Have you heard about the Boeing 787 (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6282820.stm)?
Have you heard about the concorde? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concorde (maiden flight: 1969, when the Rolling Stones were peaking.)
Is it? It's an all-new design, using a new material for the first time, etc.
I didn't mean to be so blunt in my first reply, but there are tons of improvements that can be made in that industry, especially if you look at old problems with new eyes.
If you want to talk about all new designs and brilliance in aerospace, look at Burt Rutan.
And the point is: if a generalization about an industry is incorrect, it's not a good idea to use that as a logical foundation for predicting the age of entrepreneurs in that industry.
If it isn't the plane itself, it's the business model (westjet/southwest?). The problem with the industry - like others such as insurance, banking etc. - is the huge startup costs.
When you have larger start-up barriers, you get less incentive to innovate. If you're being bankrolled, you'll innovate, which is why the USAF had a new fighter every ten years when the cold war was on.
Something like...say...Twitter. What 50-year-old would even consider doing something like that? And if a kid does it, and botches it, no one gets hurt. Clearly the trade-offs between enthusiasm and experience are at work.
Dr. Simonton points out that the periods of Beethoven's career that had the most hits also had the most misses
I can't find that in the article. If by "hits" he means contemporary hits, perhaps. But Beethoven's late stage was both sparse, and choked with his greatest works. Compare that to rock music...the rolling stones' past 30 years can't compare with any 3 consecutive months in the 1960s.