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I work in the aviation industry. This was a good read. The article hinted at the oligopolies that exist in aviation and in practice the industry is incredibly c

I work in the aviation industry. This was a good read. The article hinted at the oligopolies that exist in aviation and in practice the industry is incredibly conservative and slow to change (particularly commercial aviation). While new technology is developed all the time, the extreme regulatory oversight combined with so much of the industry relying on long-standing relationships makes it difficult for any new entrant to come into the market. There is also a lot of domain specific knowledge that seems difficult to easily transfer.

dylan604 3mo ago
Is aviation encumbered with patents like software development is?
- colechristensen 3mo ago
  For aerospace it's more like asking if Google, Meta, and Apple are encumbered by patents, because they're all big players. The smaller players tend to do one hyper-specific thing for a big player. Also for aerospace the patents are more legitimate. Software is encumbered by stupid patents <obvious idea> but on a computer! whereas aerospace patents are more legitimately about hardware that indeed took years and millions to develop and optimize.
  - yourapostasy 3mo ago
    > ...whereas aerospace patents are more legitimately about hardware that indeed took years and millions to develop and optimize. Something that leaps out at me reading through semiconductor and aerospace patents is a noticeable fraction of them are basically saying, "hey, <non-obvious process understanding that pushes our limits of comprehension of physics required> to achieve some desired effect was found to be useful, but it consumed <years and millions to develop and optimize> because it was such a convoluted journey filled with zillions of dead ends, so we want a patent on that because the end result only looks obvious in hindsight". I don't see as much of this in software at this time, though I suspect it may change in the future.
usernametaken29 3mo ago
Honestly this is a good thing. I can endure buggy software but I don’t want to deal with buggy planes. Regulatory pressure is a market force and a useful one too. There’s a huge difference between ship fast and ship right - the latter one requires deep pockets and willingness to commit to ongoing risk. People always say big Pharma and aviation and such are oligopolies, and that’s bad, but they rarely see the capital intensiveness of the whole process. Some things are slow and deliberate and restricted to big corporate only for good reasons
- rbanffy 3mo ago
  > I can endure buggy software but I don’t want to deal with buggy planes A plane built for resilience against defective engine components would be very different from the airliners we fly today. I would assume more engines for redundancy, better protection against catastrophic failure, different designs to allow engines to function even if parts flew out, and so on. It’s an interesting design exercise to build from radically different expectations from the fundamental parts. Alternatively, a far less radical redesign would be turbines running at a much more forgiving regime feeding electric motors.
  - mrmlz 3mo ago
    Lol. Do you think todays aircraft are not designed with the idea that the engine can fail? And if you have unreliable components do you think redundancy is going to save you? And lets be real - there already exist a aerospace arena where you have a higher number of CAT-events - it's called the military. And they deal with it by having a parachute for each passenger.. No - in effect building jet-engines (that are commercially viable i.e. fuel and efficeny) is not a easy to disrupt business. And the cost of entering it would be - high. And the benefit, well less obvious.
    - rbanffy 3mo ago
      > Do you think todays aircraft are not designed with the idea that the engine can fail? Of course they are - but the engines are also designed to be extremely reliable, and that's why you get away with two engines on long flights over water, something previously only available for planes with four engines. > No - in effect building jet-engines (that are commercially viable i.e. fuel and efficeny) is not a easy to disrupt business. That's true. My point being that building a better jet engine might be the hardest way to disrupt the business - making a better propulsion system, which might or not include a jet engine, is a less difficult approach. If you have an electric plane with two motors, a big APU-like turbine charging a battery and powering the motors, you might get away with a cheaper turbine, running in less extreme regimes, and still have a more fuel efficient plane requiring less maintenance than a pure turboprop would. You don't win a stacked game by playing it by the rules. You win by changing the game to another one you can actually win. China did that with cars already.

dylan604 3mo ago

Is aviation encumbered with patents like software development is?

colechristensen 3mo ago
For aerospace it's more like asking if Google, Meta, and Apple are encumbered by patents, because they're all big players. The smaller players tend to do one hyper-specific thing for a big player. Also for aerospace the patents are more legitimate. Software is encumbered by stupid patents <obvious idea> but on a computer! whereas aerospace patents are more legitimately about hardware that indeed took years and millions to develop and optimize.
- yourapostasy 3mo ago
  > ...whereas aerospace patents are more legitimately about hardware that indeed took years and millions to develop and optimize. Something that leaps out at me reading through semiconductor and aerospace patents is a noticeable fraction of them are basically saying, "hey, <non-obvious process understanding that pushes our limits of comprehension of physics required> to achieve some desired effect was found to be useful, but it consumed <years and millions to develop and optimize> because it was such a convoluted journey filled with zillions of dead ends, so we want a patent on that because the end result only looks obvious in hindsight". I don't see as much of this in software at this time, though I suspect it may change in the future.

usernametaken29 3mo ago

Honestly this is a good thing. I can endure buggy software but I don’t want to deal with buggy planes. Regulatory pressure is a market force and a useful one too. There’s a huge difference between ship fast and ship right - the latter one requires deep pockets and willingness to commit to ongoing risk. People always say big Pharma and aviation and such are oligopolies, and that’s bad, but they rarely see the capital intensiveness of the whole process. Some things are slow and deliberate and restricted to big corporate only for good reasons

rbanffy 3mo ago
> I can endure buggy software but I don’t want to deal with buggy planes A plane built for resilience against defective engine components would be very different from the airliners we fly today. I would assume more engines for redundancy, better protection against catastrophic failure, different designs to allow engines to function even if parts flew out, and so on. It’s an interesting design exercise to build from radically different expectations from the fundamental parts. Alternatively, a far less radical redesign would be turbines running at a much more forgiving regime feeding electric motors.
- mrmlz 3mo ago
  Lol. Do you think todays aircraft are not designed with the idea that the engine can fail? And if you have unreliable components do you think redundancy is going to save you? And lets be real - there already exist a aerospace arena where you have a higher number of CAT-events - it's called the military. And they deal with it by having a parachute for each passenger.. No - in effect building jet-engines (that are commercially viable i.e. fuel and efficeny) is not a easy to disrupt business. And the cost of entering it would be - high. And the benefit, well less obvious.
  - rbanffy 3mo ago
    > Do you think todays aircraft are not designed with the idea that the engine can fail? Of course they are - but the engines are also designed to be extremely reliable, and that's why you get away with two engines on long flights over water, something previously only available for planes with four engines. > No - in effect building jet-engines (that are commercially viable i.e. fuel and efficeny) is not a easy to disrupt business. That's true. My point being that building a better jet engine might be the hardest way to disrupt the business - making a better propulsion system, which might or not include a jet engine, is a less difficult approach. If you have an electric plane with two motors, a big APU-like turbine charging a battery and powering the motors, you might get away with a cheaper turbine, running in less extreme regimes, and still have a more fuel efficient plane requiring less maintenance than a pure turboprop would. You don't win a stacked game by playing it by the rules. You win by changing the game to another one you can actually win. China did that with cars already.