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Advancements in technologies made obsolete before they were perfected IOTL
- Thread starter Meadow
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I want to say supersonic VIP jets (there was even work on basing one off the MiG-25 of all things). Although that might not be "obsolete" so much as "never really viable" given all the practical hurdles with SSTs. I can see them being used for quick cross-oceanic transportation (in theory) and as "look at how rich I am" baubles (in practice).
Would monster airliners count? The A380 (probably the most recent and famous OTL example) infamously didn't work out, and I don't have the aviation economics knowledge to know if such giants were ever really viable given their obvious financial and mechanical risks.
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OTOH, the 747 had a fairly long run.
I define "monster airliner" as "bigger-capacity than the 747".
Death's Companion
General Ugg Apologist.
Battleship design reaching its peak in terms of speed, firepower and protection right as Carriers and Submarines come into their own and render them obsolete enough to be cancelled has to count.
I wouldn't say peak in terms of speed and firepower and protection, the Treaty system artificially restrained all these, and the outbreak of the Second World War meant that the vast majority of Battleship-building countries never progressed beyond 35,000 ton Treaty Battleships. Even having slightly more time than most other countries, the US never built anything larger than the Escalator Clause-inflated Iowas, which could still be described at least partially as Treaty-constrained.
Britain in 1945 did consider building smaller, and less protected Battleships, as did the Soviets in the early 1950s (alongside the much larger Project 24s).
I would probably describe the peak "last Battleship" of the late 1940s, early 1950s, and as cross between the largest of the 1945 Lion studies and the Soviet Project 24 Battleship design, the both having very heavy anti-aircraft armaments and the latter being very heavily protected.
Towards the end of the Lion design process, taking into account wartime experience, British designers were reducing the amount of protection, Deck armour because it could not protect from the largest of bombs, reducing side protection because of the very limited number of shell hits which took place, and underwater protection as it could not protect against warheads using aluminiumised explosives, a defeated underwater protection system could lead to asymmetric flooding and a considerable list (whereas no underwater protection system would enable the entire width of the compartment to be flooded, and assuming free surface effect is absent, the ship should remain on an even keel), and greatly increased beam. (Underwater protection systems remained on Aircraft Carriers as bean was dictated by the flight deck, hence they always had the volume for underwater protection. CVA-01 underwater protection system for example, could defeat the largest torpedo warhead then known to exist)
For an example of what the 1945 Lion's protection was going to look like see: View attachment MPCZBqU.jpg
View attachment MPCZBqU.jpg
Post War the US briefly wanted to get rid of all surface combatants between destroyers and Battleships, with future large surface combatants being modeled on the Iowas.
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Death's Companion
General Ugg Apologist.
I was thinking the Montana Class being discarded in favor of Carriers and the Iowas only getting a stay of execution because they were already being built and could keep up with the Carriers.
By the time the decision to cancel the Montana class was made in 1942, the Iowa class were under construction and were about to be launched.
Death's Companion
General Ugg Apologist.
Not all of them.
Every single Iowa was under construction by the summer of 1942. You can convert ships under construction, but it's always better to build a clean sheet design.
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Just think, if they had continued research eventually they might have developed one to have the kids on the outside of the car too.
OHC
deep green blue collar rainbow
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Nah, that thing was a lemon. Try this instead.
I click on this thread and learn Gerry Anderson was only reporting what he saw all along
The traditional flight routing system was based around the hub and spoke model. The current model is based more around point to point service. The opening up of PRC and Russian airspace also allowed for more direct flights.
I think it's fair to say that the A380 could be viable on very specific routes such as ones with very high passenger numbers, unfortunately the market started moving away from mainly hub and spoke to more direct routes. That's the trouble with the airliner business – it takes so long to develop an aircraft that you essentially have to make an educated guess on where the market will be in the future. IIRC Airbus said they eventually broke even on the project and the various Sandpit airlines claimed they were subsidy-free, but both of those statements would need verification.
Although it had a very hard time in the beginning due to running costs and launching in a minor recession, followed by the fun of the 1970s.
@iainbhx is our resident expert in this sort of thing though.
The 747 is an interesting case of making a wrong guess that turned out to be serendipitous. At the time of its design, it was thought that the future belonged to supersonic passenger transport, and that subsonic airliners would eventually be refitted for freight transport. Hence the cockpit on an elevated deck, allowing for the later installation of a cargo nose door. In fact supersonic passenger transport never panned out, but the 747 turned out to be ideally suited for the next half century of commercial aviation.
Wouldn't the Pot-in-pot refrigerator also count as an example of this? Looking at its construction, and the principles behind it, it's something so basic that anyone in any civilization which had developed ceramics and glazing could have invented and used them, in the past 3,500 years or so, only for no-one to ever bother doing so; instead, sticking with porous pots and cloths, and relying upon the evaporation of bleed water from inside the containers themselves for evaporative cooling (wasting what was then a far more scarce and valuable resource in the process). Perfecting the technology by adding an impermeable separation layer between the food and the porous pots (i.e, glazing), thereby enabling undrinkable water like seawater to drive the cooling process without contaminating the food/drink inside, seems like such a simple and easy step to take. Even so, it took someone until the 1990's to bother doing it IOTL, by which stage it'd long since been rendered obsolete by other more advanced cooling technologies.
But any of a number of civilizations with the prerequisite technologies (basic pottery and basic glazing) could have quite easily developed it first, hundreds or even thousands of years prior to the industrial era; and this technological advancement could've conveyed massive advantages (especially to those with hot, arid climates, like the Indian subcontinent, Middle East, North Africa and Spanish archipelago, where the prerequisite predecessor technologies and principles have been in use for thousands of years), greatly diminishing death rates from famine, drought, food-poisoning and disease, and having the potential to greatly alter the course of history as a direct result.
But any of a number of civilizations with the prerequisite technologies (basic pottery and basic glazing) could have quite easily developed it first, hundreds or even thousands of years prior to the industrial era; and this technological advancement could've conveyed massive advantages (especially to those with hot, arid climates, like the Indian subcontinent, Middle East, North Africa and Spanish archipelago, where the prerequisite predecessor technologies and principles have been in use for thousands of years), greatly diminishing death rates from famine, drought, food-poisoning and disease, and having the potential to greatly alter the course of history as a direct result.
Artaxerxes
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The Letourneau land trains were a very promising concept for transporting supplies to remote bases and settlements. They went through several iterations, but they were made redundant by the development of heavy-lift helicopters. Should rotorcraft technology develop more slowly than in OTL, land trains may become established as the preferred method for overland freight transport in trackless landlocked regions.