Designing an airplane and producing a prototype isn't terribly difficult and many thousands of companies have done this.
The tricky part is designing the massive manufacturing apparatus around it that can produce them in volume (ask Elon how easy building cars is), satisfying the varying demands of hundreds of different airlines, many from developing nations, helping them set up financing, supporting the design in the field for 30-50 years, AND turning a profit. Each widget produced has an MSRP of hundreds of millions of dollars.
Ask yourself why Lockheed permanently exited the commercial aircraft business 40 years ago, despite having what was regarded as the most technologically advanced design of the era, ahead of its time. Douglas went bankrupt and got bought out, Convair and everyone else failed and closed up shop.
You can't throw some engineers - they could be the smartest on the planet - into rented office space and become the next airplane company. There's more to it than designing the next WiFi-enabled food processor and slapping it together in Shenzhen.
Actually, thinking about Tesla is appropriate. No one really thought starting a new automotive manufacturer from scratch was possible, but Tesla did it. Yes, it's very hard and you'll probably fail, but if you do things different you might actually have a chance. The reasons all the old aircraft companies failed is probably the same reason Boeing is struggling. Don't copy what they've done in the past, make your own way. Yes, I know that building aircraft is a much higher hill to climb, but I think it might be worth it.
They could also join some of the small aircraft startups that are trying to gain a foothold. Maybe a cadre of experienced aircraft engineers would help them raise money and get a product to market faster.
I see this one as the saddest - if you are making good products the company will finally die.
VW (with Audi and Porsche) failing to deliver quality products is the top group. Apple crushing iOS release after release and becoming trillion dollar company.
Maybe that’s just the way to live and lead the company and market and I just should stop dreaming about quality.
The tricky part is designing the massive manufacturing apparatus around it that can produce them in volume (ask Elon how easy building cars is), satisfying the varying demands of hundreds of different airlines, many from developing nations, helping them set up financing, supporting the design in the field for 30-50 years, AND turning a profit. Each widget produced has an MSRP of hundreds of millions of dollars.
Ask yourself why Lockheed permanently exited the commercial aircraft business 40 years ago, despite having what was regarded as the most technologically advanced design of the era, ahead of its time. Douglas went bankrupt and got bought out, Convair and everyone else failed and closed up shop.
You can't throw some engineers - they could be the smartest on the planet - into rented office space and become the next airplane company. There's more to it than designing the next WiFi-enabled food processor and slapping it together in Shenzhen.