Recently, I’ve been thinking a lot about the future. Specifically, the future of general aviation.
That may seem strange for a man who has far more history behind him than future ahead, but it is true. I’m fascinated by what’s to come.
A large part of my musings about the future stem from my work with teenagers who have an interest in aviation.
Just this past weekend I found myself sitting across a table from two young men with aeronautical aspirations. One is 14 years old, the other 16. They have big dreams, little idea of how to get where they want to go, and few resources to work with.
In other words, they’re like pretty much any other kid who dreams of living a life that puts them at altitude.
Dream big, we say. Yet all too often we prime them to aim high, then arm them without the tools and knowledge required to achieve their dreams.
The great oddity of the future they will live and work in is that we have no idea what it will actually look like. We can guess. We can scheme. We might even put our efforts into bending the future to our will. But in the end, we don’t have the tools or knowledge we need to accurately predict the future of an industry any better than the kids I mentor have to reach their goals.
This is reality. But it is not a reality we should fret about much. Human history, including the relatively recent human history that relates to flight, is replete with examples of our best and brightest being colossally wrong in their estimation of what was to come.
History is a marvelous teacher.
Consider this: 100 years ago Chicago residents had been using electricity for half a century. New York City had been hooked up for even longer. By 1910 most residents of cities in the U.S. had the ability to read at night without the need of a candle.
Did they foresee what Times Square looks like on any given night of the week in 2025? No, they did not.
In 1906, three years after the Wright Brothers had flown their first powered prototype, the London Times lambasted what it termed “artificial flight” as being not only dangerous, but doomed to failure from an engineering perspective.
It was spectacularly mistaken.
The New York Times, which has never been quite as intellectually superior as its publishers might have marketed it to be, beat the London Times by a few years in its open disdain for the idea of powered flight. The editorial it ran was titled “Flying Machines Which Do Not Fly.”
It was the publicly stated opinion of the Times that it would take somewhere between 1 million and 10 million years before humans could develop and fly an operational airplane.
Less than three months later the Wright Brothers put that level of negativity to rest for good.
It may be difficult for us to conceptualize the thoughts of an early 1900s techno-geek and what they perceived the limitations of humanity to be. Yet, if we could transpose that barrier to imagination onto ourselves, we might imagine the seemingly impossible as very much within our grasp.
Like our predecessors, we simply need to dream big and stop telling ourselves, “that will never work.” Rather, we should be asking ourselves, “how could we do that?”
Imagine the reaction the early pioneers of flight might have if we were to tell them of composite airframes, powered by diesel engines, with glass panels. Aircraft that are available off-the-shelf today would be unimaginable to them.
Consider a century ago it took between five and 10 days to journey from New York to Europe. If you lived in Chicago, or Dallas, or Denver, or San Francisco it took considerably longer.
In fact, if we could set the Wayback Machine to this date in 1925 there would be a long line of nay-sayers who would argue strenuously against attempting to cross an ocean in one of these new, feeble, flying machines.
Two years later Charles Lindbergh accomplished that feat, unleashing a whirlwind of engineering imagination and manufacturing might that continues to advance the human race to this day.
So, with all that in mind, I wonder what might be over the horizon for us?
Unmanned vehicles will certainly proliferate in number and capability. Airframes will continue to be built from steel tubing with fabric covering, but they will be accompanied in the marketplace by composite structures that are stronger, lighter, and more resilient.
Beyond that, I do not know.
Powerplants have come a long way since Charlie Taylor’s 12-hp, 180-pound, inline four-cylinder engine lifted the first airplane into the air. Their takeoff power setting was just 1,025 rpm, a rate we consider to be a normal idle.
Oh, how things change.
For comparison, the Rotax 912iS is also a four-cylinder, four-stroke powerplant. Slightly lighter than Charlie’s creation at 140 pounds, it produces more than eight times as much power. One hundred horses at 5,800 rpm would give Charlie and the Wright brothers quite a thrill, I’m sure.
My role is to help young dreamers find their way to a future I can’t fully comprehend. It’s gratifying work, but it’s not easy.
Thankfully, there are thousands who take on the same task. We teach the basics. We offer advice that is pertinent today but may not be practical 50 years from now. I trust our young mentees to learn and grow and push the envelope of aeronautical development to new limits in the years to come.
I treasure the history we’ve enjoyed, just as I fantasize about the future that will come after I’m gone.
For what comes next will be as astounding to me as a pair of Rotax 912iS’s mounted on an AirCam raised up on amphibious floats might be to Glenn Curtiss.
The future may be unknowable, but I have complete faith that it will be wonderful. It will include a vibrant version of general aviation. All our generation has to do is nurture the spark of imagination and wonder teenagers are beginning to experience.
We can do that.
Well written Jamie. This also applies to many others aspects of life as well. The statement of asking ourselves “how can we do that” applies to EAA programs as well. Thanks for all that you do.