Lightplanes of the Future - A 1969 phophecy

Bill Watson

Bill Watson

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Peter Garrison dissects a NASA sponsored study and adds some spin. It is a surprisingly sober and accurate view.

April 1969 Flying Magazine
(See article on page 57 - Lightplanes of the Future)

  • The Beechcraft Bo/Deb will be with us forever
  • We'll still be flying C172s... or something quite like it
  • Turbines will remain too expensive
  • Electronics will do things we can't quite imagine yet
  • There will be a bunch of plastic planes in addition to metal ones
  • STOL operations will be important (miss)

Interestingly, the most glaring omission is the role of amateur built kit planes. Peter seems unable to find the burro because he is sitting on it.
3wild_burros_cute.jpg
 
It's an interesting article, but some of your "hits" are really misses.

Especially the plastics thing. Composites are NOT plastic, though they may or may not be composed of plastic parts. And the point in the article was cost. Is a new Cirrus really cheaper than a new equivalent 172? The actual point was weight, and doing away with all the rivets.

He also said not that we'd still be flying 172s, but that we'd be flying the same 172s. There are occasional 172s around from 1969 or older, but most are late 70s / early 80s or post-restart.

And predicting that we can't imagine electronics in 30 years is tautological. Of course. I'll predict the same for 2043. His description of what cockpit displays would look like is off the mark. No one makes simple line drawings of runways from any perspective. Glass cockpits still use deviation indicators.
 
Sir, you quibble for little apparent purpose but thanks for reading the article and the post.
MAKG1 said:
It's an interesting article, but some of your "hits" are really misses.

Especially the plastics thing. Composites are NOT plastic, though they may or may not be composed of plastic parts. And the point in the article was cost. Is a new Cirrus really cheaper than a new equivalent 172? The actual point was weight, and doing away with all the rivets.

He also said not that we'd still be flying 172s, but that we'd be flying the same 172s. There are occasional 172s around from 1969 or older, but most are late 70s / early 80s or post-restart.

And predicting that we can't imagine electronics in 30 years is tautological. Of course. I'll predict the same for 2043. His description of what cockpit displays would look like is off the mark. No one makes simple line drawings of runways from any perspective. Glass cockpits still use deviation indicators.
Click to expand...
BTW, back in '69, the only digitally generated images of anything I can recall were vector based graphics. In other words, line drawings. I think I played around on some early 70s vintage Tektronics vector displays and I don't think there was much else out there.

Glass cockpits still have deviation indicators but they also have flight path markers. In my glass cockput, putting the FPM on the runway threshold or some other target is more efficient than flying any deviation indicator.
 
Regardless of the shortcomings the article may have had, the whole magazine was still a fascinating read to see how aviation was back in 1969.
 
Sac Arrow said:
Regardless of the shortcomings the article may have had, the whole magazine was still a fascinating read to see how aviation was back in 1969.
Click to expand...
Yes it is. There's quite an archive of Flying Magazine there on Google.

I started reading Flying back then and started my flying lessons in '70 or '71.

This issue's cover was the oldest one I recognized because I used the Musketeer's sunburst paint scheme on a silk and dope Hal DeBolt Peashooter (RC model). A Supertigre .46 for power and an Orbit 4 channel radio... anyone remember that stuff?
 
Bill Watson said:
Yes it is. There's quite an archive of Flying Magazine there on Google.

I started reading Flying back then and started my flying lessons in '70 or '71.

This issue's cover was the oldest one I recognized because I used the Musketeer's sunburst paint scheme on a silk and dope Hal DeBolt Peashooter (RC model). A Supertigre .46 for power and an Orbit 4 channel radio... anyone remember that stuff?
Click to expand...

I think I have an Orbit 6 channel in drawer here somewhere:).

Brian
 
It was an interesting article but I've spent about six hours now reading back issues of Popular Aviation from the late 20's and I was supposed to be mowing the lawn and fixing the flagpole for the 4th of July BBQ.

I'm in trouble :rolleyes2:
 
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