As the evolutionary biologist Stephen J. Gould wrote, the evolution of organisms doesn’t happen in a linear fashion but, rather, in fits and starts. He called this theory “punctuated equilibrium,” and it is widely accepted today. The theory also holds true for aviation. While the big changes aren’t random, as they are with biological evolutionary changes, and while they are dreamed about long before they come to pass, big leaps in aviation have had a dramatic effect on the future of flight, and in ways that we can only fully understand after the fact. Here are some of technologies that have driven profound changes in aviation, how they came about and how they impacted the very face of flight.
Advertisement
