LE BOURGET, France - When the Concorde started flying in the 1970s, hopes were high that the traveling masses would soon streak through the air faster than the speed of sound or soar in planes that hurtled like missiles above the Earth’s atmosphere. Instead, jetliners still look the same as they did five decades ago, and travel times have barely budged.
To consumers who have watched the world’s technological imagination shift to Silicon Valley, the airline industry seems plodding. Computers and cell phones are obsolete almost as soon as they’re unwrapped. The aviation industry looks stuck in time by comparison.
“Twenty years ago, 10 years ago even, a lot of technology and innovation came from the aerospace industry,” said Larbi Ouchelouche, who is the project manager at Speel Praha, a Czech company that makes flight data boxes and other monitoring systems.
Restricted by huge costs, rising fuel prices and safety concerns, the aviation industry is unable to make the same leaps and bounds. It has instead turned its eye to less obvious advances, ones that companies say have allowed more people to fly than ever before.
But even some industry insiders revealed a touch of disappointment at the Paris Air Show this week.
“Look at all the aircraft. … They’re exactly the same [as they used to be]; they’re just using different material,” said Gerrard McCluskey, the vice president of engineering at AERO Vodochody, a Czech aerospace manufacturer.
One of the most talked about innovations at the show in Le Bourget this week was the use of composite materials - including carbon fibers and plastics. Airbus’ newest jet, the A350, relies heavily on composites. But to the naked eye, it looks just like all the other Airbuses on display.
Many plane manufacturers let the military lead the way because the armed forces have the money to play with new technologies, test them extensively and then figure out how to build them efficiently.
But McCluskey predicted that within the next 10 years, planes won’t contain a fuselage - where the cabin and cockpit are now. They’ll just be one flying wing, like a fighter jet. Or the gone, but not forgotten, Concorde, which cut the flight time from London to New York to 3 hours and 20 minutes from nearly eight hours.
So what happened to the Concorde? The same thing that happened to the industry at large: the economy.
The Concorde was heavily subsidized by the French and British governments, and as the industry declined in the late 1990s and early 2000s, it became clear it was no longer viable.
While the experience of air travel has changed little, its global popularity has grown almost exponentially in the past two decades. In its 20-year outlook, Boeing Co. predicted the commercial aircraft fleet would double by 2034, with most of the new passengers in Asia and Latin America, where standards of living are rising quickly. But increased demand and the rising price of fuel have forced manufacturers to focus all their innovation know-how on fuel economy.
In the past 10 years, “the price of a barrel of oil has gone up, say from 25 bucks to over 100,” said Jim Stoker, president of GE Aviation Czech. “If you go look at your airline ticket, well, it’s higher than it was 10 years ago; it’s still not four [times] higher.”
That leads to the composites and lightweight metals that were the stars of the Paris Air Show. Both shave weight off planes, making them more efficient to fly. Composites also endure damage better, extending an aircraft’s life.
“Fifteen years ago, nobody could afford to fly constantly. Today people can fly,” said Ingrid Joerg, a senior vice president for Cleveland-based Aleris, which rolls out aluminum skins for major aircraft manufacturers.
The company recently opened a plant in China to serve the growing Asian market and is constantly adjusting its alloys for lighter weight.
A few more might notice the potential in a new way for airplanes to taxi to and from their gate, developed by engineering conglomerate Honeywell and aerospace and defense company Safran. Currently, jet engines are used - making taxiing noisy and fuel-guzzling, and preventing airplanes from backing up. That’s why they are often towed.
The Electric Green Taxiing System instead uses the plane’s auxiliary engine, which provides a plane with electricity while the main engines are off, to power the wheels. Taxiing is quieter and more fuel efficient and makes the plane much more maneuverable.
Business, Pages 26 on 06/22/2013