Military aviation in 2016 without either world wars.

It's

Banned
Ok, so what level of aircraft technology do people think would be equipping the world's air forces if there had been neither world war to push development along? Would we be 10 years behind where we are now? 25? 40?

On your marks, get set, speculate!
 
How do you know we wouldn't be further ahead.

If we hadn't killed some of our best and brightest, and spent a lot of resources doing so and burning down cities, technology might actually be further advanced. Even military technology.
 

Wendigo

Banned
How do you know we wouldn't be further ahead.

If we hadn't killed some of our best and brightest, and spent a lot of resources doing so and burning down cities, technology might actually be further advanced. Even military technology.
You can't kill off almost 100 million people (soldiers and civilians) without killing a good amount of future scientists, innovators etc.
 
The theory behind turbojets was already known by the 1930s. Radar absorbing materials and shapes would be theorized as well and it would still need computing power to be turned into something flyable. Ramjets for missiles would have been theorized as well.

It depends a lot of what kind of world, and potential conflicts, we're talking about. But it may be the case that the Vietnam war was more influential in current military aviation than the world wars. Essentially, there will be fighter jets and primitive missiles by the 1960s and 1970s. So, would this ATL suffer from a war (or series of wars) at that point that shows that fighters still need to dogfight? If so, and since computers would also be evolving, we'd have ATL versions of 4th generation fighters. If the world is relatively at peace, at least between major powers, there might still be a trend of missile "trucks" designed to engage at long range, which may or may not work in an actual aerial battle.
Stealth fighters should still be making an appearance.

OTOH, we may have a world in which wars between large powers are more frequent and, maybe, simplicity of manufacturing ends up trumping over better quality fighters which can only be manufactured in special factories that are (relatively) easily bombed or neutralized (for instance, by sabotaging electric grids or interfering with the supply chain).
 
Top