Fictional Airline Aircraft & Fleets
- Thread starter WILDGEESE
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ASB! Boeing Only Aircraft Company can do no such thing! It can demand bespoke aircraft, refuse to buy and buy the Boeing equivalent. The Airliner God has spoken. Cheers!
Large orders for airships, heavier than air technology isn't quite there yet beyond relatively small capacity aircraft. It's not until the late 20's that things start changing.
Agreed. Immediately post-war I would agree that Zeppelin technology will be pursued for the long-range over water routes, principally Europe (London) to America (New York), and then to link Europe with South America, India to Australia, etc. But heavier-than-air is close on its heels. Transatlantic should stay relatively luxurious and timed competitive to ocean liner through the 1930s, maybe 1940s. Heavier-than-air slowly taking up mail, urgent passenger and shorter routes from the mid to late 1920s forward. Seaplanes will likely do better overwater and threaten the airship faster than land planes. I think we get landplanes actually displacing seaplanes by the late 1940s but both should compete into the 1950s as paved runways are built out and performance improves. Not too far away from OTL.
Theoretically that gives Germany a lead, especially if Britain botches reverse engineering and development of R101 (sad face), but the UK has a strong aviation industry so I do not consider it too bad given that lighter-than-air has a short window for success and a niche place anyway. The USA should still develop a very strong civil aviation industry because it is so well suited in scale to air travel. Russia is similar but has less wealth and less density. Italy and France should be more focused on shorter hauls.
In my own thinking, I have a frosty Europe and no incentive to allow "enemy" aircraft overflight, so I stunt air travel accordingly. Ni five Freedoms. Maybe no English as common language. Germany dominates the continent but must fly over water around the UK and France, so must develop a better transatlantic aircraft than Britain. At first I say Zeppelin followed by a big flying boat. In reply BEA and AF are denied access to Europe. Holland likely serves as a gateway. Or Switzerland. So the UK has Empire routes and Germany the Atlantic long haul, the rest have stunted routes and less leggy planes. So basically in my TL we add Germany as another competitor to the UK, both playing runner up to the USA.
I think you can really play with things.
One possibility is that Airbus doesn't organize the way it did OTL, and we'd see airplanes by manufacturers we now associate with the Blitz and the Battle of Britain. Through various acquisitions, Airbus now contains Messerschmitt, Blohm (und Voss), Junkers, Focke-Wulf, and Heinkel. Airbus' predecessors had Dornier for a time, but it was spun off to Fairchild and failed in 2002. Since Airbus grew from Daimler-Benz, it also includes engines in a way that Boeing, who has to buy engines from Pratt & Whitney and GE, doesn't.
Alternatively, BAE Systems, which did the same thing as Airbus to Marconi, A. V. Roe, de Havilland, Hawker (-Siddeley), Supermarine, Vickers, and Bristol, could have a presence. Or so could its contingent parts. It'd be interesting to consider what'd happen if one amalgamated, but not the other; you could have BAE instead of Airbus out-competing and then acquiring the German aircraft manufacturers piecemeal, in something that'd undoubtedly be compared with the original Battle of Britain.
Alternatively, BAE Systems, which did the same thing as Airbus to Marconi, A. V. Roe, de Havilland, Hawker (-Siddeley), Supermarine, Vickers, and Bristol, could have a presence. Or so could its contingent parts. It'd be interesting to consider what'd happen if one amalgamated, but not the other; you could have BAE instead of Airbus out-competing and then acquiring the German aircraft manufacturers piecemeal, in something that'd undoubtedly be compared with the original Battle of Britain.
BOAC buys the Vickers VC7, which with the RAF having dropped out are built with an eye firmly on the commercial market, instead of the Boeing 707. The VC10 variant with a T-tail, engines moved to the rear, and modified wings is later introduced for hot and high operations. Vickers goes on to sell a total of 260 of them to various airlines during their production runs.
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The reverse is more likely. German industry and government favored cartels to "amalgamate" German domestic industry into virtually large competitors on the global scale and economies of scale. So in their view an Airbus is equivalent to a Boeing. In the UK there is the notion of lone competitor companies in a free market or nationalism that looks more to job preservation than building rationalized or integrated superior competitors. The British track record is get out front on innovation, design and fill niche or small scale production, but fall behind on mass production or general purpose application, worse once companies get nationalized and tranche rationalization piecesmeals the best and worst into sausage entities. It is translating good design, smart engineering and clever innovation to mass produced, low cost and well made that British industry often gets sidelined.
Lockheed's L-2000 and later L-2100 become the American entrants into supersonic travel with Mach 3.0 becoming a normal facet of high-end transatlantic travel in the late 1970s through early 2014 when Sukhoi-Gulfstream-Boeing launch the 847 MAX Ballistic Orbital Transport system, a hypersonic passenger aircraft able to transport 170 passengers (16 first-class) from New York to Sydney in 2.5 hours at speeds exceeding Mach 5. Tickets are expensive to say the least as are the aircraft, but Emirates soon flies over two dozen of them with a few of its longest flights giving passengers qualification as astronauts.
The challenge for any foreign manufacturing is the size of the American domestic market and the buying power of the USA, as it buys it leaves a Dollar balance that can be spent in the USA or shifts one to a Dollar oriented currency. So the UK must not simply preserve its industry but also the value and exchange of Sterling while glutting its trade partners with Pounds to spend in the UK. I think increasing market share for British aircraft needs ongoing strength in the British economy and its purchases in the trade empire.
This is what I am doing. With a surviving Germany and no global second war, the Empire is healthier and the UK not reburied in debt. Now it has a major other competitor from German aviation but has a trade bloc it dominates. So I look to much better sales to the Dominions and some bleed over to non aligned states. That leaves France and Italy with niche product or production sharing, Japan might be edging in and the USA is a serious undercut as it comes to dominate first Canada and then other Imperial markets and economies.
So from OTL sales I give some largers portion of USA exports back to both UK and German equivalent product while surrendering less domestic niche aircraft in France, Italy or Japan. My feeling is that gets just enough numbers to keep domestic makers afloat but short circuits the faster pacing and improving that huge numbers fueled. The civil air market crowded by three serious industries plus more domestic ones may look just a bland and ultimately less profitable to any one maker. So no Boein giant and no Airbus response, more likely certain makers build one or two models in the range of types.
This is what I am doing. With a surviving Germany and no global second war, the Empire is healthier and the UK not reburied in debt. Now it has a major other competitor from German aviation but has a trade bloc it dominates. So I look to much better sales to the Dominions and some bleed over to non aligned states. That leaves France and Italy with niche product or production sharing, Japan might be edging in and the USA is a serious undercut as it comes to dominate first Canada and then other Imperial markets and economies.
So from OTL sales I give some largers portion of USA exports back to both UK and German equivalent product while surrendering less domestic niche aircraft in France, Italy or Japan. My feeling is that gets just enough numbers to keep domestic makers afloat but short circuits the faster pacing and improving that huge numbers fueled. The civil air market crowded by three serious industries plus more domestic ones may look just a bland and ultimately less profitable to any one maker. So no Boein giant and no Airbus response, more likely certain makers build one or two models in the range of types.
Will give many cookies to anyone that manages to come up with a way to keep a dozen Concordes flying 1980-2000. Not BA or Air France, that's cheating.
I think you need to find a way past the bottleneck of transatlantic and from any continental departure the slow how over the UK or longer route past it. I could argue another 7 airframes for Germany if it got some stake in the program. It would add a direct premium high speed route from Frankfurt or Hamburg to NYC, maybe they hub from Amsterdam in partnership with KLM for a secondary service from there with domestic connections across LH europe? That could keep two daily routes, maybe three, flying. KLM might add a few airframes or be part of the 7 here. Next keep Braniff alive serving South America with a few more. That might get a few more airlines to run similar service so a few more batches. If we keep most of this operating at a profit, at least in PR and flagship route holding, you could get an improved Concorde funded or force the USA to build something.
US groups bitter that the US SST program failed don't succeed in ruining Concorde's chances of sales to US airlines.