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Comment by sethrin | Hacker News Reader

This is ludicrous anti-government propaganda that ignores the government's role in developing air power. Yes, the Wrights made the first one on their own. The Army and USPS provided a raison d'etre for quite a long time before commercial air traffic caught on. The idea that only private tinkerers can innovate is a lie. In the modern era, government-sponsored research has been responsible for the majority of innovation, but especially in the aerospace industry.

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Jet engines were developed independently twice by private investment, and the government was not interested until presented with flying aircraft.

The US government even ordered Lockheed to cease work on their jet engine and concentrate on piston engines:

"Lockheed had tried to produce a turbojet in 1940. Research engineer Nathan Price designed the startlingly advanced L-1000 with two-spool axial compressors aimed at a p.r. of 17 plus an afterburner, but when President Robert E. Gross took the brochures for the L-1000 and the L-133 canard fighter to be powered by it to Wright Field in 1942 he was told 'Forget it, keep building P-38s'."

"The Development of Jet and Turbine Aero Engines", Gunston, pg. 143

The DC-3, privately developed, was foundational for Army Air transport in WW2. The 707 was also entirely privately developed, and was foundational for all jet transport since. The Supermarine Spitfire of WW2 came from technology developed for Schneider Trophy races in the 1930's.

I'll give you some government funded counter examples: space flight, the Internet, WWW.

space flight - liquid fuel rockets were privately developed before the government got involved, both in the US and Germany.

internet - the first internet was the telegraphy network, privately developed.

www - is not the first internet. BIX, Prodigy, CompuServe, MCIMail, RBBS, Timenet, etc.

I think there is nuance and some validity to all three of your examples examples. But I'll note only that the internet, a packet switched network, is fundamentally different than the telegraph network, which was circuit switched.

By that logic the apollo program wasnt really government innovation because government employees didnt actually design or build the spacecraft.

The Apollo program was government funded. The examples I gave were not.

> The US government even ordered Lockheed to cease work on their jet engine and concentrate on piston engines

It's not obvious that this was the wrong answer. The Germans were the first to field a combat jet aircraft, but it didn't help them much. The U.S. didn't really need the help, by 1942 it was already producing twice as many aircraft as Germany and Japan combined.

The point is, government action was not the cause of the jet revolution.

Wasn't it? According to Wikipedia the Me-262 project "originated with a request by the Reichsluftfahrtministerium (RLM, Ministry of Aviation) for a jet aircraft capable of one hour's endurance and a speed of at least 850 km/h (530 mph; 460 kn)"

I think the real answer is "it's complicated." The jet revolution was not a single point event, and both government and private industry played a role.

Heinkel demonstrated flying jet aircraft to Hitler beforehand. The 262's engines were a direct descendant of Heinkel's.

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