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France and Japan Planning New Supersonic Jet 477

Posted by timothy from the mach-schnell dept.
jonerik writes "According to this article from the Associated Press, Japan and France are cooperating on research to produce a supersonic passenger plane that would be able to carry 300 passengers (three times as many as the Concorde) and fly from New York City to Tokyo in a mere six hours. Current plans are for the plane to be able to cruise at mach 2.4 while reducing the noise and high fuel consumption associated with the Concorde during its years of service. Although Japan had previously done extensive research towards building a 250-person mach 1.6 passenger jet, the agreement with France - announced at the annual Paris Air Show on Tuesday - represents a interesting shift in technological alliances given the Japanese aviation industry's longstanding ties to the United States. 'To research closely in this area with the Europeans does represent something new,' said Yoshio Watanabe, an official with The Society of Japanese Aerospace Companies, which is heading the new initiative on the Japanese side."
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France and Japan Planning New Supersonic Jet More

France and Japan Planning New Supersonic Jet

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  • Does it represent a shift? (Score:4, Informative)

    by wa1ter ( 593634 ) on Wednesday June 15, 2005 @07:14PM (#12828214)
    represents a interesting shift in technological alliances given the Japanese aviation industry's longstanding ties to the United States

    Does it really or are they just trying to benefit from France's experiences with the concorde for this project?
    Nowhere in the article does it say it'll change it's alliance for anything else.
    • Another post mentions that there's no interest in the US in a supersonic jet, because of restrictions over land. This says nothing of Reagan's old Orient Express hypersonic proposal, or the basic desire to furnish jets for overseas flight.

      Look at it from another perspective... What does the US bring to the table, any more. G.E.'s new jet engine research facility is in India. US software jobs are migrating to India, and the semiconducter industry has been migrating to the Far East for over a decade. We're e

    • Re:Does it represent a shift? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by vought ( 160908 ) on Wednesday June 15, 2005 @07:53PM (#12828542)
      Does it really [represent a shift away from the U.S. by Japan] or are they just trying to benefit from France's experiences with the concorde for this project?


      I'm sure it's for both reasons; a big deal was made of Japan's growing skill and interest in building their own large aircraft parts during the '90s.

      Boeing executives were little bit wary about outsourcing so much of the 777's fine machine work and wing structural work to Japanese firms - partially because they knew Japan would one day be ready to build large aircraft on their own.

      Japanese firms have learned a lot about how to build an aircraft from us over the past ten or so years, and now they're shifting toward working with the French, who have experience in the specific type of comercial travel they're interested in building for.

  • It would shure be fun! (Score:4, Funny)

    by Bananatree3 ( 872975 ) on Wednesday June 15, 2005 @07:14PM (#12828216)
    could you imagine wing walking at that speed! That would be a BLAST! {Think of all the money people would pay to see that :)}

    yes, I know it is a joke, but who doesn't like wing walking?

  • Engine Noise? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by niteguy ( 525761 ) on Wednesday June 15, 2005 @07:14PM (#12828218)
    I thought the problem was the sonic booms, not the engine noise. A little difficult to fly from New York to Tokyo in six hours if you've gotta go around South America, isn't it?
    • When the plane is cruising at 50,000+ feet, I don't think the sonic boom would be very strong (air less dense) and I am fairly sure it would not reach the ground.
      • except concord cruised at that sort of height too - and the sonic booms definitely were a problem

      • Re:Engine Noise? (Score:3, Informative)

        by DeathFlame ( 839265 )
        From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonic_boom [wikipedia.org]

        In the late 1950s when SST designs were being actively pursued it was thought that although the boom would be very large, they could avoid problems by flying higher. This premise was proven false when the North American B-70 Valkyrie started flying and it was found that the boom was a very real problem even at 70,000ft (21,000m). It was during these tests that the N-wave was first characterized.

      • I was lucky enough to witness an SR71 flying overhead at ~80,000 ft. You could certainly hear the double shock, although it obviously wasn't as loud as the supersonic F15 flyby at much lower (1000 ft?!) altitude.

        Much work has been done to reduce shock strength (by varying the aircraft profile), so it is possible that a newer plane would have an acceptable noise profile during cruise.
    • I would imagine they would fly over the North Pole and parts of the Pacific to get from New York to Tokyo. ...but the polar bear lobby is pretty powerful.

    • Re:Engine Noise? (Score:3, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Here is the flight path from New York to Tokyo:

      http://gc.kls2.com/cgi-bin/gcmap?PATH=jfk-tyo [kls2.com]

      • Re:Engine Noise? (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Algan ( 20532 )
        When I flew that route last year we took a big fat detour to the right of the Kamchatka peninsula... guess good old Russians still have some toys hidden out there :)

        Anyway, I guess the French and the Japanese would be more concerned with flying from Paris to Tokyo :)
    • This plane will not fly through the skies, what do you think Japan has started digging this hole [slashdot.org] for? Its going to be the worlds first internal air corridor.
    • A little difficult to fly from New York to Tokyo in six hours if you've gotta go around South America, isn't it?

      Only a few hundred miles of a New York<->Tokyo path is over US soil, at least if you divert ever so slightly north of Alaska. Most of it is uninhabited areas of Canada, the Arctic Ocean, and Siberia.

      Google searching for 'great circle route' provides a better illustration [kls2.com].

      • Re:Engine Noise? (Score:3, Interesting)

        by westlake ( 615356 )
        Only a few hundred miles of a New YorkTokyo path is over US soil,

        But the path arcs across upstate New York and southern Ontario, Hamilton, and Toronto. That is not an easy sell politically.

    • Engine noise is more of a problem for passengers. Sonic booms are less severe the longer your craft is and the higher it flies, and a 300 passenger mach 2.4 craft will be pretty darn long and fly pretty darn high. :)
    • Actually, the route takes you up to the north of Canada, then down through the Bering straight.

      With a little adjustment, it's possible to fly over open ocean for a good chunk of the journey - along the top of mainland Canada and Alaska, then slow down for the Bering straight, then floor it again for a blast down through the Pacific, past the Kamchatka peninsula, and on to Tokyo.

    • Re:Engine Noise? (Score:4, Informative)

      by WolfWithoutAClause ( 162946 ) on Wednesday June 15, 2005 @08:07PM (#12828621) Homepage
      The great circle route would be used (approximately) ignoring any small deviations for winds etc. Picture is here [kls2.com]

      Looks like it goes right through Canada, quite a bit of America, and China(?)

    • Re:Engine Noise? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Analogy Man ( 601298 ) on Thursday June 16, 2005 @08:19AM (#12831241)
      Right you are that engine noise is not the big issue...but you're a little confused about going around South America. For NY to Tokyo the great circle route would be over the arctic not around the south end (stretch a string point to point on a globe).

      In the 1995 timeframe I was at Boeing working on the HSCT program (Mach 2.4, 300 passengers...). The performance numbers were working out pretty well. Economics were encouraging to the point that it would slay the super jumbo since their markets overlapped (who would do choose a 14 hour flight if a 5 hour one was the same cost?). With respect to takeoff performance the wing loading at takeoff is light enough that noise profiles can be managed. Also, since this sort of airplane is likely to primarily operate out of large airports takeoff/noise performance is not the issue. In the day, overland would be down around Mach 1.4 - 1.7 rather than design point 2.4.

      The big technical challenges were:

      • materials (although this was workable)
      • emissions - not so much the quantity versus transonic aircraft but due to flying at 60,000 feet instead of at 35,000 ft. I am not an expert on the atmospheric sciences, but if I recall there was concern with triggering cloud formation and Nit. Oxide causing ozone depletion.
      • I did write an AIAA paper on analysis methods for predicting boom propogation and the issue was that even trans-pacific there are a lot of islands and ships out there regardless of how big and open it looks on a map, not to mention marine life (whales, seals, sea bird rookeries) issues. Some things can be done to soften the boom, but you just can't completely mitigate the physics of the shock wave of a 600,000 lb object traveling at Mach 2.4.

    • Re:Engine Noise? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by io333 ( 574963 )
      I thought the problem was the sonic booms, not the engine noise. A little difficult to fly from New York to Tokyo in six hours if you've gotta go around South America, isn't it?

      The Concorde went over my house once when I was in Maryland. I have no idea why. Maybe it was being diverted around thunderstorms or something. Anyway, this is how I happened to see it flying over head. I was sitting in my living room on the couch on a peaceful afternoon and OH MY GOD ITS THE END OF THE WORLD SATAN AND JESUS A

  • 2015? MAN.... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Spy der Mann ( 805235 ) <spydermann.slash ... m ['mai' in gap]> on Wednesday June 15, 2005 @07:14PM (#12828219) Homepage Journal
    could be in operation by 2015

    I'm betting that by 2015 there'll be a technology to make even faster yets which will hold up to 1000 people.

    Is it just me, or it really seems that large scale technological advances are going TOO slow?
    • Maybe they're waiting for astronauts to see it from the moon...

    • Re:2015? MAN.... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by QuantumRiff ( 120817 ) on Wednesday June 15, 2005 @07:21PM (#12828277)
      Do you want to be sitting on an airliner that was designed from the ground up in a mere 18 month's? I sure don't. That's not a very long time to do thorough testing. Your thinking of software and computer, that move so fast. Software and computers that are always crashing, need reboots, and full of security holes. I would also think it would be awefully hard to get all those custom engineered parts designed and built that quickly, especially when you have to build, or retrofit a huge factory to make them.
      • "Hello, this is your commander speaking. We'll be flying the Boeing 959 beta today with known bugs in the engine. If it crashes, the airline says we'll have to wait for the patch that will come out in October. I wish you all a pleasent trip!"

        Is it just me or did it become trendy to call things beta?

    • Its because large scale technological advances aren't marketable. I mean, ultimately that's why the Concorde project was left to die out. The costs associated with maintaining the Concorde was prohibitive, so they just peacefully let it die.

      The technological advances are still being attained at a good clip, but we don't see them because profit margins are maintained by being safe and marketable while calling yourself "innovative", not by actually being innovative. Its part of the reason people want to g

    • Re:2015? MAN.... (Score:3, Informative)

      by hazee ( 728152 )
      Umm, remember that Concorde was designed in the 60s, and it's *still* the best commercial supersonic aircraft to date.

      Jumbos from the same era still fill the skies too.

      Advances in aviation don't happen as fast as you seem to think.

      • Re:2015? MAN.... (Score:4, Insightful)

        by BiggerIsBetter ( 682164 ) on Wednesday June 15, 2005 @08:43PM (#12828886)
        But those old planes are a long way from original spec. They'll typically run fairly recent avionics, so it's basically a new plane in an old airframe.

        Anyway, cool things happened because back then, they had a plan, did their best, accepted the risks, and improved things as technology allowed. Now we're trying to get it 100% the first time. Why? Lawsuits, I imagine.
    • I'll take that bet. 2015 is ten years from now. Ten years ago was 1995. Consider how far we've come since then. Do you really think we'll come much farther in ten more years? My guess is that 2015 for this sort of thing is actually a bit optimistic. The physics of supersonic flight just don't lend themselves to cost-efficient aircraft, especially with today's escalating fuel prices.

    • Re:2015? MAN.... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Saeger ( 456549 ) <farrellj@g m a il.com> on Wednesday June 15, 2005 @09:50PM (#12829255) Homepage
      Is it just me, or it really seems that large scale technological advances are going TOO slow?

      It's just you.

      Technological advancement has been increasing at an exponential rate [kurzweilai.net] from the beginning; it's just that most of it is occurring at the micro- and nano-scale where you take it for granted. biotech, cloning, the Internet, Google, nano-materials, 133MHz (in 1995) to 3+ GHz today, etc.

      Most large-scale tech is also progressing, but you don't notice it at the human-scale, and you won't, until we can build amazing things using bottom-up nanotech instead of top-down bulk-tech.

      Consider a better, safer, cheaper and much faster way to get from NYC to Tokoyo with near-future tech: A maglev train via an underground tunnel, in vacuum for frictionless acceleration to ludicrious-speed at the midway point before decel. Currently, tunnel excavation is labor intensive and very EXPENSIVE; precise control over matter and robotic automation will change that.

  • That's because.... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Zebra_X ( 13249 ) on Wednesday June 15, 2005 @07:15PM (#12828222)
    "Although Japan had previously done extensive research towards building a 250-person mach 1.6 passenger jet, the agreement with France - announced at the annual Paris Air Show on Tuesday - represents a interesting shift in technological alliances given the Japanese aviation industry's longstanding ties to the United States."

    The U.S. aviation industry has no desire to build these aircraft. The FAA prohibits supersoinc flight over US Soil @ any altitude without prior special approval.
    • The FAA prohibits supersoinc flight over US Soil @ any altitude without prior special approval

      Above 100km altitude is OK because that is in space.

      • Re:That's because.... (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Zebra_X ( 13249 ) on Wednesday June 15, 2005 @08:20PM (#12828737)
        No.

        The bottom line of the FAA directive, states that "no measureable sonic boom overpressure" may reach the surface of the U.S. except within an authorized test area. There is a rather lengthy procedure to be granted such an authorization. There is no mention of altitude in the FAR 91.817 or it's Appendix. The rule simply states that if you make a sonic boom, it cannot reach the surface of the United States.

        In addition, high altitued flights are generally regarded as a Bad Idea because of concerns of radiation.

        100 km is also 62 miles. A decent from such a flight will certainly put an aircraft above mach 1 over at an altitude which will cause a sonic boom to reach the US.

    • Re:That's because.... (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Chairboy ( 88841 )
      The reason for that is noise. There has been research recently that suggests that the shape of the aircraft can be used to reduce the boom, possibly to a point where the FAA would relent.

      • Re:That's because.... (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Zebra_X ( 13249 )
        Suggests - a heavily modified F-4 Phantom on loan from the USAF proved that a noise cancelling shape was feasible. However, that design is a long way from commercial production.

  • US and Supersonic (Score:4, Insightful)

    by 1967mustangman ( 883255 ) on Wednesday June 15, 2005 @07:15PM (#12828224)
    I don't think US carries have ever been that interested in supersonic aircraft. One of the biggest hurdles is the prohibition against going supersonic over land which would drasictally limit the number of possible routes. I would make sense for Japan to do such research in that much of thier flying time would be over water anyway. I will be interesting to see if this actually catches on though. Boeing was working with the Russians for a while and nothing panned out there. Nor did anything pan out on the mach .98 plane they were designing.
    • Does the inability to fly supersonically over land really limit you that much? After all, three quarters of the Earth's surface is covered with water.

      Apart from Canada and Mexico, pretty much every international flight from the US would involve flight over oceans - even for trips to South America, you could follow the coast down, a couple of hundred miles offshore.

  • Don't forget the other factors (Score:5, Funny)

    by FunWithHeadlines ( 644929 ) on Wednesday June 15, 2005 @07:17PM (#12828246) Homepage
    "fly from New York City to Tokyo in a mere six hours"

    Little bag of peanuts: Extra
    Want a pillow? Should have thought to bring one
    Brought a pillow? Sorry, you have to check that.
    Please remove all your clothes at the security check. Bend over.

    First-class passengers, none of the above apply to you. Please walk the red carpet to your private cabin and enjoy some champagne from your gold-edged crystal. Foot-rub, sir?

    Main cabin passengers, where do you think you're going, buster? Get in line! Wait yer turn! You think we want to carry scum like you? Food service? HA! Should have bought a sandwich before you got on board. We only serve food in coach on flights of 6 hours, 1 minute or longer, and this flight is 6 hours even. Sucker.

    • Re:Don't forget the other factors (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Balthisar ( 649688 ) on Wednesday June 15, 2005 @07:25PM (#12828310) Homepage
      I know the parent is cliche now, but dang it, I've had many opportunities to fly some of the Mexican airlinelines lately, and it reminds me of the way things used to be. Hot meals. Silverware. The *whole* can of soda. Free booze (yeah, even domestic flights). Pillows. Blankets. Little doily-things on the headrest so the previous passenger's grease wouldn't infect your head. In flight magazine (yeah, in English). Enough legroom for my 6'2" body. And all of this in tourist class. And you know, on my last flight, I bought the tickets a couple of days in advance, and it was the same price as when I'd checked them a month in advance.

      And just to show that I'm still a little sexist, latina stewardesses of the highest calibre.
      • I still love flying Thai airlines. ALl of the things you mentioned (including rather good food), plus hot stewardesses :)
      • "I know the parent is cliche now, but dang it, I've had many opportunities to fly some of the Mexican airlinelines lately, and it reminds me of the way things used to be. Hot meals. Silverware. The *whole* can of soda. Free booze (yeah, even domestic flights). Pillows. Blankets. Little doily-things on the headrest so the previous passenger's grease wouldn't infect your head. In flight magazine (yeah, in English). Enough legroom for my 6'2" body. And all of this in tourist class. And you know, on my last fli
        • Yeah, but the Mexican airline prices are competetive. I have my option of many of the US-based carriers, too. So the fact is, you PAY for those services on US carriers, too, you just don't GET them. And for the US carriers, I'm not talking the 80's and early 90's; I'm only going to pre-9/11. It was a big excuse to cut all of the service without cutting all of the fares.

          Hey, I'm cheap, too. I won't pay for first class when I can get good treatment in tourist class. Hell, even BEFORE 9/11 I wouldn't touch So

  • Correction (Score:5, Funny)

    by Locke2005 ( 849178 ) on Wednesday June 15, 2005 @07:18PM (#12828250)
    The plane will carry 300 Japanese passengers or 150 American passengers.
  • Thing is, most of us will never fly in one of those. The average Joe will still have to sit in a tiny seat for 10 hours just next to that fat guy who should be paying two tickets instead of one.

    I mean, I wonder if anyone here actually took the Concorde?

  • interesting (Score:3, Funny)

    by sithsasquatch ( 889285 ) on Wednesday June 15, 2005 @07:18PM (#12828256)
    "Japan has successfully tested an engine that can theoretically reach speeds of up to mach 5.5, or more than five times the speed of sound, the ministry said."

    How does one successfully test an engine theoretically? "Well, according to my calculations, it won't fail and send 300 passengers to a fiery death . . . oh shit, I forgot to carry the 1 . . . and that decimal is wrong . . . what's the coefficient of kinetic friction again?"
    • Probably a ground test. "This engine has thrust like a motherfucker, but we had it bolted to the ground." If it wasn't bolted to the ground, and was actually attached to an airplane, it would be able to go faster than 0 MPH.
    • Easy. You test the engine in a harness, find out how much thrust it develops, then use aerodynamic theory to figure out how fast a hypothetical plane could fly with it.

    • Re:interesting (Score:3, Informative)

      by zippthorne ( 748122 )
      Um.. you test engines in wind tunnels. Hypersonic wind tunnels are really hard to come by. There's one at Glenn Research Center [nasa.gov] near Cleveland, Ohio. They have a "moveable wall" to dial up different mach numbers for various projects made of inch and a half thick steel. It is one of the largest tunnels of its kind (very few are actually walk-in tunnels) but the usefull stream is probably very close to the size of the engine to be tested. I am unsure of what it's maximum mach number is, but it's definately

  • They've got to be kidding.

  • The big question.... (Score:3, Funny)

    by AtariAmarok ( 451306 ) on Wednesday June 15, 2005 @07:20PM (#12828272)
    The big question is, can it outfly Rodan? The Concorde of the past got around this by being designed to look just like Rodan, and thus discourage predatory attacks.

  • $1.8 Million invested? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by w42w42 ( 538630 ) on Wednesday June 15, 2005 @07:21PM (#12828285)

    The $1.8 Million investment should indicate that this is just a study, and that it's probably a lot of hype for whatever reason at the most famous air show in the world.

    Seeing Japan and France in the news together also makes me wonder if this is meant to assuage some of the bust up over the iter reactor [forbes.com].

    At any rate, I'm a bit surprised that the article emphasizes that this is France and Japan, and not Airbus and Japan - as this implies that France is doing this outside of Airbus. Interesting none the less, and I'm sure time will tell.

  • With these new supersonic aircrafts, takeout delivery of real Japanese sushi to anywhere in the world becomes a reality. No longer will you have to eat the local slush!
  • I've made the trip to and from Japan twice and each time it was more than 11 hours of flight time. My last trip was 13 hours to get there and 11 to get back. This is a very difficult trip even with having exit-row seating on a B777. I don't plan on making such a trip again any time soon for that and other reasons... but if it were 3x the speed of sound, I'd probably want to hop another flight. To get there in 6 or less would be so much nicer.

  • Supersonic workaround (Score:3, Interesting)

    by kc01 ( 772943 ) on Wednesday June 15, 2005 @07:37PM (#12828403)
    Okay, it's been said above that the U.S. doesn't allow supersonic travel between its borders. True, for commercial aircraft.

    Still:

    1. There's no reason why it couldn't be used for supersonic travel between New York and Europe.
    2. There's no reason why it couldn't be used for supersonic travel between California and Asia.
    3. For flights that go over the U.S., like New York to Tokyo, there's nothing that says the pilots can't throttle back to subsonic speeds while over land, is there?

    If it's fast and fuel/cost/environmentally efficient, I say bring it on. It'll probably be a lot easier to implement than suborbital flight.

    • Re:Supersonic workaround (Score:4, Informative)

      by VoidWraith ( 797276 ) <void_wraith AT hotmail DOT com> on Wednesday June 15, 2005 @07:57PM (#12828569)
      Except that 3 is irrelevant, for the fact that the flight path looks like this: http://gc.kls2.com/cgi-bin/gcmap?PATH=jfk-tyo [kls2.com] (thanks to an earlier poster).

    • The thing is (Score:4, Informative)

      by Sycraft-fu ( 314770 ) on Wednesday June 15, 2005 @08:19PM (#12828722)
      Supersonic jets in the past used real jets, not turbofans, afterburners if you like. Basically just burning raw jet fuel and using the hot gas to accelerate the plane. Fast, but VERY inefficient. Normal jets get theri efficiency from their turbofan engines.

      Now these days It is possible in theory. The FA-22 has engines that can go supersonic on turbofan, but I don't know that they'd pull Mach 2 (I dunno how fast they can go on TF before they need to go burner). Also just because they can make a small fighter do it does not mean they can make a large passenger jet.

      If the jet is a real jet engine it'll be fairly noisy and not very efficient as compared to the new Boeing and Airbus offerings.

      So it really depends on what kind of implementation they can get. If they make a jet that's all turbofan, and can do efficient subsonic flight then ya, might be a winner. If it's just a new Concorde I'mm betting costs will be prohibitive, and noise a major problem.

      • Re:The thing is (Score:4, Informative)

        by be-fan ( 61476 ) on Wednesday June 15, 2005 @09:04PM (#12829000)
        There is a reason turbofans aren't used on mach 2+ aircraft. The basic problem is that in order to operate a turbofan at supersonic speeds, you have to use an engine inlet that uses a shock wave (or a series of shock waves) to slow down the flow to subsonic speeds before it hits the fan blade. Fans, like all propellors, drastically lose efficiency as the incoming flow approaches supersonic speeds. This design causes the loss of some energy, so at a certain point, a turbojet actually becomes more efficient than a turbofan.

  • internet has obsoleted the necessity for contact (Score:4, Insightful)

    by t35t0r ( 751958 ) on Wednesday June 15, 2005 @07:43PM (#12828459)
    The internet/voip and other communication mediums have obsoleted the necessity for face to face contact and the costs associated with business travel. This is why (at least in the US) airlines are going bankrupt every single year. Only southwest manages to survive, but that's because they are like the walmart of the skies.
    • I disagree. The Internet and VoIP have increased the need to see people face to face. The reason's simple: these technologies accelerate the pace of business and other things that require flying. And while you can conduct business (and entertainment, and even leisure, to a certain extent) remotely, it's much to your advantage to see people face-to-face. That's why, incidentally, central business districts have little to fear from cheaper office rents in suburbia and farmland.

      Remember how computing and the
    • The internet/voip and other communication mediums have obsoleted the necessity for face to face contact and the costs associated with business travel. This is why (at least in the US) airlines are going bankrupt every single year. Only southwest manages to survive, but that's because they are like the walmart of the skies.

      That's just plain wrong. Last year, 2004, saw the greatest number of passenger miles flown in history. The terrorist attacks of 2001 hurt the entire industry, but that only sped up the

  • really? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by KH ( 28388 ) on Wednesday June 15, 2005 @07:58PM (#12828570)
    I've read the news at BBC [bbc.co.uk]. It states

    Companies from the countries will split an annual investment of $1.84m (£1.01m) for research over the next three years, Japan's trade ministry said.

    That sounds like an awful little money for such a project. I'm really not sure if they actually are planning to build working planes.

    On the other hand, this makes some sense. The French not only participated in Concorde, but have been making supersonic fighter jets for a long time. It appears France is only country who can still build supersonic jets with 100% ingenious technology. And it's a major member of the European consortium (Airbus).

    There have long been a frustration in the Japanese aerospace industry that the Americans banned them from pursuing cutting edge aerospace technology after the WWII. It is a commonly held view that the US didn't want Japan to acquire know-how in that area so that she can independently develop and compete in the military aircraft field. (Mitsubishi, Kawasaki, and Subaru used to make airplanes. Look where they went.) So, the US kept supplying technology to Japan while not allowing ingenious know-how to accumulate.

    A famous incidence was when the Japanese were planning a new fighter/attack plane. Those in the uniform wanted to go ingenious design (they always want to go domestic even when the equipment is prohibitively expensive), but because of the pressure from the States, it became a joint project between Japan and the US based on F-16 design. The result Mitsubishi F-2 [wikipedia.org] is mediocre at best.

    I would imagine there is a genuine fear that aerospace industry gets monopolised by Americans in the near future among other countries. So, a supersonic passenger plane appears to be a good excusable exercise to develop and accumulate the technology, especially when Americans are not seriously doing it.
  • Why not for air if it works for sea ?

    http://www.stratmag.com/issueJan-15/page03.htm

    http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/missile/row/shk val.htm [fas.org]

    http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Supercavi tation [nationmaster.com]

  • $1.8 million a year for 3 years. Yeah, I'm sure this will be a mediocre new flight sim for Microsoft.

  • Laws of Physics (Score:3, Informative)

    by EddyKilowatt ( 892501 ) on Wednesday June 15, 2005 @08:41PM (#12828874)
    SST's get re-studied every decade or so. Boeing and Douglas (remember them) last took their turn in the 80's, courtesy NASA funds. Gulfstream and one of the Russian design houses got far down the road toward a supersonic bizjet in the 90s. Now it is Japan's turn. They all run into the same laws of physics, and the same laws of economics. Until there's a breakthrough in engines, structures, fuels, or aerodynamics (or perhaps all four), don't look for an SST anytime in the next decade or two. An SST could be built today, even without breakthroughs, but it wouldn't make anybody any money. The laws of physics guarantee that the planes are exotic (skin temperature hot enough to boil water), thirsty (inefficient supersonic wing lift), and noisy (sonic boom = flight routes over land very restricted). These factors all add up to expensive tickets, and the market studies (including the one called Concorde) all show that the market isn't there. And that's not even beginning to take environmental concerns into account, such as high-altitude ozone depletion and of course greenhouse gas emissions.

    • NOT a law of Physics! (Score:5, Interesting)

      by XNormal ( 8617 ) on Thursday June 16, 2005 @02:23AM (#12830297) Homepage
      It's NOT a law of physics that an object moving through a fluid faster than the speed of sound must generate a shock wave. The Navier-Stokes do have solutions at supersonic speed that do not involve a discontinuity in pressure (shock wave).

      A supersonic bullet not generating a sonic boom was designed in the 60s so if a sniper misses the target on the first attempt the target will not get a warning (the noise of a bullet is supersonic boom. Muzzle noise is far away and supposedly masked by a silencer). The bullet has a cylindrical shape with completely straight outer edge and internally it has a carefully designed inlet coupled to a carefully designed expansion nozzle.

      It doesn't generate any aerodynamic lift. Generating lift would require breaking the symmetry and that, of course, would break the careful arrangement that eliminates the shockwave. An airplane must generate lift and there it would seem that this effect cannot be used. However, an airplane also has an engine. If the engine's energy is added to the equasions there can be solutions that generate lift and still have no pressure discontinuities. These mathematical solutions are proven to exist, but haven't been found, yet. If they are found, there is no guarantee that thay can be made into a practical airplane - but there's NO law of physics saying it's impossible!

      Note that the shockwave CAN be reduced by orders of magnitude by careful design down to the point where it's probably not a problem. Here I am talking about totally eliminating it in the mathematical sense.

  • Big Jumps (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Doc Ruby ( 173196 ) on Wednesday June 15, 2005 @08:42PM (#12828882) Homepage Journal
    These long jumps are the place for supersonic travel. With the hours of overhead of travel, reducing NYC/Paris from 6h to 2h makes very little of difference: you're still taking a whole day each way. At 600MPH, though, that overhead plus 15h travel winds up taking two days each way. For a trip that's usually a week, which means 4d travel / 7d total = 57%, down to 29%. Which means less time traveling than visiting, rather than the disproportionate reverse. With those proportions, a weekend trip anywhere in the world starts to be worth taking.

  • Memories of the Concorde (Score:5, Informative)

    by Beatlebum ( 213957 ) on Wednesday June 15, 2005 @10:23PM (#12829390)
    I hope the project is successful, however, if it doesn't get buy-in from the beginning it could suffer the same fate as Concorde. Although Concorde was a technical marvel, the U.S. did everything it could to scuttle the project, for example, its flight certificate was delayed by the FAA until it was sure the project was busted. The premise of Concorde was fast trans-atlantic flight, but its first scheduled route was Heathrow to Bahrain because countries followed the U.S. and refused flight certificates. By the time the U.S. did grant a heavily restricted certification the lack of orders had made continued manufacture untenable. It's quite ironic that the U.S. refused certification on environmental grounds.

    I'm sure there will be the usual Concorde counter-arguments posted here, some of them are true. It's true that it was a fuel hog and it's true that it was noisy. But if 500 were built instead of just 16 supersonic flight would have become much cheaper. With only 16 all parts were custom built and very expensive. Heck the Concorde has more in common with the SR-71 than a 737. It boggles the mind to think that it cruised faster than an F-18's top speed.

    My father worked on the project from the beginning, for those interested here's a link to a couple of photos he took when Concorde 002 made its maiden flight-

    http://latte.com/gallery/Concorde-002-First-Flight [latte.com]

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