There's also an argument to be made for Bell labs, back when Bell had a monopoly on the phone lines there were some amazing developments to come out of Bell Labs
The problem with planes is that research costs for a single product are often above $1bn. So you wouldn't create a new product just because you are curious or have a small team of scientists that discovered an opportunity.
Can you expand on this? This sounds very intriguing.
It sounds like Peter Thiel's argument about how natural monopolies can afford to invest heavily in R&D because they're financially comfortable. And how competitive industries supposedly don't offer the same room for research. I think he's mistaken on this but nonetheless it's a compelling argument in some cases.