The Jet Makers
The Aerospace Industry from 1945 to 1972
• Title
• Introduction
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• I: World War II: Aviation Comes of Age
• II: The Aerospace Industry since World War II: A Brief History
• III: The National Military Strategy: Background for the Government Markets
• IV: The Principal Government Market: The United States Air Force
• V: The Other Government Markets: The Aerospace Navy, the Air Army, and NASA
• VI: Fashions in Government Procurement
• VII: The Heartbreak Market: Airliners
• VIII: Design or Die: The Supreme Technological Industry
• IX: Production: The Payoff
• X: Diversification: The Hedge for Survival
• XI: Costs: Into the Stratosphere
• XII: Finance and Management
• XIII: Entry into the Aerospace Industry
• XIV: Exit from the Aerospace Industry
• XV: The Influence of the Jet Engine on the Industry
• Notes
• Acronyms
• Annotated Bibliography
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XV
THE INFLUENCE OF THE JET ENGINE ON THE INDUSTRY
PERFORMANCE OF THE AEROSPACE INDUSTRY
The triumphs and trials of the aerospace industry that are recounted above have
ended on sour notes: the failures and near-failures of recent times as the
industry entered recession and demobilizational instability. Reflections made in
the trough of a cycle should not be unduly influenced by the grim outlook of
hard times. Skepticism and pessimism would have been easy to adopt in an
assessment of the aerospace industry in the late forties or since the Vietnam
War: admiration and optimism would have been easy during and between the Korean
and Vietnam wars.
An attempt will be made here to find a middle ground. The industry appears to be
basically healthy. Despite a combination of recession and demobilization
instability only one company, Grumman, underwent a “normal” business crisis.
Lockheed was brought to its knees only by a series of massive blows, and it
survives. Boeing, with government business running less than a third of sales in
the early seventies, retrenched so successfully that it turned a profit, after
taxes, in every year. The industry appears to be in a condition to weather
further storms. Like other businesses, it should emerge from adversity in a
leaner and tougher condition.
In the sixties two scholars evaluated the performance of the aerospace industry.
In 1968 John B. Rae admired it in his book Climb to Greatness ; although some of
the disasters of the sixties were briefly mentioned, his story ended in 1960.
This was a time when a highly favorable
view of the industry could be taken. In 1965 Herman O. Stekler was critical,
concluding that the industry's performance was not outstanding and could be
improved.1
Both Rae and Stekler were correct. The industry has shown the
strength to weather storms, and its accomplishments are impressive. If
deterrence has been a success, its achievement has been based partly on the
material muscle provided by the aerospace companies. Their hardware has also
performed well in our recent military conflicts, and their equipment has won the
race to the moon and explored other areas of space. American airliners are the
world's standard and bulk large in U.S.
exports. In short, the industry's technological accomplishments have met the
fantastic demands which have been made. But these achievements have not been
attained, with a few exceptions, with the kind of efficiency one expects from
American manufacturing. The cause is primarily the government's, for the
industry provided the technology that was ordered:
technical sophistication regardless of cost. Yet, as has been seen, the industry
was overly cooperative in ignoring efficiency.
Fortunately, efficiency is easier to obtain than improved technology.
And hard times are the catharsis that cleanses capitalism of the waste that
accumulates in prosperity. Therefore, the aerospace industry can do better than
it has, and can respond to an order for technology with efficiency.
Within the overall performance of the industry, the advent of jet propulsion has
been the dominant technical force.
IMPACT OF JET PROPULSION ON THE NATURE OF AIRCRAFT
Dominating all other facets of jet influence on design has been the geometric
increase in unit productivity of aircraft. The jet's greatly increased
power-to-weight ratio resulted in such improved distance, time, and payload
performance that the airplane has far greater economic and military usefulness
than ever before. This obviously benefits the industry.
The kind of aircraft which has most benefited from this improved efficiency has
been the civil and military air transport. The jet has made the achievement of
mass air transportation possible on a larger scale than the piston airliner
could have accomplished. The military transport has provided a major increase in
logistics capability and military force mobility for tactical airpower and for
armies.
The jet has enabled fighter and attack aircraft to retain their effectiveness.
Piston fighters or attack aircraft would have been at a relatively great
disadvantage against antiaircraft missiles.
Big bombers have been the least affected by the jet engine. Had they not been
made obsolescent by afterburner-jet interceptors armed with missiles and by
antiaircraft missiles, they would have been made so in a piston-engine world by
the rocket-engined interceptor with missiles and by the same antiaircraft
missiles. The German Me 163 rocket interceptor indicated the possibilities for
this during the piston-bomber era. The jet engine with afterburner cut off
development of rocket engines for aircraft.
The overall result of the jet's impact has been to expand the total market
demand for new kinds of aircraft, because of the increased effectiveness of
transports and the sustained capability of fighters and attack planes.
The jet engine has spurred development of equipment, adding to aerospace
industry sales. The jet provided the ability to lift great weights, so more
equipment could be carried; at the same time the higher performance of the jet
called for improved navigation and communication equipment.
IMPACT ON MISSILES, SPACE, AND R&D
The rebirth of the rocket engine roughly parallels development of the jet, but
production of large jet aircraft preceded that of missiles, except for the V-1
and V-2 . Further, larger missiles were not practical until thermonuclear weapons
were available in small size. Therefore, the jet engine did not accelerate the
basic development of missiles, but only contributed to earlier solution of
lesser missile problems. Since space vehicles were a follow-on to the big
missile, the relationship between space hardware and jet aircraft is similar to
that between the missiles and the jet.
What is important to the aerospace industry is that jet production preceded that
of missiles. This changed the “tin benders” into machinists.
Had the jet not come along, it would have been far more natural for the
automakers to have produced missiles than for the aircraft makers to do so. The
auto firms were interested, as we have seen, and they would probably have taken
over the business. Therefore, the advent of the jet engine indirectly prepared
and enabled the aerospace industry to dominate missile and space development and
production, operations which are now a major share of its sales.
The advent of the jet also prepared the industry for its R&D work.
Too much had to be learned too soon to rely on NACA, and the industry itself
entered R&D perforce. By 1967, without counting Atomic Energy Commission or NASA
contracts, defense work occupied one-fifth of America's civilian electrical and
mechanical engineers, two-fifths of the
physicists outside teaching, and three-fifths of aeronautical engineers.2 Some
benefits besides the jet-missile-space accomplishments have resulted. Research
has received more attention compared to development, correcting a long-term
American failing. The defense work helped to develop high-speed computers and
miniaturization. There were detrimental results as well from the emphasis on
defense R&D. The education of scientists and engineers shifted toward more
technically sophisticated fields and away from productivity. By 1972 production
engineering was not taught in most technical schools. Patent applications in the
United States by American citizens declined sharply after 1952, while those
filed in this country by foreigners reached almost one-half of the total by
1972.3
EFFECT ON AEROSPACE MARKETS AND FINANCES
Aside from the marketing factors already discussed in this chapter, the jet
engine created a surge in the market. As the text has shown, re-equipment with
jet aircraft took two decades: the last major remnants of the piston age, attack
aircraft and short-range airliners, died out during the Vietnam War. The
replacement of aircraft took place earlier than would have been the case with
new piston aircraft models, because the piston aircraft had reached a point of
diminishing returns in improvement.
Also, since the jet technology had been in its infancy, models became
technologically obsolete before they wore out. The peak effects of the
reequipping and rapid technological obsolescence were reached during the Korean
War. This circumstance should always be considered in connection with that war's
mobilization and industrial history.
The surge in markets which was produced probably is now over, and the effect
in the future will be fewer sales because of the high performance of the jets.
The jet airplane is more rugged and expensive than the piston.
It also appears to have now reached diminishing returns in technical
improvement, although the advent of the jet age delayed the moment when
aeronautics reached such a plateau. Replacement of jet aircraft should be at a
lower rate than was the case for piston aircraft, although there may be special
cases like the recent major improvements in eliminating smoke and noise from jet
engines, which inspired rapid replacement of the dirtier and noisier jetliners.
Thus the advent of the jet meant a large acceleration of aircraft sales for two
decades, followed by a permanently lower level until there is another major
breakthrough in engine efficiency. The durable-goods aerospace industry is, for
the most part, selling to a mature market, where replacement should be at a
respectable level in our air age.
The reduction in the number of units sold, the increase in capital, equipment
and handcraft methods required, and the higher costs of inventories for larger,
more complex units have caused financial burdens to increase. Therefore,
financial needs and risks are much greater for the aerospace industry as a
result of the jet.
EFFECTS ON INDIVIDUAL COMPANIES
As might be expected, different firms have taken advantage of the technological
revolution to different degrees. As stated before, there must be something more
than coincidence in the fact that the most successful aerospace firm since World
War II, McDonnell, was a jet-age company.
Boeing was, of course, a giant in the piston era; and it obviously mastered jet
technology as well. At the other extreme, Grumman faded in the fifties and
sixties as the jet age progressed, and Fairchild has not prospered since its
success with piston models. Martin never mass-produced a jet airframe of its own
design except for its mediocre Matador and Mace guided missiles.
Curtiss-Wright's jet designs got nowhere. Thus, of the twelve giant companies,
only eight truly mastered and participated in the new technology successfully
and on a large scale by the seventies.
For the giants, the jet revolution was an opportunity. Despite external forces
and internal inefficiencies which wrought vast changes, Boeing, Douglas, General
Dynamics, Lockheed, McDonnell, North American, Northrop, and Republic
capitalized on jet technology and maintained U.s. leadership in aerospace
production in the period 1945 to 1972.
CONCLUSION
Looking back on the complex story of the United States aerospace industry from
1945 to 1972, one can discern some points which can explain the restoration of
American leadership in aviation by the sixties.
There was the bitter experience of battle against effective German and Russian
jets. Also it was, for the most part, the same enterprising business managers,
scientists, and engineers who gave America leadership in the piston era who were
around to repeat their success with the jet engine. They had the requisite
skills, means, courage, and motivation to take the necessary risks - they simply
carried on. Then, in a country which has natural advantages for air
transportation, there was the pressure of economics.
Most important would have to be the manifold competition. Winning
the cold war was viewed by Americans as a matter of life or death. We wanted
superior technology in order to survive and were willing to pay the cost. There
was also the rivalry between the two aerospace military services, which, for a
while, was viewed by each as a matter of survival.
Then there was the desperate competition between companies. This, too, was for
life or death. Thus competition was pervasive and for the highest stakes.
The other nations which contended with America lacked some of the above factors,
and they made some major mistakes.
America's leadership in the jet age was not foreordained but earnedforged in the
challenge of competition.
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