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Comment by azernik | Hacker News Reader

There's this concept of "mature" technologies that have reached more or less the optimum characteristics and are only going to see slight tweaks until requirements or materials change.

eg the assault rifle has seen only one major change since the '40s (the switch to small caliber high velocity in the '60s), transonic passenger and cargo airplane airframe shapes have settled on a single general configuration, &c

The '60s in particular just happened to be a point when lots of aerospace stuff happened to reach maturity, along with our understanding of the common-case aerodynamics.

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It's worthwhile pointing out that there have been significant changes to aviation since, most notably the move to twin-engine aircraft. But ultimately that was made possible through small incremental improvements in engine design (and material sciences and manufacturing). There haven't been similar leaps forward since.

The Boeing 747-8 is 29% more fuel efficient than the 747-100 in absolute terms before you even start considering the extra space it has as a larger aircraft. Some of that is aerodynamic refinement (and they're limited by starting with the older airframe!) and some of that is newer engines. And the 747-8 is relatively poor compared with many newer airframe designs.

Deinitely lots of refinements!! But didn’t twin engine aircraft emerge with the DC-2/3 era? Unless I’m completely misunderstanding the term.

Yeah. That’s a helpful concept. I noticed that there are just so many technologies whose essential characteristics were discovered/demonstrated in the late 50’s/early 60’s. And by no means just in aviation.

It’s almost easier to name foundational technologies that weren’t discovered by then than the reverse.

http://www.cadhistory.net/13%20IBM,%20Lockheed%20and%20Dassa...

another likely inflexion point was the introduction of CADAM around the period

We can see this with smartphones as well

My very-low-confidence prediction is that we'll see a burst of experimentation once foldable screens become viable.

And cheap? Because many versions of them are on their second public generation, and not too many people are excited about them.

I was including "economically viable" under "viable". I didn't even realize there were any available on the market yet, and looking right now it looks like they're still at the $2k price point and still have mechanical issues.

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