So, Edward Constant pointed out that when you know there is going to be a bottleneck (in this particular example, the fact that propellers were going to stop being useful as planes got faster and closer to the speed of sound) then that can be a push for radical innovation. I may be mangling this a bit…
“But a technological paradigm shows decisive differences which concern the values (which are not only cognitive ones) of technologies, the hierarchical systemic communities, the partly different nature of crises (through ‘presumptive anomalies,’ by Constant), and the necessarily integrated nature of technological knowledge leading to successful artifacts linked to goal-oriented research.” Hrzonksy
marchudson.net 