THIS Could Seriously HURT Aviation! 

Get 20% OFF + Free International Shipping @Manscaped with code MENTOURNOW or visit manscaped.com/mentour #manscapedpartne

Sign of a mature technology. Standards to meet. Much higher expectations and much less tolerance for failure.

There's potentially another factor you haven't mentioned. I think the better you make things, the harder it is to make them better because there's less room for improvement. It's like how a world record gets harder to break every time it's broken because the standard is higher for future competitors.

With all due respect, there are some misconceptions in this video, which is common for most people outside the aircraft OEM to have. 1- Comparing "time to develop" between different manufacturers is kind of dicey. What are we talking about here? From concept to EIS? From preliminary design to EIS? From program development to certification? It turns out different manufacturers announce publicly the launch of a new program at different stages of development. For example, some may declare new aircraft still in concept phase, which would add probably at least 2 years researching and sizing in preliminary design, to later get to a grinding 4 or 5 year program development, others will declare launch at the beginning of program phase which will make it look like it took only 4 years to build it. Furthermore, some companies spend a lot of time on preliminary design phase and have short development phase, while others might spent very short time in preliminary design and strike a deal with first client to troubleshoot small issues to improve dispatchability as the product matures. 2- Those VR or AR tech stuff are completely useless BS for most of the engineering! Sorry, they are cool marketing tools to make you look like you are at the forefront of technology, but they rarely add if any value to the development process of an aircraft. Also, if you are becoming an aeronautical engineer and you have tough time visualizing stuff in 3D from 2D drawings you probably shouldn't be getting involved in this field in the first place. 3- The A380, B787, Cseries are very specific cases of cost overrun and delay. When you have to remove traffic signs at night so that the aircraft part can pass thru narrow French roads on its way to the factory, clearly you do not have optimal manufacturing logistics to reduce cost, challenge to build something so large for the first time not withstanding. On the Boeing side, the over delegation of parts manufacturing without sufficient oversight (sounds familiar?) led to innumerous non conforming parts. In the case of Bombardier, they decided to venture to build something they were not used to - interestingly enough, a conventional tail aircraft was one of them. Plus they were dealing with many other projects such as Learjet and Global at the same time with limited staff and bad management decisions. 4- It is worth noting that the aviation industry is dealing with lack of professionals. The IT gold rush of the 90s and 2000s which captured millions of youngsters drained all the talent that would have come to the aviation industry otherwise. This created gaps of talent and hence less ideas, leadership, and efficiency. I agree with everything else.

I can't help but think that one factor that slows down new aircraft development is the law of diminishing returns, applied to both economy and performance.

One major problem adding time to design, is that a LOT of the aircraft isn't designed and built by the manufacturer, they are built by OTHER manufacturers. So, say Airbus decides on a new design. They do the initial work, then go to a company that making landing gear, and asks them to design a landing gear for the new plane. That engineering work is already 2-3 years behind the start of the design. At least this is true for other manufacturing. I actually don't know in aerospace (don't work in aerospace), but it's more than likely the same as other industries.

I work at the maintenance for trains. That said, the moment you order new one, with all the regulations and stuff, it takes about the same time to get them registered. We order new trains in 2017, and tho there got here until now there still not in use as for the regulations and everything, so even here, 7 years from order to almost in use... And changing a part and modifications has gotten so regulated, we got a new law from the eu for example to change the headlights to some with led, although in other country's there did the modification for the same trains, we actually have to do all the registration again for ours. So from the point of action to the finished product, years are passing by, and making the whole product incredibly costly. That said, it's a pretty save way of traveling, and I guess that always come with a high cost.

And in the 707-747 development era, most of the engineering was done with slide rules, trig tables and three sig figs!

The A340-300 was underpowered with CFM-56 engines because the desired Rolls Royce geared turbofan was not ready and ultimately failed development. Later A340 models had new engines. Grumman's F-14 Tomcat was designed to take a new GE afterburning turbofan that was delayed in development, so the F-14A flew with the Pratt and Whitney TF-30. The F-14Band D models received the GE F110 engine, which allowed them to fulfill their potential.

The A350 with the "mask" is the most beautiful airliner in my humble opinion

The basic industry of aircraft design, development, and production is two companies. These companies are very large managed by risk aversion due to the bean counter mentality. The company’s management looks at their profit and doesn’t want to risk the big salaries and bonuses this produces. Also, this type of management chooses to reduce their technical and engineering as a way to control costs as they only need them during the design of the product through production. But as Boeing has shown these companies always push the limits of quality because it adds nothing to the bottom line than cost. Quality takes little ime if it is instill in the company to have quality independent of the bottom line, it should be above bean counters, manufacturing and management in general. The result is the company doesn’t have to go back time after time to ‘fix’ issues you shouldn’t be seeing. Thus it takes more time to get an aircraft certified because they take the short cut and pay in money and time over the design cycle. 4 years become 10 years because of risk aversion and poor quality control.

As an ex-Airbus customer facing person, you forgot the extremely demanding marketplace and customer. They are a very fickle lot and the longer we take to design something, the more they change their minds. Back in the 90s, they pretty much took what they got as a given. Now it has to be refined and refined (during which time the markets change - again). Even then it will not be good enough - Qatar Airways and the A350 are a good example. Then there's the Qantas LR fuel tank debacle. Etc etc .............. Excellent commentary again so thanks for that

Might be the utter lack of competition plays a role. Back then, there were many more companies the airlines could chose passenger jets from.

A321xlr got certified by EASA ❤

When it comes to the new computer tech 'possibilities' of development (at any level) I always think of the Unintended Consequences (which inevitably follow) and the old adage attributed to Yogi Berra: "In theory, theory and practice are the same but in practice, they are not." Great video. Thanks for posting.

For your information. The body of the A380 is made from auminium CF triplex and that is produced by Fokker NL. They had experience with CF parts but not of this size. It took them more time than expected to get it right. So Airbus had to wait. And they will experience this with a number of their suppliers. To design the parts and make them is a huge step.

8 years for the A350 is a bit misleading as they essentially rebooted the program after their first attempt failed. (Which of course was (more or less) implemented as the A330NEO later.)

Mismanagement. If management would actually LISTEN to the engineers and do what makes sense technologically instead of what will be the cheapest thing to do. Engineers need to work around their pinhead bosses to actually get things done, which is a full-time job by itself.

Your ad for Manscape is much easier on the ears than Manscape’s own ads.

I'd guess it's the same problem NASA has: Too many people who wear ties and have meetings and not enough people who wear pocket protectors and do useful stuff.

Mentor, please please do a video explaining certification under FAR Part 25 ICA (instructions for continious airworthiness). You gotta show how planes are certified in parallel with development (not in sequence). The gotcha is that often necessary data for cert is due before the design is completed.

14:30 - 15:30 The "so-called 5G problem" was that the altimeters in question were unacceptably primitive devices that couldn't distinguish between their own frequencies and those of the cell towers some 400.00 MHz (or more) away. When your cockpit radios are are expected to tune accurately to within .01 MHz for ATC comms, but your radio altimeters are literally five orders of magnitude worse? I don't care how costly it is, it's time to get with the current century.

It is known as the Law of Diminishing Returns. Now it takes a lot, to get a small improvement in efficiency. Flight is pretty close to maxing out. You can only get so much energy out of a gallon of kerosene.

I recall Embraer deferred the development of a new turboprop airframe family recently because the engine technology wouldn't be ready in time.

This is not only a aircraft issue. It is something that is a problem in many industries. Layer on layer with middle-management and the engineers has no authority to take any decitions. More and more nonsens with reporting and having meetings about how to write instructions about having meetings etc. There is a reason Tesle can move development so fast: They have a new organisation, without an old, ultra-large, continuously growing overhead.

The big part of it is Software and how it is certified. Modern Jet has so many complex computer systems that were not present in the old Jets. Before 1992 the development and certification of safety-critical software for aviation was regulated by the Do-178A standard, 1992 to 2012 the Do-178B was in play, and right now it is Do-178C + a plethora of supporting standards like Do-330, Do-331, Do-332. ED-12A-C in Europe is a carbon copy of Do-178A-C translated to French and German (or you could say, it is the other way around, basically it is the same standard). Each consequential version of the standard presented more goals that developer must achieve and demonstrate to Certification Authority. 178A - you did not need to really show how your software work inside those flight computers, you just needed to show that it can fly. Most of the certification goals could be achieved by the IRL flight testing. 178B - you must show to authorities how your software work in each of those numerous computers, down to the tiniest part of it. You need to not only make test flights, that is not enough - you must implement an extensive process of verification and certification of your software which requires a lot of work (you spent 1 hour to write 100 lines of code, and now you must spend 5-10 times of that to test them). 178C - It is described in terms of processes and activities. It adds some more complexity and places on the software developer a burden to demonstrate that not only the product that they developed adheres to the goals described in the standard, but also that processes in the software development company are working in accordance to the standard and project documentation. Supplemental Do-330, Do-331, Do-332 describes a set of goals for the COTS software used in the development process and the new development methods such as the Model-based software design. Similar situation happened in hardware standards as described in the video. Basically, you could achieve adherence to Do-178A by the relatively small team of software engineers, but since the Do-178B got in a action in 1992, you would now need a big team whose probably gonna be an outsourcers from all around the world. As a finishing note, the 737MAX problems with MACS is an example of what happens when you cut costs and limit those software certification activities while your pocket certification authorities representative rubberstamp your work to enter production line.

The amount of computer coding is a major factor. The 707 and DC8 of course had none

Compare how fast Tesla creates new models of cars, to Cessna coming out with new G.A. aircraft. The legendary Cessna 172, now costs $500k, which is 5 times the cost of a Tesla CyberTruck, when the 172 hasn't changed the airframe much in decades. Something is radically wrong with aviation manufacturing.

Now, having watched the video, I'm wondering if speed of development is really such a big problem. Sure, new wing shapes, lighter structures and more efficient engines have big fuel savings benefits, but fundamentally, airliners are, to put it bluntly, airbuses. They're buses with wings; workhorses which move people and cargo, winged tubes of varying length and diameter, generally driven by market competitive forces to high volume and low profit percentage per passenger. There are likely diminishing returns with each new aircraft generation.

The DC-8 was the original "Queen of the Skies." I flew her many, many times during my childhood. The best airliner ever built!

That's what I'D LIKE to know! Remember that, back in the day, airliners, along with everything else, were designed with pencil, paper, and slide rules. Though the aircraft of yesteryear were simpler, so were the tools, and the tools weren't as powerful. Nowadays, even though we have CAD/CAM, 3D printing, and other powerful tools that the designers of the 707, 727, DC-8, et al couldn't even dream of, it takes over a DECADE to do a new airliner! WTF?

the short answer is that the complexity of aircraft has increased faster than the ability to design complex things. it's kind of like with computers: my current computer can run much more complex software at higher speeds than my first computer - yet it takes it longer to load software than my first computer did, because the complexity of the software has also increased.

Five years for Airbus to go from the A321LR/Neo to the A321XLR approval.

The downside of optimization is inflexibility. To improve on something that's already optimized so much is really hard and any one change isn't easily done.

Duopoly, bureaucracy, and general risk aversion.

Got to correct you on one thing you said. “The 777x is basically a 777 with a couple new bits and new engines” (paraphrasing). 95% of this plane is completely new. All the avionics, the computing platforms, the sensors, power units, including the engines. I have worked on the program for the best part of 8 years.

excessive bureaucracy extends development time for everything. housing developments used to pump out 500 new houses on new lots each year in my city. now that kind of development takes a decade at least

Electronics engineer here. Usually the certification work on the relatively simples designs i've worked on takes 2-4 times longer than the development time. And I work on systems that are not responsible for the life and safety of people and cargo.

I wished Simon had started with gas turbine and worked out from there instead of jet and worked backwards and sideways. The gas turbine’s thermodynamic cycle was invented by George Brayton in the late 19th century. Brayton’s engine were piston/cylinder and commercially successful. (Thermodynamic cycles deal with the gas, not the mechanics). They were not particularly efficient and were pushed out by the Diesel cycle. Jets, fan jets, and turboprops all do the same thing…accelerate air. For a plane engine to have thrust, the thrust system exit velocity must exceed the inlet velocity. On the other hand the thrust system’s max efficiency is when the exit velocity barely exceeds inlet velocity. Thus the choice of jet, fan, or prop is determined by the plane’s mission. The power to weight ratio of gas turbines is amazing. The Allison T250 (Now Rolls Royce M250) weighs say 160 lbs and makes 600hp in some trims. This power to weight is not particularly spectacular as specific power improves considerably with engine size. The space shuttle’s turbo pump, as the ultimate example or turbo machinery, made something like 200hp/lb. Cheers

This guy is the best aviation RU-vidr. always love his videos I don't know how he doesn't have more subscribers

Comet was first, not DC8

The Max shows how rushing things ended in crashes.

Strange that it now takes over a decade to get an aircraft into service because certification standards are stricter, but Boeing is putting up new planes that are crashing and having parts fall off in midair.

In the 60s it took three people to understand an entire aircraft, today you need several hundred.

That was, without any doubt, the smoothest insertion of plug for the sponsor that I've ever seen in my life.

Not only Aircraft Development is slow. Also Aircraft production is very slow. Boeing back log: 30 years for some models Airbus back log for certain models 20 years Embraer backlog for certain models 2-3 years (reasonable).

Tack Petter!!! This was an extremely well performed presentation for both "the average Joe" and for us that have some roots in the aviation industry. As always, best Greetings from Båstad Sweden.

Cessna Skycourier has taken more than a few cues from the Shorts 360.

a lot of the testing in the old days was done already with the planes already in commercial service... mid air reverser deployment on the triple-seven, multiple electronics related crashes on the DC10, lack of turbulence penetration on the Tu104, stability & control issues on the Yak-52, mid-air breakups on the comet.... the list goes on & on. the thing is in a fast-design era teething problems that lead to accidents were quite the norm... the price of progress... but, as one economist once said: "you think having accidents is expensive - try the dark-ages!!!!"

Adding software to hardware problems makes a hard problem harder. There are _potential_ advantages, but the added complexity of having planes run by computers instead of solely mechanical components cannot be overstated, and the longer we go on, the more software components we stuff into everything. It's not the only factor, but it's almost certainly up there with the most significant ones.

I worked in an engineering design office and saw the introduction of CAD - what CAD effectively did was de-skill the workforce, the best I can say about CAD is that 'it improves the appearance of your work'...In the design office the younger people who knew about computers but knew little about design got the name 'keyboard jockeys'..... . Computers have allowed de-skilling in all areas of our lives, Industry and commerce loves it because they have a larger pool of workers . With AI the de-skilling will continue and speed up....Do not underestimate the time lost by unqualified people making bad decisions...

Sustainment of capability is another issue. If you release a new product every 10 years, but it only takes you 4 years to develop it, then every 10 years you must recreate your engineering capability because you're probably not going to want to pay your engineers to do nothing for 6 years.

I think there a another reason - airliner it's a very expensive thing, even for airline companies, they buying a aircraft to use for 5-10 years minimum. If aircraft manufacturers will be release new planes like a iphone this can be very expensive for aircraft manufacturers to support theirs lineups for customers

I agree, in the 1980s, airplanes took only 4 years to develop but they were also absolute death traps compared to today's planes.

Wow, every time I watch one of your videos I feel that the amount of research you've done could pass for a end-of-semester research paper. Well done, @MentourNow. Thanks for putting out quality videos for aviation enthusiasts and current pilots up-to-date with good material!

There also seems to be less tolerance for accidents...there's a bit of a blank check for new forms of revolutionary technology, but that runs out. Losing thousands of people a year to accidents seems like a higher price to pay when the jets we have are proven. Pushing innovation for innovation's sake is why you get the tech issues and the structural issues....things that could be better understood through more rigorous testing and it's getting less and less acceptable to lose human life before we remember that.

This a well studied feature of mature systems; heavily computer optimised aerodynamic shapes, engines and slowing advances in material technology mean there is diminishing value in incremental changes. There simply aren't huge breakthroughs that are on the table that are being worked on. The low hanging optimisation fruit is already taken and production techniques/scale are also pretty close to optimal.

How long did it take to develop the very first 737 (-100??)? The one that featured a big rudder surface. That sent an an unknown nbr of PAX into the eternity , due to delicate rudder hard overs.😮

Having been involved in developing one of the recent aircraft in your list, I feel secure in saying that the multiple iterative engineering processes aka systems engineering processes that can have up to 50k requiremts listed and the limited number of experienced SMEs available to review said requirements is a definite bottleneck. After that, youlist deficiencies that then get kicked up to mgmt for review with vendors where they negotiate (for weeks), after they do the updated and reduced requirement is again reviewed where SMEs then identify critical requirements for safety or functionality that were negotiated away without engineering input whereupon a new round of negotiations take place for the timeline required to implement the critical requirements for the function. This doesn't even cover delivery of the system, installation/integration issues, the functional testing, followed by safety of flight testing, then development testing, which then repeats until you get a cert candidate and all your other system also have to be cert candidate configuration before you begin testing a final cert candidate which you typically require 2000 hours of total aircraft flight test time to certify, and an aggressive campaign with no major flaws will take about 1.3 years with 5 test aircraft and 2 integration test benches and one engineering flight sim.

This is part of why I wont be shocked by nearly any price of the new air force 1 project, the standards and features list is going to be so insane the planning will take a crazy amount of time and therefore money, regardless of how many you build. Even before any shenanigans that slow it down further.

I work in the automotive industry. It happened to be involved also in Fisker ocean project. They reduced the development timeline to only 2 years. Usually, it will take 4 to 5 years to develop a new model even if you are an experienced car manufacturer. You know the outcome of Fisker Ocean.

I think there's another factor in play that' are causing these development delays; lack of talent. Years ago, I did an summer internship at a newspaper, The Huntsville Times, in Alabama as a business reporter. For context, Huntsville Alabama has a rich history of Military and Space related research and development. About 130 German scientists from Operation Paper Clip were relocated to Huntsville for the Space program, including Wernher von Braun. Their research in rocket technology is what brought us to the Moon. Having learned this, I asked one of my fellow business reporters, who covered the Redstone Arsenal Military research base, a question. "Why haven't we gone back to the moon?" His answer: America is no longer producing the same level high caliber of scientists today, as the ones the brought us to the moon back then. I believe the same explanation applies to the Aerospace industry, and why clean sheet design development cycles are taking longer now compared to back then. Companies like Boeing are having staffing issues finding enough engineers and scientists to replace the retiring ones who used to build new designs in 4-5 years. As Peter mention in a previous video, there's even a shortage of A&P licensed mechanics to physically build these designs! That's probably the reason why Boeing can't make 757's anymore, not even a Max version.

Government intrusion into all aspects of life has greatly added to the expense of things while not necessarily helping. One example is the gas can which has a spout that is difficult to use. It is also plastic which would burn in a fire, they use to be metal.

Same reason a block of flats takes 18 months+... waiting forever for different stages to be "signed off".

The transition into the sponsor was amazing lmao

There is the difference in regulations, aerospace history, and development changes that have to be factored into new design production and certification time. For example, 777x and 787 use composite for a sizable section of the body. Until them, all grounding went to the aluminum skin. This doesn’t work anymore because composite is non conductive. Resulting in a need to redesign the ground paths for both the electronics and the static discharge system. Add to that the complete overhaul and update to the avionics system, known issues with previous planes (747 cargo door blow outs, 737 tail actuator, airbus adiru data mishandling, comet square windows, delamination, and others) certification takes a while.

Just loved the way you segwayed your beard trimmer into the video.

To be fair to the 777-9, they’d be much further along if it weren’t for the pandemic and the max problems. They didn’t stop the test flights though. Crazy to think Boeing have been performing test flights for longer than the entire dev time for the 747.

For the record, I think that Cessna sky courier looks awesome

Main reason is corporate greed, technology companies managed by bean counters. In old days rooms filled with engineers, hangars filled with technicians. Nowadays there are more desk personnel than engineers and technicians turned into form fillers.

Love the transition into the sponsor’s message. 😂

The DC8 was their first ever aircraft. The first jet civilian aircraft was the deHavilland comet.

Ans: lack of quality management. We have shifted to Safe Agile in my shop which on the surface would speed up the development cycle, but in practice has added ill equipped supervisory positions that consume man-hours in the spin cycle. Real experts, prepped for the role are the best technical mgrs. you can’t process improvement your way out of that.

I hope they will because the new technologies and experienced workers, i also ask me why is boeing now failing, because of Douglas or it is just some problems with the workers? I just hope: boeing, airbus, saab.. to endure their work on electrical systems; the systems are always getting complicated and as you said this will make the process larger in the aircraft manufacters.

The 777X is a lot more than a 777 with new engines and wings. The only major parts it has in common is the shape of rhe fuselage, and even the fuselage is made of a different material, has bigger windows etc. In terms of avionics, flight deck etc its more like a 787 inside a 777. Amazing and very interesting video anyway!

There's another factor that you sort-of alluded to at one point, but didn't mention explicitly. It's how modern companies treat their staff. With every individual expected (it seems) to do more with less every year, each time someone is ill or injured or leaves the company, the impact on a project is that much greater. Fifty years ago, companies always had a little head-room so that staff could take up some or all of the slack when one employee was (for example) off sick. Now, everyone has their time absolutely stuffed full of activities, so that's no longer the case. Add this to the fact that digital tools have enabled companies to make project teams substantially smaller than 50 years ago, and the impact of one person's unexpected absence has that much greater effect.

In addition to your very thoughtful analysis ... add how the US Corp Empire is falling ... fueling more uncertainty. Heck, I still just attempting to locate where I placed my mini scout ship!

Regulatory capture: the slow process means no upstart can survive long enough to reach the market.

I do believe that many industries are now going through the same problems. We are in a kind of a structural crisis. Any chain is no stronger than its weakest link. At the moment we are facing faster development of it and related services. But that’s just not enough.

Several problems with hybrid membranes (also referred too as composite material) for the wings are difficult to find, there is only two manufacturers (one in Europe, the second in USA with a plant in Europe) have reached their full potential. The problems being with airlines located in the north such as Skandinavian and Canadian airlines which flies to southern destinations have met a myriad of problems because they encountered huge problems with aircraft being fueled in southern Spain or northern Africa bound for home saw part of their membrane ripped apart. Airbus met this problems with membrane used on wings not the airplane body itself. It was caused by the rapid decrease of temperature outside of the wings with the fuel temperature inside the wings, especially during the winter season. EFW (Elbe Flugzeugwerke GmbH) combines various aviation and technology activities under a single roof: development and manufacturing of flat fibre-reinforced composite components for structures. Airbus used to have a majority of EFW shares though it sold some of it to another entreprise. EFW is the entity that understood the problem and corrected it thoug it took several years to do it. I mention only EFW because it was the company who solved the problem as there were many more but some of them have merged into EFW to retain shares value.

Let's make the analogy something we can all relate to. The safety features in automobiles have gotten very sophisticated. So much so that the cost of a new vehicle has increased. Even more so, the cost of auto insurance is increasing faster than inflation. Why? Because if you are in a crash, the technical sophistication to repair the damage to these systems is through the roof. And good luck if you can find a mechanic who can perform the service. I just haqde my 2010 Sonata inspected. I asked the mechanic if he had performed any inspections on EVs. He said no, and he didn't want to. My local car shop does not deal with newer vehicles because the electronics are too complex. It all adds up and it takes time. I was surprised that I did not see any recent comments on "well, if we abolished these regs, the time line would speed up." My response to this would be, let you and your family be the test passengers.

Thank you for covering this important topic. It's not only in aviation you can observe this, it is everywhere... "We've never been so busy accomplishing so little"😅

the tool you’re talking about is called Catia, it’s a software used to create passenger airliners, super tankers and skyscrapers. it actually is from Dussault software systems, it’s a digital cad system.

What are the biggest obstacles to a third major airline manufacturer coming online? Could airlines even accept ones based on current fleets? Training?

I think technological maturity also has an impact; both the economic and technological margins on aircraft are getting tighter and tighter and the efficiency, durability, and longevity of existing models draws out longer and longer, so to bring an advanced design to market requires a more substantial return to investment, drawing out these development times. I think you can say the same about cars; outside of the technology involving drivetrain, the base models haven't, from a en engineering standpoint, advanced much between model iterations -- time between substantial changes (beyond aesthetics and QoL components), are drawing out longer and longer development periods between designs.

The original 747 went from first flight to EIS in 347 days. The *average* from first flight to today for the 777-9, the 737 Max 7, and the 737 Max 10 is 1,718 days, with EIS nowhere in sight for any of them. One other factor--directly related to increased aircraft complexity--that can't be overlooked is that there is orders of magnitude more software both on the aircraft and involved in the design process than on the OG Queen. Exponentially more software means exponentially more ways to fail and exponentially more cases to test and evaluate.

Boeing and Airbus used to managed by engineers. These days, mostly by politicians and bureaucrats and just a few bunch of engineers

We're at the absolute peak of subsonic passenger planes. We should be seeing viable super and honestly, hypersonic, suborbital flights.

I was waiting for you to bring up the issue of too much dependence on subcontractors. That was my first thought at the start of this video.

I don't know what you're saying... Skycourier is cute AF. Like a pug with props.

Imagining trying to do a cleansheet new design now versus the absolute bureaucratic nightmare doesn't inspire any confidence at all.

The 380 is a case study on the high cost of long development times. Perhaps they should have seen the market changes, but the reality is that if it has been available faster, it likely would have done better. The lengthening timelines are not sustainable. The military example is an even bigger example - we simply cannot continue to sustain these costs.

In recent years, Boeing has developed an alarming quality issue and the FAA has been scrutinizing everything multiple times from numerous directions..

do u think they should have a fatty class ? like wider seats ?

I've never watched a smoother sponsor segue! Props to whoever did the writing.

It was very interesting, in 2018, I had it on very good source that Boeing was actively seeking customers for their “old” 767. A passenger airline wanted 50 of them, to replace their aging fleet of 767s, vs buying the 787 (which is NOT a good direct replacement for the 767) and Boeing was telling my company, 2nd larger operator of 767, that if they can get orders for 100, they would build them. Don’t think it happened, and the fools in the U.S. gov shut it all down recently with their ruling to ban the 767 🙄 due to emissions.

The Airbus 380 was ground breaking in many areas. Lots of R/D required. The 787 also was ground breaking in many areas. And battery technology was not up to speed.

Given how much more complex cars and trucks have become over the last few decades, I can only imagine what that increase in complexity could mean for aviation.

I wonder how much effect the desire to make one model do all things has on development time? This may be more of an issue with military aircraft than civilian, but as a general rule I prefer equipment that does one task well rather than a multi-fuction device since the latter never seem to work quite as well at doing any given task and are usually so complex that they're not reliable over the long term.

Worth to be mentioned the AW609, with the first flight back in 2003 and under test and certifications ever since. Of course this is a total new means of air transportation, at least for the civilian aviation; but maybe the enter in service of this aircraft could mark a significant step forward. @MentourNow would be an idea for a future video?