Supersonic Jet Could Fly NYC To London In 3 Hours 238
An anonymous reader writes: A new supersonic luxury plane that could fly people from New York to London in just three hours is being developed by a team of engineers. Spike Aerospace's S-512 Supersonic Jet was introduced in 2013, but the company recently announced a few updates to the plane's design. Discovery reports: "Spike Aerospace's engineers claim the S-512 could reach a maximum speed of Mach 1.8 (1,370 mph, or 2,205 km/h), which is 1.8 times the speed of sound. For comparison, the fastest Boeing 747 commercial "jumbo jet" can reach a maximum speed of Mach 0.92 (700 mph, or 1,126 km/h). If the S-512 really is built to reach these supersonic speeds, it would be as fast as an F-18 Hornet, a military fighter jet with a max speed of Mach 1.8. This would also make the supersonic jet about 450 mph (724 km/h) faster than the fastest civilian jet, according to Spike Aerospace."
Concorde 2.0 (Score:5, Insightful)
A new Concorde for the modern age... destined to meet the same ultimate demise for the same reasons. Too expensive, too noisy.
Re:Concorde 2.0 (Score:5, Interesting)
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Fuel Cost not Jealousy (Score:3)
one of they key reasons Concorde failed is American jealousy
Simply not true (and I say that as a Brit). Concorde was planned before the OPEC cartel massively raised the cost of oil. The huge increase in the cost of fuel made it uneconomic because it was very inefficient. In addition there was the issue of noise pollution due to the sonic boom. Modern technology has made supersonic flight far more fuel efficient. While I am not in a position to know whether it is efficient enough to be economically viable I would not just dismiss it out of hand.
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Yeah but it is American, so there's hope for it given that one of they key reasons Concorde failed is American jealousy at the successful design and development of it meant they made life commercially impossible for it to exist.
The only important reason it failed is because it was incredibly impractical and expensive to operate. Yes it was a marvel and all that, but you couldn't make money off it.
After a Shaky Start, Concorde WAS Profitable (Score:3)
The only important reason it failed is because it was incredibly impractical and expensive to operate. Yes it was a marvel and all that, but you couldn't make money off it.
My understanding is that Concorde's unprofitability was mostly myth [bloomberg.com]. There were problems in the beginning because fear-mongering in the States [dailybreeze.com] left only JFK as a destination, but once things settled and the ticket prices were reset [vanityfair.com] to ultra-high class [cjonline.com], things settled out just fine [google.com].
Had the Concorde really not been profitable, it would have been terminated long before the crash over Paris. That's just how business works. The problem was simply that the planes were aging, no replacement models were being made
Re:Concorde 2.0 (Score:5, Interesting)
That is actually partially true; America hadn't yet built a supersonic passenger jet and outlawed overland supersonic flights over populated areas citing sonic booms (at FL600 sonic boom really isn't much of a problem) to protect the American airline system; having foreign airlines' supersonic airliners take business from American airline companies was unacceptable. It was an anti-competitive move. Had we not done that and in response instead developed supersonic airliners, the problem of sonic booms would have been eliminated a couple decades earlier - it wasn't until recently airfoils with wave cancelling properties (essentially creating two opposite-phased sonic booms) have been developed, so there won't be any need to outlaw low-altitiude sonic booms, let alone ones generated below 60,000'.
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If you're landing fast enough to create a sonic boom, then the sonic part of the boom is the least of your worries.
Re:Concorde 2.0 (Score:5, Informative)
Only slower, Concorde was Mach 2.04.
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It is a lot smaller than concorde was. More like a large business jet.
Re: Concorde 2.0 (Score:5, Insightful)
So it may not be too expensive after all...
It sounds like a scaled back version of the same idea that will likely do better because it doesn't depend on the same level of higher demand that Concorde needed to keep it afloat.
They should probably go one further and have a personal model.
The small numbers of ultrawealthy and companies that value this sort of thing could completely bypass the big airliner industry and the larger airports.
Re: Concorde 2.0 (Score:4, Interesting)
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TFA only talks about a maximum speed of mach 1.8, whereas the...
Concorde had a maximum cruise altitude of 18,300 metres (60,039 ft) and an average cruise speed of Mach 2.02, about 1155 knots (2140 km/h or 1334 mph)
(from wikipedia, emphasis added--pretty good show, that with a maximum speed of mach 2.04)
Now, if these guys could make their aeroplane fly quieter and cheaper, then the drop in speed might be overlooked: It's still a substantial win over subsonic cruise. Doing something about the sonic boom would be useful since that's what gets the thing banned from going supersonic over land. Then there is that the Concorde was technologically advanced for
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I'd rather 90 minutes New York to Paris.
Undersea by rail.
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I imagine it will be targeted at high-priced trans-oceanic flights. It doesn't have to reach mach 1 until out over the ocean. I make those trips (at regular speeds of course) all the time, and my recovery time is getting longer and longer as I get older. This will be no doubt out of my price range, but for those who can afford it it's a big gain in productivity.
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If you mean recovery time based on how long you are cooped up for, then yes it should help (although this will be a far more claustrophobic plane to fly in).
If you mean recovery time based on Jet Lag, surely it would be worse in this plane?
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I wonder how related travel fatigue from a very long flight is to the "lag" caused by timezone changes.
It'd be interesting to talk to people to take the NYC - Buenos Aires 11 hour nonstop and see how lagged they feel even though the time change is only an hour.
You would think it would be much less, but I can see where taking an overnight flight and getting poor/little sleep could leave you just as lagged on the morning of your arrival as if you'd changed timezones radically. Same with a morning flight wher
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I wonder how related travel fatigue from a very long flight is to the "lag" caused by timezone changes.
It'd be interesting to talk to people to take the NYC - Buenos Aires 11 hour nonstop and see how lagged they feel even though the time change is only an hour.
You would think it would be much less, but I can see where taking an overnight flight and getting poor/little sleep could leave you just as lagged on the morning of your arrival as if you'd changed timezones radically.
I used to fly US coast to coast a few times a year, and I believe that "jet-lag", the being tired from time zone change, is mostly hogwash.
I was tired because I just a had a multi-hour experience in a low-pressure (~8,000 ft equiv) with constant vibration and low-frequency noise.
And yet, at home, I could stay up working non-stop for 24-36 hours and go onto a totally different shift without experiencing the feeling that was called jet-lag.
I've asked some acquaintances that flew to and from Brazil now and aga
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This will be no doubt out of my price range, but for those who can afford it it's a big gain in productivity.
Is it as big a gain in productivity as booking a nice seat in first class and paying for WiFi on the plane, so that you've got a comfortable environment to work in and can keep in touch and have a decent sleep before you land? Because that's what it's going to be competing with.
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Re:Concorde 2.0 (Score:5, Interesting)
Concorde would have been a lot more successful if some US states hadn't banned it. Sour grapes because US companies couldn't develop their own supersonic passenger jets first, and weren't even really in the game by the time Concorde started flying.
For a first generation aircraft it was an excellent machine, proving many new technologies. If it had been developed fuel consumption would have been greatly reduced. The noise issue was mostly a red herring, as it could simply avoid going supersonic until it was well away from the mainland or populated areas. Newer models would have been quieter too.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Concorde 2.0 (Score:5, Interesting)
According to this article [bbc.com] it made money every time it flew, about 30 millions British Pounds a year, but it never recouped the development costs.
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Indeed, after the bans in the US most of the orders were cancelled. They were expecting to sell a few hundred until then. Even after the bans were lifted and the fears proven unfounded, sales didn't recover.
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According to this article [bbc.com] it made money every time it flew, about 30 millions British Pounds a year, but it never recouped the development costs.
That's not what it means to make money.
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It made an operating profit, lifetime net profit of 500M on a cost of 128M obviously more than making up for any interest charges. If more units had been operated the program cost of 1300M could have been easily recouped assuming there were a half dozen more economical routes (likely).
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It wasn't that; it was quite profitable.. but it depends on how you look at it. When people say it was expensive and unsuccessful, it's because the R&D for it never got amortized over a large production line, so the limited production drove the per-unit and maintenance costs way up.
Had the USA not enacted insanely tight overland supersonic flights laws (no sonic booms over populated areas, no sonic booms below 60,000', etc) then the SST would have been a longer production run and British and French airl
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F-18 (Score:3)
A discerning buyer could probably pick up a real F-18 Hornet for far less since they are in the process of being phased out. I expect they'd have much more fun too!
Hell, a brand new one costs the same as this plane.
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Apparently it is possible to go super sonic without creating a boom. Boeing is working on it for example.
I do agree, unless they get that sorted out then they're not going to go super sonic. But if they do... it will probably become a thing. Los Angeles to London is a hell of a flight. going super sonic would be worth the money for a lot of people.
Concorde technology goes back 50 years (Score:2)
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Regards,
The Chosen 1%
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Actually, the Concorde was quite noisy on the inside, and not particularly comfortable. Better than coach, but nowhere near as nice as int'l business class is today.
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if it can outstrip military planes assigned to "escort it to a landing", then it will be seen as an even greater hijack threat in the US...
Some, but not all. The F-15 has a max speed somewhere around mach 2.5. But most of the fighters that would do common air intercept over US soil are F-16s as far as I know.
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The L-1012-Nukem-Forever?
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The old L-1011 [wikipedia.org] already went to 11!
Re:Concorde 2.0 (Score:4, Informative)
That's nothing, Spaceball One can go to ludicrous speed.
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But the cost is mostlyb related to the massive fuel consumption, and since going over Mach 1 increases pressure a LOT this plane will nstill suffer from that. There is a reason that all commercial jets have a cruising speed around Mach 0.9: that't the most economic speed to fly. Go much faster and your fuel consumption over distance ratio increases significantly.
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The same rules of physics apply to many aspects of transportation. It would be nice if we could all travel 150 km/h down the highway, but even if the roads were safe, it would still be very inefficient to do so. I'm a (recreational) cyclist, and it really helps me appreciate how much air resistance really matters. Going 25-30 km/h the air resistance doesn't have a huge effect, but at 35 km/h you really start to feel it.
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The speed limit here is 75mph about 120kmh and it's not uncommon for people to drive 90mph about 145kmh whether it is efficient or not is entirely dependent on the car's design and gearing. Over the years fuel efficiency has taken a big hit due to emissions laws. Cars with the throttle body carburetor of the late 70s and early 80s get better gas mileage than todays hybrids although they couldn't pass an emissions test.
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I believe you are mistaken. Drag is the square of velocity, which means at high speeds, drag quickly adds up.
What you're likely thinking of are internal combustion engines (ICE) optimized for a specific RPM at a specific speed (since ICE's efficiencies vary by RPMs) . But regardless of this, drag starts to play a far la
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There is nothing hypothetical about a vehicles gearing ratio being optimized for the current highway speed to run at lower rpms to promote efficiency and less wear on engine parts and some of the sports packages are optimized for 10-15mph above those speeds.
Yes drag is a problem but it doesn't change the fact that a vehicle well designed with aerodynamics and gearing in mind can be more efficient at 10-15mph above the speed limit than say a boxy oversized 4wd crossover at the speed limit or even a modern hy
Re: Concorde 2.0 (Score:2)
The real world isn't a Michael Bay movie. Besides, Stinger missiles are hypersonic.
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Yeah, it may have had it's first test flight a scant two months before Concorde, but didn't enter service until two years after Concorde, according to the article you linked.
Guess they had some kinks to work out after the crash in Paris?
Yes, yes it could. Did, in fact (Score:5, Informative)
Supersonic Jet Could Fly NYC To London In 3 Hours
Not only could, but did [wikipedia.org].
2 hours, 52 minutes, 59 seconds, to be precise.
Re:Yes, yes it could. Did, in fact (Score:5, Interesting)
Supersonic Jet Could Fly NYC To London In 3 Hours
Not only could, but did [wikipedia.org].
2 hours, 52 minutes, 59 seconds, to be precise.
Alternatively, the SR-71 Blackbird [wikipedia.org] did it in 1 hour 54 minutes and 56.4 seconds in 1971 - apparently still the fastest record:
The SR-71 also holds the "Speed Over a Recognized Course" record for flying from New York to London—distance 3,461.53 miles (5,570.79 km), 1,806.964 miles per hour (2,908.027 km/h), and an elapsed time of 1 hour 54 minutes and 56.4 seconds—set on 1 September 1974 while flown by U.S. Air Force Pilot Maj. James V. Sullivan and Maj. Noel F. Widdifield, reconnaissance systems officer (RSO). This equates to an average velocity of about Mach 2.72, including deceleration for in-flight refueling. Peak speeds during this flight were likely closer to the declassified top speed of Mach 3.2+. For comparison, the best commercial Concorde flight time was 2 hours 52 minutes and the Boeing 747 averages 6 hours 15 minutes.
That plane was fucking awesome.
Re:Yes, yes it could. Did, in fact (Score:4, Informative)
And that's just the numbers they let you know. :-)
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Read about the slowest the SR-71 has ever flown.... scary if true!!
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If you read the story it WAS stalling - it was fly^H^H^Hfalling at 152 knots. The SR-71 can't even fly as slow as the first tankers used to refuel it in air; it had to wait for the tanker to climb to its ceiling and hook up in a dive to refuel.
Yes, it could (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Yes, it could (Score:5, Interesting)
We won't know unless is actually comes to market, but let's no talk as if they're unaware of the economic aspects. FTA:
"Every aircraft has to be designed to meet specific mission requirements including range, number of passengers, speed, payload, high performance (fighter jets), fuel efficiency and cost. Unfortunately, there are always trade-offs. If you have high performance, you typically don’t have fuel efficiency. If you have carry a high number of passengers you lose out on speed or range. These trade-offs have to be juggled to design an aircraft that can be engineered, manufactured and sold at a price customers will pay for. The engineers spend a lot of time coming up with solutions and then seeing how that impacts the other flight characteristics. The sales team then explores the trade-offs with customers to gauge market requirements and potential.
That is exactly the process that the Spike S-512 Supersonic Jet has gone through. As we continue our engineering efforts, there will likely be additional changes to the aircraft that optimize flight and performance characteristics. The latest design meets at the intersection of engineering, business requirements and market demand for an incredible supersonic business jet."
They clearly think there is a viable market for a supersonic business jet, but only time will tell if their numbers add up.
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Suppose they make this thing a little less luxurious, cram in 30-40 small-ish business class style seats, and operate this thing at around the same per-seat price as business/first class on a regular aircraft. They would still sell tickets at 3-4x the price, because there will always be a few people who are willing to pay a lot extra for the prestige and reduced flight time. Concorde proved that. So even if it's economically viable,
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The redistribution of wealth in the US and Europe from the middle class to the super rich has perhaps made this sort of jet viable again, but with a passenger capacity of something like 20.
I remember reading about supersonic air travel as a kid 25 years ago when it was thought that the middle class would one day afford to (occasionally) fly supersonic and the planes would have to have 250 seats.
Re:Yes, it could (Score:4, Informative)
Am I the only one that grasps that the S-512 is a bizjet, not a passenger airliner? The economics of the former are considerably different from that of the latter.
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Redundant redundancy (Score:5, Funny)
This is literally the article with the most redundancy I've ever read. nearly every facts is repeated twice or thrice in various ways. :).
I also love the explanation of Mach, this is much needed on sites like this
Also, the amount of redundancy in this article is ridiculous!
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I found the article very redundant. It was redundant too.
Re:Redundant redundancy (Score:4, Funny)
Here at Slashdot Central we call it 'pre duping'. A dupe encased in the original article. Saves time with the hassle of the Firehose and all.
Progress!
Concorde (Score:5, Informative)
No mention of Concorde in the summary, which could do this at over Mach 2?
How have the economics changed that this will be viable where Concorde wasn't? IIRC, British Airways only managed to fly it profitably because they got the aircraft for £1 each. Concorde's engines were thermodynamically very efficient when in supercruise, and the aircraft burned as much fuel as a B747 while hauling only about 1/4 to 1/3rd of the passengers. I don't think there's much that can be done to get the fuel burn down per passenger seat, and due to the nature of supersonic flight it's always going to be more of a maintenance nightmare than a subsonic airliner.
Re:Concorde (Score:4, Interesting)
No, BA didn't get their Concorde for £1 each, they paid full price for the aircraft they ordered and nearly full price for the aircraft that were dropped by other airlines before they took delivery. And even if they did pay just £1 for each airframe, the purchase cost pales in comparison to the operating cost - getting the aircraft for a pittance would have little impact on profitability against the costs of actually running the aircraft.
British Airways operated Concorde profitably by charging enough money for the tickets - it was indeed one of the airlines main profit centres before it was grounded by the crash and subsequent retirement a few years later. When BA was privatised, one of the first things they did was drastically raise Concorde ticket prices and none of their regular passengers batted an eyelid.
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One difference is that the intercontinental travel market has grown immensely since the days of the Concorde. US-Asia and Europe-Asia are gigantic flight markets that barely existed when the Concorde flew.
Also, the Concorde was designed in the 50s and 60s. There's been a lot of innovation in aeronautical engineering since then. A new supersonic plane would take advantage of that to be more efficient and quieter than the Concorde.
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How many of those passengers are willing to pay 2-4 times the price of a first-class ticket on a slower plane to save a few hours? If you're flying first class, then flying is actually quite a pleasant experience, so if I could afford to fly first class then I'd want a compelling reason to spend less time in the air.
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First class or not, the flight takes ~8-10 hours which is exhausting for anyone. If you can do it in 3, you're saving about a day's work or ~$1600 in wages for your average lawyer, probably closer to $5-6000 because usually you're not sending the $200/h over the atlantic for a job, you'll send the $500-1000/h guy.
There is a market for this, it is smaller than the regular flights but the flight would also have to be able to leg it cross-USA and cross-Europe, even reach Asia at similar speeds in order to be u
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The Concorde was terribly expensive to operate. I think a comfortable, luxurious type of upscale passenger aircraft for high speed transport can be profitable. I know if I was rich I'd much prefer a fast ride to my chalet in Paris from my New York mansion. Sitting on a slow pig with the unwashed masses behind me in coach is so odious.
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Ah well....you can tell I don't own one.
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I have a New Scientist that is over 20 years old that talked about a Concorde replacement. The reckoned even back then you could go twice as far with twice as many passengers for the same cost. That's a quarter of the ticket price of Concorde.
What I never got about Concorde is why they didn't do trans Pacific flights with a fuel stop at say Honolulu where you land fill with fuel and take off again without disembarking the passengers. Still much quicker than a 747 and opening up potentially lucrative Los Ang
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How have the economics changed that this will be viable where Concorde wasn't?
Concorde made operational profit, but they never recouped development costs. If we can get some dimwitted investors involved to put money up front, and then let the development company go bankrupt and lose all their money, then somebody else (probably the original founders) buy up the hardware for pennies on the dollar, then this thing could actually get to market.
This does appear to be how cell phone infrastructure got spread across the U.S., and a lot of small plane manufacturers have done the cycle sev
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I don't know how the development costs were distributed. But that's an issue, usually, for the manufacturer, not the operator.
Development costs were heavily subsidized by a joint venture of French and U.K governments. But the failure to recoup development costs was caused by not selling enough units, due to a lot of buyers backing out when the U.S. would not allow the plane to fly at supersonic speed over U.S. land. The U.S was not the only one to put restrictions on the Concorde, but it was probably the biggest factor in airlines not purchasing more Concordes. The Concordes that were sold were sold to British Airways and Air Fra
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Economics have changed: the world population has risen a lot since the advent of Concorde and has become a lot richer as well.
More importantly though: technology has changed. Engines have improved - higher efficiency. Aerodynamics has improved - less drag. Materials have improved - less weight.
I wouldn't be surprised if you can build an aircraft now that can operate at similar speeds as Concorde, but at half or less of the cost. So if you can still sell the tickets at the price of Concorde, it may very well
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It is a problem and I think you will find adding electric motors to the landing gear is the solution. It is likely to make it's way to ordinary planes as well for exactly the same reason.
No mention of Concorde (Score:5, Insightful)
I love how there is no mention of the Concorde, which did it faster and carried more passengers on 1970's technology.
It's like building a new space shuttle that is smaller than the shuttle was, and then comparing it to the Gemini capsules in the marketing. What, do they think the world has become globally amnesiac in the last ten years?
Re:No mention of Concorde - coming up next (Score:3)
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It's like building a new space shuttle
You are apt to compare the Concorde and STS, but probably not for the reasons you intended.
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What, do they think the world has become globally amnesiac in the last ten years?
No, but the editors around here have.
[ta-dam, tzing!]
Thankyou, thankyou. I'll be here all week. Don't forget to tip your servers!
(Now who's going to mod this funny, and who's going to mod it insightful?)
Congratulations! (Score:5, Insightful)
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The longest part of a trans-Atlantic flight is now going through security and queuing up for the runway.
Did genuinely lol at this - great point! They should've just developed a faster travelator. :D
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And as for maximum speed? its egregiously avoided at all costs because it burns much more fuel than a slow lope across the globe. It taxes engines and in turn drives up maintenance costs.
"Egregiously avoided?" More like "avoided to avoid damage to the aircraft" You don't fly at max speed.
Velocity Never Exceed (Vne) is the maximum speed of an aircraft - and no one stays there for long at all. If you stay there too long or go beyond that, very bad things likely will happen.
All aircraft have a cruise setting, which is some ways away from Vne.
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if (Score:2)
I think the come and go of Concorde represents the peak of hydrocarbon based jet flight technology. Supersonic passenger services are unlikely to return in a form that is economically viable.
I wish I'd had a chance to travel on one.
Correction (Score:2)
"...flying supersonic is clearly the future^H^H^H^H^H^H past of aviation"
There. Fixed that for you.
Seriously: having a plan on (metaphorical) paper for something that has already been accomplished (and abandoned) constitutes news?
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"...flying supersonic is clearly the future^H^H^H^H^H^H past of aviation"
There. Fixed that for you.
Seriously: having a plan on (metaphorical) paper for something that has already been accomplished (and abandoned) constitutes news?
We built a rocket once - no more rocket stories, right?
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Well, in the same vein, I'm a bit weary of NASA's breathless hype of their "progress" in getting (back) to Low Earth Orbit. It's progress when it's done for the first time; when you're doing it all over again, it's a sad sign of regression.
FWIW, I am a strong advocate for a vigorous space program and aviation progress. I would just like to see a little perspective that what is currently being touted as progress is often an echo of past accomplishments.
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Well, in the same vein, I'm a bit weary of NASA's breathless hype of their "progress" in getting (back) to Low Earth Orbit. It's progress when it's done for the first time; when you're doing it all over again, it's a sad sign of regression..
Just remember that not everyone heard the news when you first heard it. You're looking at your threshold for boredom - I have a low one too. But for someone somewhere, this is something they haven't heard before.
For context (Score:2)
The average scheduled flight time for jets crossing from London to New York is 7 hours. Seven hours includes scheduled taxi time, which can be fairly long at both JFK and EWR. So add 30 mins in for taxi time for the new jet and we're looking at somewhere in the neighborhood of 3 hours 30 mins. So you pick up roughly 3 1/2 hours on the crossing. That could be valuable, but the it comes at what cost? If its roughly the cost of a business class ticket $6000 - $8000 then that becomes a possibility. However, as
Perspective (Score:3)
Did Henry Ford start by building a GT 350?
This whole venture sounds like something on the front page of Popular Mechanics. I'll be a monkey's uncle if they build the thing.
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Henry Ford may not have, but Tesla started by building a supercar
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It depends what the people in the company have done before.
When Henry Ford started building cars, he started off at what was then pretty much the state of the art. His main achievement is the mass production part. Car production was expensive, so cars were not for the masses, and Ford changed that. He figured out how to build a regular car (state of the art for his day) and turn it into something that's economically viable and cheap enough for the masses.
This company may well be populated with smart brains
Just un-retire Concorde (Score:3)
I used to live in Rosedale Queens, which was the landing approach path for JFK airport. Concorde came in at regular hours I believe it landed at 8am and then a second one at 8:15 precisely (they were never in holding pattens due to fuel issues --i.e., the tanks were touching empty when they landed).
Loved looking at those things when they came in. And you got plenty of warning too, those engines sounded very different, and about 10 minutes prior you got a low rumble telling you they were coming.
So; have Millenials completely forgotten Concorde? Who wrote this crappy summary, that claims no civilian aircraft has gone Mach 1.8? (Concorde hit Mach 2 pretty regularly); And then explains that Mach 1.8 is 1.8 times the speed of sound? Really? I never knew this!!!
Next we'll be hearing about a revolutionary transportation system using rails and is powered by steam. And steam is made by boiling water! Imagine that!
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-- and having just looked at the article and the image; this is a private aircraft, i.e., it's a toy for Billionaires. Larry Ellison will own one as will Paul Allen, and maybe a few folks from Dubai and Saudi Arabia. And that's it.
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Boeing also don't make small business jets, so clearly there's not a market for them either. Better tell Gulfstream, Bombardier & Cessna to give up.
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Computers got better, therefore everything gets better at the same rate.
If you are being sarcastic, then I agree with you. We certainly haven't seen huge leaps in fuel efficiency of aircraft in the last 50 years. The 747, introduced way back then, is still produced. Other airframes have come and gone in the interim. We had rockets that went to the moon, but no longer have the technology. We had reusable shuttles 40 years ago, but no longer have them. We had Concorde, and only now someone is trying to recreate a smaller version of it, and who knows if it will even get to market
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We certainly haven't seen huge leaps in fuel efficiency of aircraft in the last 50 years.
That is not true. Modern airlines are 20-30% more fuel efficient than the original 707. While not an orders-of-magnitude change, it's significant. Physics is a bitch.
The 747, introduced way back then, is still produced.
Because there is a business case for the plane. It has little to do with technologic improvements. Other planes have come and gone mostly because of economic issues.
We had rockets that went to the moon, but no longer have the technology.
We have the technology, just not the political will to spend the money on this particular endevour.
We had reusable shuttles 40 years ago, but no longer have them.
A combination of money and the fact that the Shuttle was a hare brained desig
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Development of Concorde basically stopped...
There was a second generation Concorde under development (http://www.concordesst.com/concordeb.html) which would have improved fuel economy, increased range and decreased noise.
Had development continued then there would have been many other improvements by now too, especially if there had been competing supersonic airliners to spur development.
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Not sure how this summary was approved with no mention of the Concorde. Honest mistake or intentional obfuscation?
Because compared to the Concorde, this little upstart isn't even a flash in the pan. Who would bother to read the article and click on links if they knew in advance that there was nothing to this story?