the spending is throwing money at a wall hoping for something useful.

The HTA stuff is dead end. Without wartime R&D Zepellin is doing unscheduled tourist flights until there is a high wind and the aircraft blows away. With Military use itercepting them becomes an issue ( which it was already OTL) and you get things like aircraft carriers. The RN pre war is also looking at how to launch torpedo attacks on ships in harbour from aircraft transported by ship into range.

Hydrogen lift is but one of the major issues facing a commercial HTA programme. Weather is a really big one so once gain the dead hand of poisoned dwarf endures.

Probably the best model as to how aircraft industries develop a mix of US in the 20s and then Germany in the 30's. Most of German aircraft industry is short production run, sport aircraft until a commercially viable air transport comes along and then an air force. But that happens in a country with very limited spending power of any kind. The same thing happens in the US but is masked to an extent because there is lots of ex military stuff being sold off.

The engine for the Sopwith Camel for example is a 1913 design at base a lot of wartime engines are based on re war designs.

What you would not get is the tactical and organisational knowledge ( and desired specs for aircraft types) that comes fro wartime experience.


The basic thesis is no WW1 no WW2 which is reasonable but also no Cold war which is not. There are German/Russian, German/French, Austrian/Everybody, Russian/Turkish, Japanese everyone, UK/Everyong that threatens the establihed order tensions. And without a need to spend on social programmes and repair war damage higher than OTL defence expenditure.

After 1910 ish all major militaries were pretty clear on the usefulness of aircraft and all large countries ( US Russia, British Empire, French Empire, Japanese Empire, arguably the Italian Empire) have a need for long distance personnel transport and mail carriage.

As aircraft engines develop they will run into the laws of physics and the viability of the jet will become apparent and feasible in the middle 30s, without an urgent need to build up to air forces in the middle 30s you can see an argument that jet powered interceptors become viable in the late 30s to counter notional bomber threats and the UK Germany and Japan all have military traditions of suprise strikes at the opening of the war which means everyon else has to account for the chance
 
Are you sure that wasn't just diminishing returns?
Rotaries had a number of disadvantages, notably very high fuel consumption, partially because the engine was typically run at full throttle, and also because the valve timing was often less than ideal. Oil consumption was also very high. Due to primitive carburetion and absence of a true sump, the lubricating oil was added to the fuel/air mixture. This made engine fumes heavy with smoke from partially burnt oil. Castor oil was the lubricant of choice, as its lubrication properties were unaffected by the presence of the fuel, and its gum-forming tendency was irrelevant in a total-loss lubrication system. An unfortunate side-effect was that World War I pilots inhaled and swallowed a considerable amount of the oil during flight, leading to persistent diarrhoea. Flying clothing worn by rotary engine pilots was routinely soaked with oil.

The rotating mass of the engine also made it, in effect, a large gyroscope. During level flight the effect was not especially apparent, but when turning the gyroscopic precession became noticeable. Due to the direction of the engine's rotation, left turns required effort and happened relatively slowly, combined with a tendency to nose up, while right turns were almost instantaneous, with a tendency for the nose to drop. In some aircraft, this could be advantageous in situations such as dogfights. The Sopwith Camel suffered to such an extent that it required left rudder for both left and right turns, and could be extremely hazardous if the pilot applied full power at the top of a loop at low airspeeds. Trainee Camel pilots were warned to attempt their first hard right turns only at altitudes above 1,000 ft (300 m)
 
10 years development:
ls7rotd99csxyrj0p2wk.jpg


1913 Schneider Trophy Winner:
depph.jpg


Schneider trophy led to the Spitfire.
 

Driftless

Donor
10 years development:
1903.gif


1913 Schneider Trophy Winner:
depph.jpg


Schneider trophy led to the Spitfire.

Compare all the wires and struts on the Deperdussin (a very forward thinking design for the day) with the more streamlined post WW1 Cup participants from the mid-20's onward. The first few years after the war, the Cup winners were mostly recycled scouting seaplane designs with incremental improvements
 
In the naval sense a Zeppelin cost the same as a destroyer and was worth 2 light cruisers worth of patrolling. It could stay aloft for 4 days.
 
Flying boats aren't very helpful for those who want to travel to Berlin or Paris. Given how obsessive airlines are about fuel economy, I think we'd have diesel powered aircraft, at least for regional routes that are currently serviced by turboprops, if they could work.
Short Sunderlands operated into Berlin during the Berlin airlift.
 
Probably the best model as to how aircraft industries develop a mix of US in the 20s and then Germany in the 30's. Most of German aircraft industry is short production run, sport aircraft until a commercially viable air transport comes along and then an air force. But that happens in a country with very limited spending power of any kind. The same thing happens in the US but is masked to an extent because there is lots of ex military stuff being sold off.

Generally I think that is a decent model. I think the progress is not that far off, we still have the various militaries putting funds in, their expectations and demands may be different, but the evolution will not venture far or be significantly retarded, the necessity may be less but we generally know that demand will be enough to keep aircraft progressing. It might be interesting that aviation will be in TTL where civil/commercial leads and the military buys more from the off-the-shelf advances. Electronics did a switch from military being more advanced to civilian leading, here the whole path might be the military buying instead of leading outside of wartime, adapting rather than innovating in the main.
 
Generally I think that is a decent model. I think the progress is not that far off, we still have the various militaries putting funds in, their expectations and demands may be different, but the evolution will not venture far or be significantly retarded, the necessity may be less but we generally know that demand will be enough to keep aircraft progressing. It might be interesting that aviation will be in TTL where civil/commercial leads and the military buys more from the off-the-shelf advances. Electronics did a switch from military being more advanced to civilian leading, here the whole path might be the military buying instead of leading outside of wartime, adapting rather than innovating in the main.


Something like that. Interwar probably three combat types emerging. A high performance interceptor, which is not very effective until you get radars. A two seat recon bomber and a Bomber transport-MR aircraft ( with specialist types for torpedo bombing, and maybe naval aviation). Of those the interceptor is purely military, the recon bomber the one the armies like the most and the bomber-transport-MR being adapted from a civilian type or designed that way bit not too successful ( but the plant is in a marginal).

All thats falls apart with both combat experience and especially radar. Once you can do GCI or do recognise the need for something more than scattering big hand grenades randomly you start to need bomb sights, internal bomb bays, defensive armament and end up with a specialised bomber/

One issue with sea planes and amphibians. they are not actually easier to put into use and have many more constraints from weather, concrete is cheap, the rest of the landing/cargo handling/refuelling/servicing is the same. What they are is fast into use. In WW2 the USMC was able to casevac from beaches days before any sort of ground field was put into use and the other utility is if you are basically land turnaround and fly back on one tank of fuel - but thats not economically viable.
 
—————— If the USA allows sale of helium more freely, especially to Germany, then HTA/airships will get a big boost. ......... if no "WWII" then ...... airships will dominate long distance/transoceanic travel for a longer period of time.—————————————————————————————-
Helium has always been a “strategic” gas only available in small quantities. The first commercially viable helium reserves were only discovered in 1903, in natural gas wells in the USA. Even today, the USA still produces about 75 percent of this planet’s helium. Some experts predict that we only have 50 years’ worth of helium remaining.
 
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