Son of Concorde 388
targo writes "BBC reports that EADS is considering a new generation hypersonic commercial aircraft. "Son of Concorde" would be twice as fast, carry twice as many passengers while being much quieter than its predecessor. It would get from Tokyo to Paris in just two hours, US destinations are not mentioned.
However, as Japan's failure last summer suggests, it might not happen too easily."
Two hours?? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Two hours?? (Score:2, Funny)
Impressive (Score:5, Informative)
Not half the world... (Score:3, Informative)
Much as I love Really Fast things, the enviromental effects will be the big hurdel, not noise.
Re:Not half the world... (Score:3, Informative)
Noise is an environmental effect.
Re:Not half the world... (Score:5, Funny)
Much as I love Really Fast things, the enviromental effects will be the big hurdel, not noise.
And the best thing about a Polar route? - There's none of that pesky Ozone to get in the way of your hyper-speed aero-plane.
Re:Not half the world... (Score:4, Interesting)
The flight from Copenhagen to Tokyo flies over Russia, not over the North Pole. I'd guess the routes from other airports in Europe also do this.
Re:Not half the world... (Score:5, Informative)
bzzt. try again. (Score:5, Informative)
Which brings us to tracking. If you're over the open ocean you follow tracks. Its a bit like hunt for red october going through the canyons. This speed, at this altitude through these points to maintain separation. Over land, you can be spotted within a couple hundred miles by your ground-air comms. And theres a lot of those. You are almost right on the airports, depending on where you're flying, type of aircraft and and how many engines you must be within a certain flying time of a suitable airport. Its called ETOPS.
So lots of things to worry about, including weather, but it typically starts with shortest distance.
Re:Impressive (Score:4, Informative)
An orbiting craft would do it in 1/4 * 90 min = 22 min.
Re:Impressive (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Impressive (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Impressive (Score:3, Informative)
This is true - Concorde's Olympus 593 engines are among the most efficient non-nuclear engines, approaching 35%. However the plane's drag will rise with speed, and this is the dominant effect on fuel consumption.
Re:Impressive (Score:5, Insightful)
Possibly, or a suborbital arc.
Back when the Concorde first came out, and occasionally after that, there were articles comparing supersonic flight to suborbital flight.
The main benefit of supersonic flight is that, since you're in the atmosphere, you don't need to carry your oxidizer with you. Also, you can maintain cabin pressure with a lighter shell, since the outside pressure is nonzero. But you have to push your way through all that air, so you have to be powered the whole trip.
The general benefits of the suborbital path is that you spend most of your travel time coasting above the atmosphere, not using fuel at all, and every place on Earth is at most 90 minutes away, plus the time it takes to get up and down, for a max of 2 hours. But you need to carry at least some of your oxygen (both for fuel and for breathing), and the cabin needs to be strong enough to hold pressure in a near vacuum.
The engineering calculations concluded that the crossover point in fuel consumption was at about 1500 km (1000 miles); at longer distance the suborbital flight would use less fuel than the supersonic flight.
All this was basically engineering estimates, though; nobody seems to have seen a motive for seriously developing the suborbital approach. This is probably because "space flight" is generally considered way out and unfeasible, no matter what the engineers say.
It'd be interesting to read some up-to-date calculations on this topic. I haven't seen any for a few years. Google doesn't seem to find any (or I'm not guessing the right keywords).
Anyone know of any good, recent writing on the topic?
Re:Impressive (Score:5, Insightful)
passenger comfort requires "gravity", gravity requires lift, lift implies drag, and drag burns fuel.
-Rob
ps: thats not to say you wouldn't get some thrill seekers wanting to fly, but i don't think it will fly with the business crowd...
Wait a second... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Wait a second... (Score:5, Interesting)
Until very recently every plane that flew above Mach 1 had to do it while on afterburners, but I believe the new F-22 Raptor can fly at "super cruise" which is some method of breaking the sound barrier without afterburners, which saves a huge amount of fuel. Last I checked the technology behind that was still secret.
I question whether this proposed airplane will actually fly in the hypersonic region, since to an engineer that means Mach 5 or above. If it can actually make the Tokyo-Paris flight in 2 hours, you could spend a day in Tokyo, fly to Paris, get a night's sleep and live the day all over again in the land of love!
Re:Wait a second... (Score:5, Informative)
Supercruise is a fairly easy-to-understand phenomenon; in effect, it requires two things:
- lots of thrust from the powerplant;
- subsonic airflow in high quantities through the engine due to the way a "conventional" turbine operates, with slightly supersonic exhaust flows.
Normally, a turbine can't attain supercruise because of the latter; the airflow needs to be slowed considerably going through the powerplant in order to stop a shock stall (where the supersonic shockwave suffocates the powerplant).The powerplant behind the F-22 (Pratt&Whitney F119-PW-200) attains this primarily though a few good engineering tricks such as single-crystal-cast blades with a slightly shallower angle of attack than most; thus allowing the engine to operate at a higher temperature and pressure internally than is "normal". It has a lower bypass ratio (the ratio of cool air passing around the engine to that going through the engine) than most fighter-class engines; thus, it needs a smaller front fan, which in turn reduces the area causing a shock stall. It also wears out quicker, but that's another matter entirely. :)
High bypass ratios are great for fuel efficiency at subsonic speeds, but by virtue of the way these turbines work and their tendency to shock-stall when confronted with a supersonic airflow, are not much good for supersonic flight, and not for the nearly-supersonic airflows that supercruise requires.
A typical mid-to-high bypass turbine used in a fighter will have a bleed air system to reduce the airspeed running through the turbine; this has to be counteracted by dumping raw fuel into the bypass & exhaust (i.e. afterburner). Indeed, to get much over M1.0 the F22 needs to employ this same trick. A low bypass turbine can operate with input airspeeds closer to M1.0, which in turn means less air needs to be bled, while still producing a slightly supersonic exhaust out the rear end.
Re:Wait a second... (Score:5, Informative)
"A typical mid-to-high bypass turbine used in a fighter will have a bleed air system to reduce the airspeed running through the turbine; this has to be counteracted by dumping raw fuel into the bypass & exhaust (i.e. afterburner). Indeed, to get much over M1.0 the F22 needs to employ this same trick."
The F-22 has demonstrated supercruise at 1.53 mach, i.e. it has reached speeds significantly above 1 mach without afterburner use. Top speed in level flight, at altitude, is probably no greater than 1.9 mach due to the deletion of variable intake ramps (which the YF-22 had).
Unstarts and things that go bump in the night (Score:5, Informative)
While the XB-70 Valkyrie was not quite as fast as the SR-71, it was nearly as fast (Ben Rich in "Skunk Works" tries to tell us it was only Mach 2.5, but that was only for the number 1 XB-70 because when they took it up to Mach 3, parts melted off (the brazing on the honeycomb steel panels came apart) and got ingested in the engines). They fixed that problem on the number 2 XB-70, but they crumped the number 2 XB-70 in a fatal rear-end collision doing a photo op with a bunch of "chase planes", and the XB-70 parked inside the Dayton, Ohio Air Force museum is the Mach 2.5-capable number 1 plane.
Anyway, the XB-70 also experienced the unstart problem. The XB-70 was used for aero research for the SST, and the honkin' sonic booms from the XB-70 were part of what helped discourage the SST. It was also noted that unstarts were pretty scary and would need to be remedied for the SST.
Concord/Concorde has movable inlet ramps for the shock waves -- I wonder if it ever experienced unstarts?
Also, the XB-70 was supposed to use "compression lift" -- they stuffed the six engines in this big, wide pod under the delta wing to get lift from the shock wave. This was supposed to make it much more aerodynamically efficient than the typical supersonic aircraft, allowing it to have intercontinental supersonic cruise range. I also heard that the compression lift didn't quite work up to the expectations of the wind tunnel model tests.
Is anyone considering whether compression lift (apparently there is better fluid modeling software) can result in a more fuel-efficient/longer-range SST?
Re:Wait a second... (Score:4, Informative)
Supercruise is generally used as a term to describe an aircraft capable of maintaining supersonic speeds without the use of afterburners. Supercruise is rarely used to describe the ability to accelerate to supersonic speeds without afterburners e.g. the ability to push through the transonic region.
Supercruise as defined in the context of the F-22 is the ability to cruise M1.5 @ 50,000ft without the usage of afterburners. F-22 is unique in that it can accelerate to its supercruise speed without afterburners. However current information suggests afterburners will be used operationally in the transonic region to achieve M1.5 due to payload weightings (no publicly disclosed test has achieved M1.5 without using afterburners to attain that speed when fully laden). The only tests to attain the aircrafts supercruise speed without afterburners have been un-laden tests.
There have been plenty of aircraft capable of supercruise after using afterburners in the transonic region. SR-71 could supercruise at M1.8+, Concorde was/is capable of supercruise at M1.4+. Both aircraft would routinely supercruise at those speeds during their operational life. It might surprise you to learn that the Rolls-Royce/SNECMA Olympus 593 Mark 610 (used in concorde, designed back in the 60's) could be used to accelerate the plane through the transonic phase without afterburners, but was found to be more expensive operationally than using the afterburner from M0.95 to M1.4.
A revision of the engine was under development in the late 70's before cancellation of the concorde mrk-II project which would have made transonic acceleration economic. The intake system on the Rolls-Royce/SNECMA Olympus 593 engine is even today still a state secret and had to be removed from the planes before they could be put on public display.
As a comparison the engine specs state that:
Rolls-Royce/SNECMA Olympus 593 Mark 610
31,350 lb st dry thrust
38,050 lb st with afterburner.
F119-PW-100
35,000 lb st dry thrust
39,000 lb st with afterburner.
ughh.... (Score:3, Insightful)
They re-routed it, but it still affects the area pretty bad. I've seen strollers being swept around. I hope they fix it if they decide to make a successor.
Re:Whiner (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Whiner (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Technology (Score:2)
Re:Technology (Score:5, Insightful)
Hedley
Re:Technology (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Technology (Score:2)
The point being that every step forward represents something that could go wrong. Computers are just young enough that their likely-hood for fault is a bit higher than more traditional tech.
Failure Reborn (Score:5, Insightful)
There is a reason why the modern concorde died, and it wasn't only because of the accidents that occured -- it had to do with the fact that there isn't a market for super high speed travel. People just want to get quickly from one place to another, they dont' want to go super fast. Moreover, people on the ground are already super angry about the sound of jet noise (especially near airforce bases -- I know first hand), and unless there is some sort of boom supression technology, these planes will not fly in the united states.
Our airline industry really needs to try and turn a profit ebfore they continue to waste time and money innovating. Sure the government will bail them out over and over -- like they do for the rail road companies, but I hate wasting my tax money on childlike business tactics by big airlines. Its about time some of these companies developed some responsiblity -- and a supersonic jet is not where it lies.
Let's make bigger planes, and try to keep them at relatively fast speeds. And there's my rant. Do with it as you must.
Re:Failure Reborn (Score:5, Insightful)
I disagree. Flying halfway around the world is a PITA, even at the fast-ish speeds the current crop of jet-liners can fly at.
Go to any international airport and take a look at the travellers who have spent 12 hours on a flight, with 8 more ahead of them after their stopover.
Trust me on this - if they have the money, people will pay for this high-speed service. Even if it means an "economy" seat for the price of business class, it's worth it to shave 15 hours off your travel time.
Re:Failure Reborn (Score:2)
I'd say very few. No more than ever flew on the Concorde.
As a previous poster said, I like big shiny fast machines, but these just don't make any sense unless they are only slightly more expensive than subsonic flight.
Re:Failure Reborn (Score:3, Insightful)
Why does it have to be around the world? If I could be in Europe in 2 hours, that would make a huge difference. Instead of going once every one or two years, I might go two or more times a year, for shorter periods. When transit time stops being a significant percentage of total trip time, that weekend in Paris all of a sudden DOES mean two days in Paris, rather than one day in Paris and one on two planes.
Of course, the econ
Re:Failure Reborn (Score:5, Insightful)
There is no point.
2 hours sitting on a plane vs 23 hours sitting on a plane. That's the point. That's worth a lot of money to some people, including myself
What part of that don't you understand?
Re:Failure Reborn (Score:5, Informative)
Since we were referring to Concorde earlier, I used the calculator at British Airways [britishairways.com] for flights London (UK) to Sydney (Australia). That's a long flight, pretty much half way around the globe.
The cheapest economy fare is GBP 511-848 (return);, Business class is GBP 1,927-2,570; 1st class is GBP 2,891-3,220. That's a huge difference, yet people are willing to pay it, just for more leg room.
You don't think those same people would pay business class rates for cattle class seating---but get there in a few hours?
I've done that flight recently (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Failure Reborn (Score:2)
Re:Failure Reborn (Score:3, Insightful)
You are right in many of your assessments, especially when you consider the issues about operating the Concorde in the first place. Between the very high fuel burn rate which limits its range, jet engines that are very noisy and spew out lots of unwanted exhaust emissions (especially oxides of nitrogen at altitude), the sonic boom problem and limited carrying capacity, small wonder why Concorde in the end was probably not
Re:Failure Reborn (Score:4, Insightful)
There was only one accident and in fact that had little to do with the end of service, the real issue was the Airbus consortium terminating support. The cost of maintenance would have soared. The fleet was way too small to be economic.
The real reason Concorde failed was that it carried too few passengers, used too much fuel and protectionism in the US blocked landing at the major airports until the consortium stopped manufacture.
The result was not as much of a disaster as often claimed. The development money on the first joint product went down the drain, but the collaboration led directly to airbus. With Boeing looking at a stale and aging product line and unable to get any new plane off the drawing board without a major subsidy through the pentagon, Airbus is now the dominant force in the market.
Airbus will be building a 1200 seat aircraft, which with the current glut of 600 seaters is probably the sweet spot in the market at this point.
The idea of supersonic cruisers keeps popping up and bobbing down. Eventually one will get built simply because there has to be something more interesting to build than yet another super-jumbo.
The idea that seems to crop up quite often in tendem with the superjumbo idea is the idea of lobbing satelites into space en-route. If someone could make that happen with an interesting size payload, I guess some military might sign of on the R&D.
That is probably what NASA should have built instead of the shuttle.
If Airlines wanted it, Boeing would build it. (Score:2)
The problem is that even a large subsonic airplane costs billions of dollars to develop. The development cost of a supersonic plane is even more. For a supersonic passenger transport to exist requires MASSIVE government subsidies, and most taxpayers would not want to touch it.
Do people want to go on a 2 hour flight rather than an 8? Yes they do, but, not for 10 times the price. Maybe if it were just double, but not ten times.
Moral of the story: Supersonic transportation for the masses will happen when
Re:Failure Reborn (Score:5, Informative)
Not only in the U.S., but also in Europe.
"Airbus will be building a 1200 seat aircraft, which with the current glut of 600 seaters is probably the sweet spot in the market at this point."
Whoa there! 1200 seats? The double-decker A380 currently undergoing early construction seats about 560, roughly 100 more than the 747-400 (the current largest capacity civil passenger aircraft). There are no 600 seat aircraft in service at this time, and certainly not any 1200 seaters for a while.
Re:Failure Reborn (Score:5, Interesting)
Richard Branson disagrees and was willing to put money behind it. He wanted to add the old concordes to his Virgin Atlantic's fleet. His argument was that he had looked at the numbers and the Concorde was actually profitable on a per flight basis and that it was tremendously powerful for marketing purposes. So, if the concorde was full most every flight and they weren't losing money...
Branson's point was basically that the concorde's alleged unprofitability was just a persistent marketing campaign and that British Airways had just decided that it could just make more money shifting its customers over to it's regular fleet of bigger planes.
Now I don't know if Branson is right or wrong, but at least one person who was willing to put a lot of money on supersonic transport thought he could make money on it. I'm willing to believe that there is some combination of economics and engineering that make sense for faster air travel. Supersonic planes might not make sense for big airlines that have invested in large monolithic fleets, but what makes me think Branson might be right about the concorde's reputation being the result of negative marketing is the knee jerk reaction that you all have had to the prospect of renewed supersonic flight.
I'd like to see the real numbers on the concorde... operating costs versus revenue, development costs aside (which were paid for by European taxpayers). But just believing a large corporation when it says that nobody can successfully operate a supersonic aircraft just because they couldn't is just a bit too much blind faith in my book.
Re:Failure Reborn (Score:5, Interesting)
But it will have a tough time getting clearance for the USA.
More annoying than jet noise are sonic booms. They are not going to be acceptable (by law) over populated areas. Therefore, any service is limited to coastal American airports (like New York City) because there just are not many airports approachable over ocean routes. Atlanta, BWI, Seattle and Orlando -- forget it (unless you want to swing way south around the FL peninsula first). LAX, NY, San Fran, New York and Boston are pretty much it, and this new aircraft would be subject to new sound analyses and intense public stakeholder scrutiny. And not many people need to fly in these planes, so they derive no benefit in having a very loud plane near their homes. It better be quiet and drop subsonic long before it approaches the coast to have a hope of landing in the USA.
As for the Air Force, I've sat on a bucolic mountaintop, enjoying the winter view and serenity, only to have a B-1 come ripping by doing low-level supersonic training. Kind of felt like a pillowfight body shot. Funny thing was, I never saw the Lancer!
Sure, a supersonic airliner would be much higher, but the sonic booms would still be unacceptable.
Re:Failure Reborn (Score:3, Interesting)
This also assumes that the engines are as quiet as existing commercia
Remember the Sonic Cruiser? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's one thing for EADS to think speed is the way to go, and it's quite another to propose something as ambitious as they have. Based on the article I strongly suspect they're making token research into engine tech but aren't actually trying to design a plane at all here (no mention of fuselage design at all). It's just Fun with Public Relations.
Re:Remember the Sonic Cruiser? (Score:5, Informative)
In general, Boeing is hurting; it's a cyclical industry and even in the best of times they have to take huge financial risks with new models.
Also, they seem to have a really antagonistic relationship with their unions, and it so happens that the mechanics and even the engineers were on strike at the time that the Sonic Cruiser had been announced. Under these circumstances, a couple of board members including John F. McDonnell, relics from the old McDonnell-Douglas corporation, were able to veto the project as "too expensive".
There's been a lot of articles about Boeing's descent from a dynamic innovator to a stodgy defense contractor, partly caused by its merger with Mc.D. See this article [deccanherald.com] for example.
It's sad to see a once great company fading away.
So sad about Boeing (Score:3)
Okay, time's up. The answer is NONE! Nada. Rien. Zilch.
Don't even try to claim that the Raptor would have been such a success if it weren't for those folks from McDonnell-Douglas. Boeing had been building nothing but transport a/c and ISR platforms. Talk about stodgy!
Re:Remember the Sonic Cruiser? (Score:3)
The Sonic Cruiser would not have lower operating costs. It would require significant adjustment of the pilots and of the airports, not to mentio
Re:Remember the Sonic Cruiser? (Score:3)
Fast for a reason! (Score:5, Funny)
And because of that they dont have to server dinner. Pretty sneaky!
Re:Fast for a reason! (Score:5, Funny)
Shelf it for now.. (Score:3, Informative)
The companies decided to retire the famous aircraft after 27 years because it was no longer profitable.
What's the chances of a new Concorde (twice the passengers, twice the speed.. read twice the price) being able to succedd commercially in the near future, especially given the state of the post-9/11 airline industry?
Re:Shelf it for now.. (Score:2, Insightful)
The Concorde (and its successor) appeals to a different market (i.e. not you and me). This market isn't a part of the 'post 9/11 airline industry'.
That downturn was because, amongst other things, people were afraid their Jumbo people mover would be hijacked and used as a weapon. I would imagine that Son of Concorde would require specialised training. Not something you'll get in a Florida flight school.
As to whether or not people can afford it, if you have to ask "how much" then it's not for you. Or me.
Re:Shelf it for now.. (Score:2)
fun fun, but it's still not teleportation (Score:3, Funny)
Re:fun fun, but it's still not teleportation (Score:2)
PS You dont have a problem with being rematerialised inside out do you ? We just run you through the teleport again to fix you if it happens.
Re:fun fun, but it's still not teleportation (Score:2, Funny)
I teleported home one night
With Ron and Sid and Meg.
Ron stole Meggie's heart away
And I got Sidney's leg.
Applications for space flight (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Applications for space flight (Score:2)
This is so misguded it's not funny.
The Space Shuttle uses maybe $20m - $30m of fuel for a flight (and the vast majority of that is the solids, not the hydrogen and oxygen for the main engines)
Theres less resistance up there. (Score:3, Insightful)
no wonder! (Score:2, Funny)
Because us Americans will complain about the noise so bitterly (why did you move next to the airport, Einstein, if you don't like engine noise? to save a few bucks? then live with the noise!) we'll still be using 1960s technology well into the 22nd century.
Re:no wonder! (Score:2)
why did you move next to the airport, Einstein, if you don't like engine noise?
Maybe they or their family lived there before the airport was built. Besides, just because it's already noisy doesn't mean it's ok to make it even worse. Nope, sorry, if the planes want to take off and land here, they need to compensate the people who have to deal with the noise. Otherwise we just have yet another example of the rich stealing from the poor.
It's only tecnology research, but wise thinking (Score:5, Insightful)
So why are these people researching some technology that has no current market? Obviously because they realise that the market will not always be in the slump that it now is. It's called visionary thinking. The Concorde may have not covered full costs (I don't know enough about that), but it made BA and Air France a fist full of money as tickets cost around $3000 a pop IIRC and there were definitely enough rich people willing to pay those prices for a quick pop to New York or Rio, and those same rich bastards will still be willing in the future when and if this thing ever becomes a real plane.
For the rest of us there's the double decker Airbus A380 that will be making it's maiden flight in 2005.
Re:It's only tecnology research, but wise thinking (Score:2)
Re:It's only tecnology research, but wise thinking (Score:2)
For the rest of us there's the double decker Airbus A380 that will be making it's maiden flight in 2005.
The A380 will be a flop - with that many people on board, chances are, things will be rerouted left and right when one of the passangers gets sick.
Re:It's only tecnology research, but wise thinking (Score:2, Informative)
The above link has some info on the economics of the Concorde. It's profitablity was never quite known because BA and Air France never really released that information. Also don't forget, those planes were heavily subsidized by their respective governments.
Re:It's only tecnology research, but wise thinking (Score:3, Informative)
However in the running of the craft, especially in the case of BA, they were cut free of any support very early on even before the company it
Two Hours? I dont think so. (Score:3, Informative)
Then it says Paris to Tokyo in 2 hours! Hell no. A quick google search shows the old Concorde flew the route in 7h 54m. Soooo, that means 4 hours for a plane twice as fast. Not two. Two hours is not even close. Nice math, BBC. It would be nice if reporters would bother to think before they write once in a while...
Re:Two Hours? I dont think so. (Score:2)
Then again, the speed it went would suggest that the 2 hours is wrong for "twice as fast". However, if you'd looked a few posts up you'd have seen mention of flying over the North Pole.
That cuts a shit load of mileage off.
graspee
Re:Two Hours? I dont think so. (Score:4, Informative)
First of all, Concorde never flew to Tonkyo. The flights to Paya Lebar, Singapore had to stop over at Bahrain for refueling, even a quick turn around will cost you a couple of hours at best. The route flew over what was nearly all land so it had to fly at subsonic speeds on large portions of the journey (M.95), after a while even flights over the Saudi desert had to drop to subsonic speeds because of nomads whose camels reportedly stopped breeding because of the supersonic boom.
So that's why you had journey times in the 8-9h region, if they flew the journey at 2M nonstop then you would expect to half that time, so a plane going 4M nonstop could be in the region of 2h.
So much for you logic, nevermind the math.
Re:Two Hours? I dont think so. (Score:4, Funny)
If it takes 7 hours (say 8 for easy math) to transport 150 people, twice as fast for 300 people (twice as much) will make it 2 hours. If it was for 150 people it would be 4 hours.
Edwin, statistics expert.
Re:Two Hours? I dont think so. (Score:2, Funny)
Here's a way better solution. (Score:3, Interesting)
Here is what I would prefer they do:
1. Forget about Mach 2.0 flight. Limiting the top cruise speed to around Mach 1.7 would drastically reduce materials cost, and would allow for extensive use of composite materials which will dramatically reduce the weight of the plane.
2. By limiting the top speed to around Mach 1.7, it also means there is less need for exotic jet engine designs, which also reduces development costs. We could, for example, develop an engine for this new SST as a derivative of the Rolls-Royce Trent engine now found on many of today's widebody airliners. That could also mean the engine will meet today's strict rules for exhaust emissions, especially oxides of nitrogen emissions.
3. Design the shape of the plane so it reduces the pressure wave buildup that causes the sonic boom and/or direct the energy of the sonic boom away from the ground.
4. Design the plane so it seats at least 200 passengers in two class seating (34" seating pitch for Economy and 43-45" seating for premium class).
I think with 2003 aerospace technology such a plane is well within technological reach. And unlike the Concorde, the new plane could probably fly at least the range of the Airbus A330-200 (about 6,600 nautical miles), and will likely meet the very strict ICAO Stage IV regulations for jet engine noise emissions. That will allow the plane to fly most of the world's major routes non-stop, won't be subject to noise restrictions at most of the world's airports, and (if they can eliminate the sonic boom problem) even allow for over-land flying that could mean cutting flight times as much as 40%.
Re:Here's a way better solution. (Score:5, Insightful)
"2. By limiting the top speed to around Mach 1.7, it also means there is less need for exotic jet engine designs, which also reduces development costs. We could, for example, develop an engine for this new SST as a derivative of the Rolls-Royce Trent engine now found on many of today's widebody airliners. That could also mean the engine will meet today's strict rules for exhaust emissions, especially oxides of nitrogen emissions."
A derivative of the Trent 900, perhaps? It would be have to be modified significantly enough (1.9 times intake air velocity complicating everything, nacelle-less configuration for essential drag reduction, etc.) that it would be necessary to design an entirely new engine.
3. [sonic boom stuff]
And who says they're not doing this? Northrop's QSP efforts reached even the mainstream-tech media, and so I find it unlikely that the British engineers are unfamiliar with it. On the other hand, are you aware of the deployable serrated flap tests on lambda wing UAV's, or the vortex generator effects analysis on the V-22's dorsal region? Or the effects of forebody LEX during high-alpha supermaneuvers?
I think you are vastly oversimplifying the design necessary for a high-supersonic airliner and, in effect, insulting the intelligence and knowledge of aerospace engineers.
There will always be a market for supersonic (Score:2, Insightful)
Though I myself am a Greyhound man (17 hrs a weekend to see my girlfriend), there's a large clump of us with deep pockets; and for the above motives, in a mark
Re:There will always be a market for supersonic (Score:2)
You said UK subsidized Concorde - you have that right. I think I read that _half_ of them were sold for a dollar because the airlines didn't want any more.
If this thing actually does suborbital speeds and altitudes then there may be something, but one reason Boeing stopped working on its competition to Concorde way back when was environmental effects, something I don't think was really solved. At least with suborbit there is less issue with sonic b
I can't (Score:5, Insightful)
* This can't be done!
* This can't be done economically!
* We shouldn't try because it can't be done.
I just hope the people working on making a plane that will cut down on my travel time have a different attitude. I hope they are asking how can it be done? rather than why can't it be done.
It's easy to be a nay sayer. Nothing exposes genius faster than naysayers proven wrong.
That's not an aircraft... it's a spacecraft. (Score:2)
Uh oh... (Score:2, Funny)
higher speeds are good (Score:2, Interesting)
It seems that banking the future on bigger planes is kind of mistake. It assumes that airlines can fill bigger planes with passengers. This assumption in the past has created inefficiencies in air travel by forcing customers to fly out their way on smalle
Oh Really... (Score:4, Insightful)
1 hour to get to airport,
1.5 hours check in before departure,
2 hours flight time,
30 minutes to get baggage
1 hour custums and immagration.
Yep, we need faster air travel.
Particularly this morning when my flight was delayed an hour because the pilot had not arrived and a replacement needed to be found.
Re:Oh Really... (Score:3, Interesting)
A supersonic planet discussed could even capitalize that, and charge extra for normal baggage, since majority of passengers woul
Re:Oh Really... (Score:3)
You are checked in via priority checkin 30 minutes before departure. Yourluggage is checked in separately. You relax for 2.5 hours. Your luggage is picked up by the priority servi
RT Jones' Oblique All Wing SST (Score:4, Interesting)
The price of a ticket should be no more than a 747 if Jones' calculations are correct. Some preliminary calculations show that natural gas would be even better for this system than normal jet fuel but it wouldn't be absolutely necessary.
But will it blow up twice as often? (Score:2)
Re: Son of Concorde (Score:5, Informative)
According to the US Department of Agriculture [usda.gov], the Great Circle distance from Paris to Tokyo is 6033 miles. Let's round that to 6000 mi. The speed of sound varies with temperature [gsu.edu], but using 750mph makes the math easy (at aircraft altitudes, the speed of sound is closer to 700mph).
If it could hold the fuel, the Concorde at Mach 2 (1500mph) could do 6000 miles in four hours. If the EADS jet achieves Mach 4 (3000mph), it could do 6000 miles in two hours. If the entire distance were covered at cruising speed.
My impression (purely from being a passenger) is that it takes half an hour or so for a typical commercial airliner on a 1000 mile flight to reach cruising speed and altitude; the plane will then be at cruising speed for about 60 minutes, and then another 30 minutes is spent in deceleration. Of the 2 hours spent in the air, only half of the time is actually spent at crusing speed.
How long would it take for the EADS-SS to reach Mach 4? And how long would it take it to slow down from that speed to the typical 150mph (+/-) landing speed that current runways are designed for? I doubt the typical passenger is prepared for Michael Schumacher / John Force g-forces on takeoff and landing.
Let's say the EADS-SS takes 45 minutes to reach Mach 4, and another 45 minutes to drop back to landing speeds. Assuming linear acceleration and deceleration, that's an hour and a half spent at an average speed of 1500mph. So 2250 miles of the trip takes 1.5 hours. Transiting the remaining 3750 miles at Mach 4 (3000mph) would take another 1.25 hours, for a total trip of 2.75 hours. [Ignoring any ground taxi times or other delays.]
I would think, fuel-wise (which is basically the only marginal cost of airplane flight), that going from Mach 2 to Mach 4 is more expensive than going from Mach 1 to Mach 2. On the other hand, Mach 1 -> 2 is done in denser air than Mach 2 -> 4, so maybe not.
This could be a great question for a final exam in Engineering Analysis and Synthesis.
Won't be in the US... (Score:3, Informative)
While the concorde did land in New York, it had to drop to subsonic speed over the Atlantic (in accordance with the FAA rule), so the plane is essentially useless for US domestic flights.
Forget economics for a minute. (Score:4, Interesting)
Supersonic biz-jets more realistic (Score:5, Interesting)
By going with a smaller aircraft, Learjet sized, you can reduce design and manufacturing costs. That and you can target the filthy-rich-let's-buy-a-trip-on-a-Soyuz-for-fun market instead of the save-bucks-at-all-costs airline market.
Once a few supersonic bizjets are on the market, it would be easier to scale the designs up to airliner sizes.
What do you make it out of? (Score:3, Interesting)
Ben Rich, head of Lockheed's Skunk Works and propulsion designer on the SR-71, refused to bid on that idea. "We used titanium. You know anything stronger?" The SR-71 was speed-limited by the melting point of its skin. More power could have been added, but woudn't help. Just cooling the pilot was a major effort. Cooling a big passenger cabin would be really tough.
Ceramics? Maybe someday, but they're brittle, like the Space Shuttle tiles.
Re:What do you make it out of? (Score:3, Interesting)
This isn't to say such a craft would be economic of course nor that the aerodynamics
Easy Travel is Bad... (Score:3, Insightful)
Regardless of whether it can be done or not, I want to register the opinion that easy, cheap world travel is actually a bad thing. When products and people can get anywhere in the world cheaply, then they do. This leads to single culture kinds of things, which makes you wonder why you were travelling at all! Similar to cultural diversity is the problem with bio-diversity (from which the whole arguement stems). The sheer number of biological invaders is astounding. Consider how many times you've been annoyed by those Japanese beetles (that look a lot like lady bugs). A few years ago, those didn't exist in North America. Now, they exist without bound. You can bet that there will be more and more of these problems in the future.
Yes, I enjoy travel quite a bit. And I don't like the idea of restricting travel. But we need more bio and cultural diversity. It keeps the world healthy.
Re:Economics? (Score:5, Interesting)
Er, no. Concorde flew above 60,000 feet, where air resistance is much less than the customary 35,000 feet. Concorde was just as a fuel-efficient cruiser as subsonic planes; trouble is, it sucked 25% of it's fuel on take-off...
Re:Economics? (Score:2)
Re:Economics? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Economics? (Score:5, Informative)
Concorde didn't use its afterburners while cruising.
http://www.concordesst.com/powerplant.html [concordesst.com]
Perhaps you should think before you post?
Re:Economics? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Won't work. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Won't work. (Score:3, Informative)
87 Billion (Score:2)
Eighty-seven billion will do for a start
-kgj