A Parable About the Dawn of Commercial Aviation and Government Action in Promoting Innovation
In the wake of the coronavirus pandemic the Australian Government is focused on repairing the economic damage it entailed and returning the nation to a state as close to that before the outbreak as possible. Yet the disruption of society by the collapse of commerce, the disruption of financial arrangements by environmental disaster doesn’t change processes already underway nor halt the advancement of technologies whose time has arrived. In 1931 a Fokker Trimotor transport aircraft crashed in the USA, killing all on board. The incident occurred during some of the darkest days of a troubled 20th century. The G reat D epression was into its second year as the global economy continued to crumble, with governments apparently unable to offer any solution. And yet, the consequences of the Fokker’s crash were to release a revolution in aerodynamics that saw the advent of truly commercial aviation and an increasingly urgent rush to unlock the technologies that were to be crucial when the gr