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The Technical Development of Modern Aviation by Ronald Miller, David Sawers (review)

1971; Johns Hopkins University Press; Volume: 12; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/tech.1971.a893978

1097-3729

John B. Rae,

Defense, Military, and Policy Studies

358 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE The Technical Development of Modern Aviation. By Ronald Miller and David Sawers. New York: Praeger Publishers, 1970. Pp. xvi+ 351. $11.00. This is a separate American edition of a book first published in Britain in 1968. The authors undertook the exceptionally difficult task of combining three complex subjects—technological advance in aircraft, the economics of aircraft production, and the economics of air trans­ port—into a coordinated narrative. To compound the difficulty, they have to incorporate the role of government in research and develop­ ment, design, and in promoting and controlling the manufacture of air­ craft and air transport. They have performed this task superbly, with an impressive mastery of the subject matter and skill in organization. There is a comprehen­ sive survey of the growth of aviation, but with an emphasis on two major phases: the emergence of what they term “the economic air­ plane,” and the development of the jet airliner. The book is concerned primarily with commercial aviation; military aircraft come into it not quite incidentally but predominantly in terms of what they have con­ tributed to the evolution of the airliner. After three introductory chapters summarizing the problems the au­ thors propose to deal with, it is a little startling to find the fourth entitled, “The Story of the DC-3: A Digression.” It turns out that the chapter, not the DC-3, is the digression, although in view of the funda­ mental role of this famous plane in the history of aviation the term “digression” still seems out of place. As the authors themselves put it, “All the efficiency that made the airliner a cheap enough means of travel to attract passengers in significant numbers depended on the in­ novations of the 1930’s” (p. 128). These were innovations, not inventions. One of this book’s contri­ butions is its detailed analysis of the sources of technological progress in aviation. The basic inventions, such as variable pitch propellers, stressed-skin all-metal construction, wing flaps, wing slots, and retract­ able landing gear, were all made well before they were actually adopted in operational military or civilian planes, and they were introduced piecemeal. Many, indeed most, were European in origin. The combin­ ing of these techniques into the economic airplane was principally an American accomplishment, stimulated by competition among airlines and aircraft manufacturers. This innovating period was followed by a “plateau” lasting until the late 1950s. Transport planes became bigger and more efficient, but without any basic change in design until the jet transport appeared. Seat-mile costs declined, but if we go back to the Ford trimotor as a starting point, the bulk of the drop in operating costs occurred between that and the DC-3. The jet story is more elaborate. It is made clear that jet airliners would have been much later in appearing if there had not been intensive TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 359 development of the jet engine for military use. There is a comparison of the merits and costs of jet and piston engines for commercial use, in­ cluding the elementary but often overlooked feature that the jet has the advantage of using considerably cheaper fuel. The turboprop comes under discussion here. It was initially seen as the most likely successor to the piston engine for commercial flying, but the unexpectedly fast development of the jet—this a direct consequence of its military desira­ bility-limited the adoption of the turboprop. In the 1950s only the Vickers Viscount could be rated as a commercial success. No review can adequately convey a proper sense of how a mass of technical data has been marshaled and related to questions of operating costs, maintenance (it matters much more to an airline than an air force whether an engine can fly 200 or 1,200 hours between overhauls), pas­ senger capacity, and so on. All these factors, moreover, are dealt with on a broad scope. I know of no work which treats so thoroughly the growth of civil aviation in both Europe, including Russia, and the United States. In all this some provocative questions are raised. American airlines have an advantage over most of their foreign...