WI: Automobile development slowed down, aircraft research sped up?

[Ofaloaf]

What if Nikolaus Otto didn't finish developing his 4-stroke engine until the 1880's? What if Benz's steel business was a success and he never engaged as deeply into auto mechanics as he did in OTL? Furthermore, what if Otto Lilienthal's glider experiments continued on schedule at the same time as OTL?

What I'm trying to figure out is a way to make airplanes and aircraft in general more commonplace instead of cars. Perhaps more rich people support more aerial-related inventors and purchase gliders and the like instead of automobiles and other machines that break down and keep one around common folk? Maybe von Zeppelin gets official governmental support and a patent for his designs earlier on, in, say, the 1880s?


Is this too ASB? I'm still trying to get the hang of it all.

 

[rewster]

Well, it's ASB if you want airplanes to replace cars. Airplanes could not be affordable for everyone, they take up too much room, especially in cities, (where would you park?) and a pilot's license is necessarily much more intensive than a driver's license. But if you just want more planes in general, it's probably not ASB. More farmers could dust their own crops (own a plane rather than a sprayer, spreader, etc.), more rich people could have their own planes if the culture was more built up around it, and even upper middle class people might plane pool or something.

 

[Max Sinister]

How much do engines of cars and planes have in common? One could think if you develop the one, this might give the engineers also ideas for the other...

 

[NapoleonXIV]

The helicopter's main inventor, (there were several early types) Igor Sikorsky, was also a believer, among many others, that it would replace the car by the year 2000. Find any 1950's issue of Popular Science on "the world of the future" and I can almost guarantee you will see cities of thousand story buildings linked by personal helicopters.

The problem there is that the difficulties of flying the helicopter have never yet been quite worked out, so they remain the type of machine that requires both lots of training and lots of skill to fly well. Flying is also inherently less fuel efficient than a car, since you have to lift all the weight into the air, whereas with a car you just push it along.

Only very recently NASA has developed a type of Air Traffic Control much more oriented to charter flights out of small ports rather than the huge jets operating out of large hubs model. As it makes more economic sense it may be the wave of the future, but we will have to wait and see.

One way I can see to make airplanes more commonplace is to have the present vogue for building your own start in the late 1940's. The first great wave of hobbyist flyers was mainly made up of WWII pilots who bought Piper Cubs in the 1945-55 era and that was also the great age of DIY. If something like the wide range of kit planes available today was available then.....

 

[Flocculencio]

I think the main problem with the use of small aircraft as a commonplace form of private transport is the capabilities of the average human being. Even with driving, a relatively simple activity, people make mistakes leading to vast numbers of road accidents. I'd think this accident rate would soar if these same people now had to navigate in three dimensions instead of just two.

 

[Hendryk]

While planes may never be as commonplace as cars are in OTL to get around, one can imagine a TL in which upper-class and upper-middle class people routinely own a plane (with pilot in most cases, though the more adventurous ones would sit at the commands themselves) while common folk rely on public transportation, whether buses, tramways, subways, etc. What few cars exist are either luxury items or utilitarian vehicles used for delivery, short-distance freight transport, and of course the police and ambulances.

A plane is more complicated to operate than a car, but that isn't a problem when you can afford a pilot, the same way you can afford a chauffeur. And planes were for a while neither more technologically complex nor significantly more expensive than cars. I once read that decommissioned Curtiss two-seaters could be purchased in the early post-WW1 years for practically the same price as a Ford T.

 

[HueyLong]

While I think a plane in every garage would be kind of ASB, having fewer cars on the ground and more planes in the air would be possible.

I understand that certain parts of Africa (I read about it as a Nigerian plan) are supporting air-based infrastructure, because they won't have to invest as much over a large area to connect to already established shipping routes. Basically, rather than railroads or interstates, they want a system of airports dotting the landscape.

Basically, I could see any large trips being air based, and everything else being public transport or, for the rich, automobiles.

 

[Max Sinister]

However, African states have generally less traffic than developed countries. I don't think you could move even a small percentage of traffic from earth to air in the US or Britain.

The fact that it's difficult to build roads or rail through jungles or desert might help too...

 

[Derek Jackson]

Lower population density especially in the US and agriculture retaining its dominance.

I think that some WW2 pilots learned to fly using crop dusters. I suspect that in some places the distances combined with poor quality roads shifted the advantage from road to air

 

[Burton K Wheeler]

Lower population density especially in the US and agriculture retaining its dominance.

I think that some WW2 pilots learned to fly using crop dusters. I suspect that in some places the distances combined with poor quality roads shifted the advantage from road to air

Planes are preferred in places like Northern Australia, Alaska, Siberia, and the Amazon. Apparently, in the 1940's and 1950's, there were quite a few bush pilots in my part of Montana, too. I'm not really sure what contributed to the decline in the number of pilots. I would imagine tighter regulation (Alaskan bush pilots have a fairly high death rate due to their attitude towards FAA rules) combined with the lack of trained pilots (most bush pilots were WWII vets) and the higher quality and reliability of motor vehicles ended that.

 

[Michael B]

More farmers could dust their own crops (own a plane rather than a sprayer, spreader, etc.)

A car was more use to a farmer than a plane. You can tow trailers across fields and to market. Also you could jack it up and replace a wheel with a belt to run other machinery. Henry Ford intended farmers to do both of these with the Model T.

Yes, you can do some of these with a plane, but a car does the job better.

It is also worth noting that early cars could drive in weather that would ground early planes. They were also easier to learn to drive/fly as well as being more robust in a collision.

 

[Straha]

While planes may never be as commonplace as cars are in OTL to get around, one can imagine a TL in which upper-class and upper-middle class people routinely own a plane (with pilot in most cases, though the more adventurous ones would sit at the commands themselves) while common folk rely on public transportation, whether buses, tramways, subways, etc. What few cars exist are either luxury items or utilitarian vehicles used for delivery, short-distance freight transport, and of course the police and ambulances.

A plane is more complicated to operate than a car, but that isn't a problem when you can afford a pilot, the same way you can afford a chauffeur. And planes were for a while neither more technologically complex nor significantly more expensive than cars. I once read that decommissioned Curtiss two-seaters could be purchased in the early post-WW1 years for practically the same price as a Ford T.

Interesting. So what POD could get to this?

 

[rewster]

A car was more use to a farmer than a plane. You can tow trailers across fields and to market. Also you could jack it up and replace a wheel with a belt to run other machinery. Henry Ford intended farmers to do both of these with the Model T.

Yes, you can do some of these with a plane, but a car does the job better.

It is also worth noting that early cars could drive in weather that would ground early planes. They were also easier to learn to drive/fly as well as being more robust in a collision.

Not sure if you read all of my post, but I was never implying that a farmer would only have a plane, and no car. But driving a car across a field is no walk in the park... this is what tractors are for. I certainly would never try to drive a model T across one of my father's fields. Especially a freshly plowed or a wet field....

 

[Michael B]

Not sure if you read all of my post, but I was never implying that a farmer would only have a plane, and no car. But driving a car across a field is no walk in the park... this is what tractors are for. I certainly would never try to drive a model T across one of my father's fields. Especially a freshly plowed or a wet field....

On the use of the Model T by farmers, I was merely quoting a source on it. As for dusting crops by air, that only makes sense if there are large fields to be dusted. In Europe and the East Coast of America circum 1900, that was very rarely the case. When you eliminate crop dusting, the utility of a plane for agricultural purposes starts to approach zero.