Dear Fellow Weekend Scribblers,
“I can’t wait to write my next book!” said nobody who has written a book, ever. But after four years of hard if unsteady work with my great friend and co-author Kevin Michaels (here we are, writing away, on a writers’ weekend in Arkansas), our book, Time Machines: Business Aviation’s Dynamic Journey is out. It’s available from the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (or, if you must, Amazon). Here are the top eight things I learned from this experience:
1. The big picture matters. Writing the history of any market involves looking at broader economic, political, and societal factors that catalyzed or impaired demand and supply, but business aviation is particularly linked to bigger trends. The Reagan/Thatcher deregulatory era, the end of the Cold War, the great 1990s globalization wave, 9/11, the Great Recession, the rise of emerging markets and Ultra-High-Net-Worth Individuals (increasing much faster than GDP), and so many other macro developments profoundly impacted the development of this industry. Then there’s my favorite oddball measure: the Guns-to-Caviar Index. Guns are gaining again. Also looking forward, it will be interesting to see whether the push against market capitalism (led by the Trump presidency) will ultimately impact business aviation.
2. Delusional, irrational bubbles happen. Revisiting the Very Light Jet (VLJ)/Air Taxi craze from 20 years ago reminded me of what happens when groupthink, technofuturism, and plentiful, cheap dumb money hook up. Before that, there was the weird technoprop craze of the late 1980s (somehow, Piaggio’s Avanti is still alive, kind of a flying Coelacanth with equally misplaced fins). Today, seemingly nothing can stop the destruction of billions of dollars with this eVTOL nonsense. If conventional VLJ air taxis were doomed, perhaps the same idea but with higher costs and shorter ranges will work better, right?
3. Speed Kills. Speaking of recurring dreams, I took this phrase, with permission, from Charles Park, ex-Honeywell market forecaster; it’s a reminder that every decade or so someone proposes a supersonic business jet (SSBJ), and, after a few years, the idea dies again. Aerion was the most recent SSBJ, but it probably won’t be the last. I spent a few pages revisiting the now-unbelievable SSBJ joint venture between the US/Gulfstream and Soviet Union/Sukhoi in the late 1980s; it attracted attention at the highest political levels. Even Kevin, who’s baffled by my fondness for failed airplane projects, found this one amusing.
4. Bet on the high end. Supersonics may not pay, but range, cabin, and other design parameters do, hugely. Every few decades, the top price point for the high end of the market has suddenly risen by about 50%, inflation-adjusted – the advent of the Challenger 600/Gulfstream IV/Falcon 900 in the 1980s, the advent of the Gulfstream V/Global Express in the 1990s, and the advent of the Gulfstream 650/Global 7500 in the 2010s illustrates this. There doesn’t seem to be much price elasticity for the very wealthiest customers, and now, with its Falcon 10X, Dassault is betting that there’s room at the top for three mega-models. We can only speculate on what kind of huge creations are coming in the next decade, but one also wonders if the availability of adapted business jetliners will put a brake on this top end model growth process.
5. By aviation standards, the business aircraft industry is almost kaleidoscopic. There are fewer entry barriers here than almost any other aviation segment. There are five primary and five secondary business aviation primes, and I certainly can’t rule out the prospect of others joining the club. Some, like Honda, are total newcomers to aviation. By contrast, for decades we’ve been wondering if there would ever be a third jetliner prime. Writing the history of business aircraft market entrants (and occasionally market exits; RIP Sabreliner, Learjet, Lockheed, Hawker Beechcraft, and many others) reminded us how vibrant (and volatile) the industry can be.
6. People matter. There’s more to the industry than leadership, but on the other hand it’s hard to imagine Cessna developing as it did without Russ Meyer. It’s also hard to imagine Bombardier surviving the 2010s (and now prospering as the second largest prime) without Alain Bellemare. We had the enormous pleasure and honor of interviewing them and many other great people in this business. Other key players had already Flown West, as they say in aviation parlance, but made for fascinating tales. The late Bill Lear inspired books written just about him for good reason.
And the industry wouldn’t be what it is today without tireless advocates like NBAA’s Ed Bolen, GAMA’s Pete Bunce, and the late Ed Stimpson. Speaking of legends, Bill Garvey generously helped edit our book, providing adult supervision in the final stages.
7. It takes an ecosystem. Before writing this book, I had only an abstract idea of the enormous network of maintainers/MROs, operators, interiors people, management companies, trainers, fuel suppliers, and infrastructure providers needed to make this industry function. Kevin wrote this chapter, focusing on FBOs and fuel; it was an education for me.
8. If you’re like me and want to write a book, get a co-author like Kevin. We each did half the writing, but he did 75% of the procedural stuff and 95% of the motivating. Thanks Kevin!
Yours, ‘Til Time Machines Gets Optioned By Netflix,
Richard Aboulafia