Book Review (8/22/2001)

The Coming Aerospace Casting Revolution
(You Read it About it Here First)

Review of Free Flight: From Airline Hell to a New Age of Travel by James Fallows

By Joe Scarry

Elsewhere on the
CastingTrade.com website:

Specialty Applications Department

Aerospace - 30 Key US Manufacturers

Air Travel: Time for Another Quantum Leap
The Missing Ingredient
NASA: Not just spaceships anymore
One little gizmo
What a Product Development Renaissance Looks Like
What it means for metalcasters

Well, James Fallows has written a book, Free Flight, which foretells a revolution in air travel. Specifically, it projects that within five years the U.S. will be served by a burgeoning "air taxi" industry that will make it possible to affordably travel point-to-point between any of the 5,000 local airports around the country, dramatically changing a huge portion of the long-distance trips that Americans take every day (i.e. away from hub-and-spoke travel, with its connections and long waits). The recent rise of the fractional jet ownership industry within the business travel sector is a good indicator that Fallows is on the right track.

What makes Fallows such a good revolution predictor is that he's found the two or three players that are key to making the revolution happen, studied them carefully, and then gone public with his prediction at the point that the future seems all but certain. Below are main findings of the book.

(1) Air Travel: Time for Another Quantum Leap - The fundamental premise of the book is that air travel, as it stands now, is a drag. This assertion is backed up both by formal time-motion studies as well as by loads of anecdotal evidence about frustrated travelers. You will probably not be surprised when Fallows tells you that domestic air travel today averages about 50-60 miles per hour, door to door - i.e. no faster than traveling by car.

The system today is based on the optimization of the hub-and-spoke system, utilizing big airports, big planes, and computerized pricing tools. During the period in which this system has been developing, alternative systems have been somewhat dormant. Things have now reached the stage where a good alternative system has a chance to evolve.

(2) The Missing Ingredient: A Much Better Small Plane - The critical factor is that big airports are saturated, but there remain an abundance of underutilized small airports that are ideal for point-to-point travel using small planes. For this format to become popular, there need to be new planes: faster, cheaper, more comfortable, and safer. More accurately, there need to be new FAA-certified planes, and they need to be delivered in quantity. What Fallows makes clear is that there is abundant aerospace technology in this country to create the new plane(s) in theory. But to take the new plane(s) through the certification process will require clever deployment of capital. So perhaps it would be more accurate to say: "The Missing Ingredient: Clever Capitalists."

Fallows points to two companies -- Cirrus and Eclipse (makers of a small propeller plane and jet, respectively) -- as likely winners in the race to successfully market a "much better small plane." (See discussion under "one little gizmo" and "product design renaissance" below.)

(5) What a Product Development Renaissance Looks Like - Beyond the somewhat narrow FJX story, however, and not far beneath the surface of this book, is a broader lesson about what it takes to create great products - the kind that really sell, and infuse life into the whole manufacturing industry.

For instance, take a look at a statement that became the driver behind the whole design of the Cirrus airplane: "My belief is that people don't want to touch each other when they're sitting." The designers of the Cirrus cockpit saw the need to create a wide center console between the pilot and passenger seat, which in turn affected the width of the cabin, and that in turn influenced the entire shape of the fuselage! They counterbalanced the conventional wisdom that places strict limits on how wide the seating area in a small plane can be with the attitudes and preferences of the consumers that buy their products.

They found that one shortcut to understanding the attitudes and preferences of the air travel industry's consumers is to look closely at the auto industry: "Since the early nineties cars in the United States have become pleasant to sit in - comfortable seats, modern instruments and sound systems, continually improved fit-and-finish inside." Their paradigm shifted from "going head-to-head with other plane makers" to "going head-to-head with SUV makers", and that's why Cirrus designed the whole plane from the inside out. Take a look at the Cirrus website to see the final result.

Williams is bringing value to air transport with a radically new device. Cirrus is bringing value with a radically new consumer product. Both are examples of the kinds of innovation that reinvigorate an industry -- and which hold tremendous promise for a wide range of industry participants.

This coming change in air transport will have significant consequences for metalcasters - both direct and indirect. It will certainly create opportunity for people who can supply components for the thousands of new aircraft that will be part of the revolution. And it will have secondary impact for other companies that supply other parts of the transportation system (air and other), as well as some likely impact in general product development, supply chain, and fabrication practices throughout the manufacturing system.

Elsewhere on the
CastingTrade.com website:

Specialty Applications Department

Aerospace - 30 Key US Manufacturers