It Could Have Been Worse... (Part Two of Two)

By ANN Correspondent Kevin "Hognose" O'Brien

Elsewhere, Aero-News has recapped the stories that were important in 2003. In some ways, the stories that didn't happen were just as important - especially the many things that didn't happen, but that we expected to see. Here are the top stories that didn't happen in 2003...

5. Promised Resumption of Production (Many)

Still out of production are a number of beloved old type certificates that looked like they were coming back in the dot-bomb nineties. Optimistic programs to launch the two Luscombes, the two Swifts, the Navion, and the Super-STOL Helio Courier, to name a few, are stalled. It's hard to put a finger on the status of the Meyers/Micco. There's nothing wrong with any of these machines, and, as far as I can see, nothing wrong with the firms… in most cases, the money just isn't there without the customers, and the customers aren't there without some tipping point of production being reached.

I wouldn't count any of these down for the count because all these craft have fans, each has a market niche - and dedicated men are working on them, more for love than money. But we didn't see them in ought-three. We don't have a lot of hope for these treasured airframes in 2004.

It can be done; Piper has bounced back from its most recent near-death experience with a reworking of the Cherokee Six that's nicely attuned to today's market.

4. The Skycar Revolution

Okay, quit laughing. Paul Moller has been promising every year since 1968 that his Skycar is going to fly and revolutionize aviation. We have to give him high marks for longevity; he's been around longer than we. However, we've flown, and we haven't been a chew toy for the SEC lately… he is selling delivery positions for Skycars, and his promise is that it will be FAA certified by 2005. Gee that means it'll really fly in 2004, then?

In 2003 the Skycar flew a couple of tethered flights early in the year, grew a conventional wing, and the company settled a securities-fraud suit with the SEC. The SEC charges, which the Moller consent decree doesn't technically admit (wink, nudge), make some scary reading (Moller accepted a $50,000 fine). Moller stated at one time that 10,000 Skycars would be flying in 2002. In fact, the one that "flew" in 2002 is the only one that exists, and it can't fly out of ground effect. D'oh! Looks like we're 9,999 Skycars, and one ability to fly, short. No wonder Dr Moller is interested in "life extension." (Credit where credit is due: this is Dr Moller's own joke).
 
But hey, you can go to the Moller International website and put your money down on a Skycar today… just like you used to be able to buy the unregistered, illegal stock…

3. Rumors of A Major Kitplane Maker Failure

Some were predicting this, because the industry has taken a beating over the last several years: the economy, the global war on terrorists, and the herky-jerky progress of Sport Pilot/LSA have been factors. With that come the whispers: Randy Schlitter is just holding it together with his other businesses; Van is gonna retire; Lancair is on the ropes; New Glasair is gonna evaporate when the Setzers and Wathens all go to reenact the life of mountain men in the Yukon. But that was all crap. They survived. The big guys in the industry are hanging on, fighting back, and keeping their heads above water in a market that is at once both paralyzed by uncertainty, and danger-close to saturation.

It's some of the little guys we worry about now; good people who make a quality product, like the Fishers and the folks at New Kolb. They're still hanging in there, but the economy - and the uncertainty created by Sport Pilot - has been hard to weather.

But, bottom line - no one dropped out in 2003. Hang in there guys; the economy is looking up, we're winning the war, and 2004 is gonna be a better year.

2. Breaking The Mu-1 Barrier

This is one we really wanted to see go down. Mu-1 is to rotorcraft what Mach 1 was to airplanes 55 years ago: a barrier that many references say is unbreakable. Rotorcraft speeds have always been limited by retreating blade stall. In plain English, as the machine moves faster through the air, the relative airspeed of the advancing blade (the starboard side on American rotorcraft) increases and the relative airspeed of the retreating blade (the port side, or the one going backwards) decreases. If it decreases far enough, the rotor blade can actually stall. The ratio between rotor speed and airspeed is expressed as "Mu." Until Jay Carter put his mind to it, conventional wisdom said that flight in the region approaching, and especially surpassing, Mu=1.0 (where the airflow on the entire span of the retreating blade is reversed) is impossible. Carter beats that by unloading its patented rigid rotor at speed and flying on slender cruise wings. The Carter Copter Technology Demonstrator has approached close enough that Mu-1 is all but certain to fall.

The Mu-1 barrier was going to go, we thought, this year. In fact, Carter laid on a gala event for November 22nd this year at the Texas Motor Speedway. Alas, technical improvements in the aircraft took longer than projected, and the Carter crew canceled and rescheduled for 2004. We'll be there.

1. Blasting Off With The X-Prize

Speaking of Records that are destined to fall: we at Aero-News were highly confident that 2003 would see this prize fall to one of the intrepid teams competing to be the first non-governmental project to put humans in space (to win the prize, a privately built vehicle must demonstrate its ability to take 3 humans 100 km into space, return them safely to Earth, and repeat the feat within two weeks). The prize: $10,000,000 - and Lindbergh-level bragging rights (book deals, T-shirts, etc).

The teams comprise the entire spectrum of aviation. From a team with massive funding and a legendary designer (Rutan's White Knight/Spaceship One combo), to teams heavy on rocket scientists, to one (Armadillo Aerospace) started by a young man, John Carmack, who made his fortune programming computer games, there's something for everyone. If you can't find a team to root for out of the 27 or so competing, you just hate people. And new teams, undaunted by the reputations (and the lead) of existing teams, continue to throw their hats in the ring. A few teams have fallen by the wayside (what can I say? I was a RotaryRocket Roton fan) but the key players tend to get picked up by new teams.

The designs are just as wide-ranging, from Rutan's characteristically eccentric (but reminiscent of Short Brothers' Maya-Mercury pair) White Knight and Spaceship One, to single-stage-to-orbit rockets, to futuristic space planes.

The most amazing thing about the prize to me is that it started in 1995 with one man (Peter Diamandis), one idea, and $5,000. It owes a great deal to the Orteig Prize that motivated Lindbergh (and a dozen other teams of adventurers, now remembered mostly by historians). "Through a smaller, faster, better approach to aviation, Lindbergh and his financial supporters, The Spirit of St. Louis Organization, demonstrated that a small professional team could outperform a large, government-style effort," the X Prize sponsors write. Their address in St. Louis, Missouri, resonates with the echoes of heroes past and the promise of heroes future.

Yeah, they didn't get to write that $10 mill check in 2003. That will change in 2004.

What About Sport Pilot/Light Sport Aircraft?

This wasn't in here, for a good reason. Ladies and gents, we're tired of writing about this not happening. I wasn't going to put it on a list of ten events that didn't happen, because that would have left me with only nine positions for real events… it's becoming the Loch Ness Monster of the aviation industry. (Everybody's scared witless of it, but you can't prove it exists). Bottom line is, I never really thought it would be done in 2003, and I'm agnostic on '04.

Fortunately, we've prepared a thorough update on this project that will run separately.

Summary

Looking back over these failed predictions of 2003, one thing strikes us very powerfully. If you look at the predictions that didn't come to pass, many of them are negative… in other words, bad news that we were bracing for, didn't happen.

What's more, of the good news that didn't happen, most of those items have a better chance in '04: The X-Prize, the Mu-1 Barrier, even common sense on TFRs. Maybe even Moller's Skycar. Conversely, the bad news items that didn't happen in '03 look less likely than ever in '04: terror attacks, pilot gluts, airline failures.

In retrospect: 2003 had its ups and downs, but balanced out as a pretty good year for us aviators. The new year promises to be better still. We'll see you on the other side and see if we were right, but first we have a whole new year to experience.