If You Build Them, They Will Come

The problem was optimism. After the war, America began emerging from the privations made necessary by that conflict and the Depression. So, with a million soldiers, many of them pilots, out of the service and coming back home to a jumpstarted economy, the prospects were worthy of some excitement. Not only that, but in the four-plus years that America had been in the war effort, much had been learned about, one, mass production and, two, how to make better-flying airplanes. 

And it happened. From 1946 to 1950, U.S. aircraft makers turned out more than 30,000 aircraft for the civil market, the vast majority of them light planes. In 1947 alone, they churned out 15,594 of them. Manufacturers Aeronca and Globe/Temco (makers of the Swift) were among the leaders in that production, and, by 1948, both had huge fields filled with ready-to-fly airplanes parked for want of customers. 

By 1950, both companies had gone belly up. It didn't mean America wasn't ready to fly; it was. In 1949, there were more than 525,000 certificated pilots. The all-time highest number of pilots in America was in 1980, when there were around 827,000. 

So, while light aircraft manufacturing was up to the task of turning out planes, the marketplace was not ready to handle that level of production. Why not? Some economists have theorized that buying an airplane, even at the affordable prices of the late 1940s, was still a stretch for many families. And besides, the post-war era marked a boom in the manufacturing of another product, houses. And it's easy to say how, when faced with an either/or call on that question, the purchase of a home would take precedence for most. 

It turned out well, eventually. By the 1950s, new and even better planes designed to be easier to fly and to maintain were hitting the market, and at production rates that were sustainable.