Dear Fellow Calendar Page Turners,
March 9, 2020, was my last jet flight. After decades of flying almost every week, I’ve been grounded for a year. Did I learn Italian? Write a great novel? Build a giant treehouse for my kids? Well, no, but…um…I did go through all my files. Until a few years ago, and starting in 1988, I assiduously keep paper files on aircraft programs, markets, and companies. After a year of passive research, rifling through paper files while watching 30 Rock reruns, as I wait to resume travel (on May 10!), here’s my top ten favorite finds:
1&2. “Hydrogen-fuelled aircraft flies.” (Flight International, May 7, 1988). This was a Tupolev 155, a conversion of the Tu-154. Followed by “East-West hydrogen fuel pact…Deutsche Airbus and the Soviet Tupolev design bureau are to jointly study the feasibility of converting airliners to operate on liquid methane and hydrogen.” (Flight, May 30, 1990.
Comment: I guess the proposed hydrogen A300 didn’t work out. As Beeper King Dennis Duffy said on 30 Rock, “Technology is cyclical.” In 2067, someone like me will uncover stories about a hydrogen-powered French jetliner that flew in 2035, and remark, “I can’t believe they’re trying it again after that fiasco.”
3. “When China started to open its frontiers all the Western aircraft manufacturers foresaw new opportunities. In fact the main needs of the Chinese military aircraft industry have been for Western avionics. The largest deal so far is for $245 million worth of FMS contracts to provide the Peace Pearl program management…” (Interavia, September 1988). Comment: 30+ years on, it’s jarring to read about Peace Pearl, a Chinese-US joint fighter jet. It was a simple plan: China would be the US’s natural ally against the USSR. All we needed to do was give them proper, up-to-date military technology. What could possibly go horribly wrong?
4. “Soviets Select Allison Engine For Kamov Helicopter” (Allison Gas Turbine press release, February 4, 1990). Comment: as far as I can tell, this was the first of a long line of Russian and former Soviet JVs involving Western engines, avionics. There was the Il-96M, Tu-204M, a re-engined Il-86 proposal, the An-38, the Il-114-100, numerous other Westernized helicopters, and, of course, the SuperJet, which was to regional aircraft what Supertramp was to popular music: nothing good. In fact, none of it went well. Nominally, the MS-21 jetliner is still Pratt-powered; that too is probably ending, with the PurePower replaced by Russia’s home-grown PD-14.
5. Speaking of which, in 1992, the world’s biggest airline had more than twice as many planes, and carried nearly twice as many passengers, and flew nearly twice as many RPKs, as its nearest competitor (American). Yes, it’s Aeroflot. (Wall Street Journal, January 14, 1992). Comment: boy, did the USSR crash hard. No wonder Putin and co. want revenge.
6. “China eyes another 22 aircraft to cope with huge air growth,” Aerospace Daily, January 24, 1995. Comment: I remember people talking about China’s fast growth in the 1990s, but the numbers all seemed so small, until they weren’t. Compare that diminutive 22 aircraft purchase (to cope with huge growth!) with China’s peak annual intake of 355 mainline jets (in 2018). As late as 2001, China took just 2% of total world mainline jet output; in 2018 it was nearly 23%. China is s a vivid illustration of the magic of sustained growth. Fun fact: in 1991 I flew in China on a Tu-154, and that was the single most common jetliner in China at the time. The country retired its last former Soviet jet many years ago.
7. “Bombardier Wants only Secondary role in new 100-seater projects…Bombardier would like to be involved in a new 100-passenger project but has no desire to lead it, Bob Brown…declared at the Paris Air Show.” (Aerospace Daily, June 13, 1995). Comment: Ten years later, Bombardier changed its mind, with the CSeries. As I’ve said, launching the CSeries was like a healthy person taking a poison pill in order to collect on a non-existent insurance policy. But in 1995 wiser minds were in charge.
8. “Teleconferencing: in recent years few subjects have received more illumination, with less light, than this. It is really a replay of the Luddite complaint that new technology will destroy our jobs/businesses. The fact that it has never worked out this way doesn’t matter – the same fears arise with the next technological innovation.” (Ed Greenslet of The Airline Monitor, in Interavia, October 1995.) Comment: well, it’s 25+ years later, and I’m keeping my faith in Ed’s wisdom. The pandemic may prove to have a deep long-term impact on business travel. But then again, if you look at the remarkable growth in teleconferencing technology over the last decade, it’s been accompanied by accelerating, not diminishing, air travel growth rates.
9&10. “France and China are in discussions over the possibility of the Chinese air force acquiring the Dassault Rafale next-generation fighter aircraft.” (Flight, April 1, 1997) and, “China May Revive Strike Aircraft Production…British and French engine manufacturers are vying to provide China with engine technology to support potential additional production of 170 Chinese JH-7 strike aircraft.” (Defense News, August 7, 2000).
Comment: That’s right…there were still discussions about selling Western military aerospace technology to China in the year 2000, eleven years after Peace Pearl died, along with the happy dream of China as a cuddly Western ally and future liberal democracy. What can we say? I guess it would be a different and weirder ball game if the US and its allies were now contemplating a face-off with PLAAF Rafales and JH-7s powered by Rolls-Royce engines.
They say that he who forgets the past is destined to repeat it. Well, then again, even if we take the time to remember the past, I’m pretty sure we’ll repeat the same mistakes anyway.
Yours, ‘Til The Next Quarantine, when I may actually achieve more than cleaning the attic,
Richard Aboulafia