Richard Branson Reveals Prototype For Supersonic Passenger Aircraft (theguardian.com) 202
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Sir Richard Branson on Tuesday heralded the rebirth of supersonic passenger flights with the unveiling of a prototype aircraft promising 3.5-hour flights from London to New York for an "affordable" $5,000 return. The billionaire Virgin Group founder said his Spaceship company would help Denver-based startup Boom build a new generation of supersonic jets and reintroduce transatlantic flight times unseen since Concorde was scrapped. Branson is partnering with Blake Scholl, a pilot and former Amazon executive, who will later on Tuesday unveil a prototype of the new jet in a hangar in Denver, Colorado. While several other companies, including Boeing and Lockheed Martin, are developing new supersonic jets, Scholl said his plan was likely to beat them to market as it does not require any new technology that would need approval by regulators. Scholl said test flights would begin in southern California, with plans to launch the first commercial departures in 2023. If the plans stick to schedule, Boom flights will launch 20 years after British Airways and Air France decommissioned Concorde. He said Boom would succeed where Concorde failed because developments in technology and lighter materials meant tickets would be much cheaper. Boom will have just 45 to 50 seats, compared with Concorde's 92 to 128. Scholl reckons the demand for affordable supersonic flights could make this a $100 billion market. He said his plane could work on 500 different routes, but would concentrate initially on London to New York, San Francisco to Tokyo, and Los Angeles to Sydney.
London? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Even if the financial sector does move out of London, it will take many years. Every major financial service company has at least a regional office there, and many have their main office in London. Relocating such a business operation isn't something that can be done overnight.
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...and they'll want to move out of London in style, right?
That's why they are already doing it. (Score:2)
They're already moving the banks due to brexit, even if brexit isn't confirmed. ..you think this will have flights next year already? take a look at the mockups. the mockup photos in the article don't even match the claims. the plane is a two seater and the article says 90 seats - so whats up with that?
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Bullshit. Who wants to live in the boring provincial town of Frankfurt?
The 1% like London.
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The 1% like London.
They're the only ones.
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I just spent a week of vacation there. You're full of shit.
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Re:London? (Score:5, Informative)
As a non-1% resident of London, I wish you were right, but I doubt it. To understand you need to see London from a rich person's point of view. From that perspective, the main thing you are interested in is political stability (i.e. a ruling political class that will protect your interests/wealth), which the UK almost uniquely has through a hereditary monarchy at the top (which clearly has an interest in protecting unearned wealth), a parliamentary system that is pseudo-democratic (house of lords, first past the post), and a judiciary that can curb the power of government against the people (look at the way private citizens can sue the government).
Compare this with other countries which have either more populous democracies (where the masses can simply vote to redistribute your wealth) or those with less democracy (where the leader might decide they want a share of your wealth). Where would you rather hoard your assets? The answer is London.
The other big benefit of London is that it is the pre-eminent global tax haven through the non-domiciled status system. It is essentially like a supermarket for tax havens, where you can live in London and shop out your tax liabilities to any of the convenient offshore tax-free locations around the world, without having to live on a sleepy island in the middle of no where. Many of the available tax havens have power structures that connect up with the UK mainland, which gives great confidence in the protection of your wealth.
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They are probably betting that the UK will be do desperate to attract companies it will put up with sonic booms and pollution just to get this thing. The UK could still have a future as a stop-over point for transatlantic flights.
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Sigh...you're too desperate in your attempt to put down the UK for their decision. There won't be any sonic booms over the country.
Boom?!?! (Score:5, Insightful)
Boom is a really stupid name for an aircraft company. That's like naming a ship company Drown.
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Depending on your perspective off the world and how much black humor you are willing to inject into your life, that is an excellent name for an aircraft maker.
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Concorde was killed by politics not price (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Concorde was killed by politics not price (Score:5, Funny)
And the crowd favorite: Planey McPlaney-face
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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Concorde lost in large part because if you count all the airport crap and the flight schedules, you can get across the ocean much faster (and much more comfortable) by renting a private jet than by booking on the Concorde.
Concorde is often downplayed (Score:3, Interesting)
According to some sources, it was killed mostly because it was more profitable to operate a more conventional plane, not because it was not profitable at all.
This plane was such a marvelous piece of technology, and there is plenty of very interesting reads on it all over the net. I am glad some are trying to revive supersonic jets, although I hope they will make them in a "greener" fashion.
Re:Concorde is often downplayed (Score:5, Interesting)
I am glad some are trying to revive supersonic jets, although I hope they will make them in a "greener" fashion.
The Concorde was actually designed for low fuel consumption. And it was actually pretty good for the standards of the day, it's just the day moved on rather faster than expected. There are basically two ways of increassing the efficiency of a jet engine: increase the pressure ratio thereby increasing the thermodynamic efficiency and increasing the mass flow, decreasing the maximum velocity of the air.
Neither is especially easy. Larger engines also create more drag, weigh more and big fans are hard to make. It turns out however that was much easier and high bypass turbofans cropped up pretty soon. The former is very hard because it increases the core temperature. Pressure ratios have been slowly creeping up, making use of single crystal nickel turbing blades with cooling channels running through them. That allows them to operate safely above the creep limit of the metal astonishingly.
Except the concorde! Flying higher, it starts from colder, lower pressure air and uses ram compression along with the conventional turbocompressor core, reaching an astonishing pressure ratio of 70, compared to only 50 on the absolute latest technology Trent 1000. The contemporary 747 engine reached a mere 23:1. The concorde gambled on the pressure ratio being decisive, but it lost out to larger, slower planes with high bypass engines.
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Concorde was profitable for BA and Air France. It just wasn't profitable for UK and French taxpayers who never recouped it's development costs.
What killed Concorde was Airbus withdrawing the type certification for it.
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According to some sources, it was killed mostly because it was more profitable to operate a more conventional plane, not because it was not profitable at all.
Indeed. Profit, profit, profit. That's why we have very, very expensive beds on long haul flights. How about we just get there faster? But screw progress and the passengers.
Anything Branson does though is a scam.
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Interesting article and one mention, “Market research later in Concorde’s life revealed that customers thought Concorde was more expensive than it actually was. Ticket prices were progressively raised to match these perceptions.” The other aspect "it was killed mostly because it was more profitable to operate a more conventional plane" is something I have to think about (that doesn't make sense but then most of us making money decisions do it for very strange reasons).
Back in those days,
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Just what the world needs (Score:5, Interesting)
An aircraft that burns even more fuel per mile than a normal one and nicely pollutes the stratosphere to boot. Perhaps Branson should just stay on his carribean island and enjoy the sea - before the hurricanes get so bad due to climate change that his house is blown away.
And yes, I know there are plenty of people on this site who don't think human induced climate change is real and I respect your right to hold that opinion. Try respecting mine and don't reply with a load of insulting bile. Thanks.
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Latest research shows that as CO2 levels go up and the world warms the amount of plants go up and the rate at which they grow i.e. Use up Co2 also goes up. It means there is a negative feedback cycle and negative feedback loops are always stable. So I seriously doubt the apocalyptic predictions being made will come true. Further you have to look at the cost of fighting global warming. The fight affects the poor the most by slowing down the industrialization of poorer countries and also by closing dirty indu
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Luckily with NOx it doesn't hang around in the atmosphere very long , so while its a nasty pollutant its soon gone. CO2 however is the real problem right now.
You're right about aircraft efficiency. IIRC a 747 at full capacity has the same mileage per person as a person driving a small car the same distance. Of course the problem with the comparison is that its not possible to jump into a small car and drive 3000 miles in a day (and who would anyway even if it was?) then come back again the next, so air tra
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Getting to work is an essential. Flying usually is not. And I'm no fan of Al Gore, the mans a screaming hypocrite.
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Getting to work is an essential. Flying usually is not.
What about flying to work? Business travel fills a large number of aircraft seats, and the majority of business class and first class seats.
Personally, I work from home except for the one week out of every 4-6 that I fly somewhere.
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If you live so far from work that you have to fly their perhaps you should consider moving house.
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If you live so far from work that you have to fly their perhaps you should consider moving house.
Almost none of those business travelers are commuting. I'm not. Last month I had meetings in California. Next month I need to be in London. I'm going to have a meeting in Colorado soon.
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On top of that, Piston craft can still use Leaded gas.
Mostly, yeah. The problem is getting new engines certified for GA use. Automotive engines now get phenomenal reliability under much tougher conditions: wide RPM and torque range, lots of stop-start, wide specifications on fuel performance, long (possibly indefinite) times between overhauls, really strict emissions requirement and etc. There has been huge development of auto engines, becuase there's a lot of money in it and not having to do warranty repla
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All true about car engines, but I do wonder how long one would last if it had to sit at its max power rpm for hours on end. You could argue that stop start allows the engine to have a "rest" for want of a better word.
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All true about car engines, but I do wonder how long one would last if it had to sit at its max power rpm for hours on end.
Well, more like 70% power, right? You use max power for takeoff, then cruise at 70% or so.
You could argue that stop start allows the engine to have a "rest" for want of a better word.
Well, rest won't help per-se in that it has no mechanism for recovery, assuming that the cooling system is working and the engine doesn't overheat. The act of starting from scratch does cause wear, due for
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Quite a bit, actually. The modern car engine is way overpowered for what it's used for - cruising down the highway is actually not very taxing on the engine at all - it's just got to put in as much power as i
Total Trip Time (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't want complain but the problem with most flights is not flighttime but the total time. You have to get to the Airport, check in, wait in line to go through the security check and wait at the gate. How about som innovation here?
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I don't want complain but the problem with most flights is not flighttime but the total time. You have to get to the Airport, check in, wait in line to go through the security check and wait at the gate. How about som innovation here?
Just as an example, Dallas is a 4 hour drive away for me (about 250 miles).
If I want to fly there it will take: 30 minutes to drive to airport. 1.5 hours for checkin, security, boarding etc. (the TSA recommended time for domestic flights), 1.25 hours for the flight itself, another hour to deplane, get my baggage, and rent a car, and another half hour (being really really generous here. Ever seen Dallas traffic?) to drive where I actually want to be in Dallas. That's a total of nearly 5 hours. It will today
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That's similar to my conundrum with my local airport. The hop leg from my regional airport - about 45 minutes by car - to the closest hub adds about 1:15 from gate to gate, plus 45 minutes of layover (in the best case) - or 2.75 hours. My travel time by car to the hub is about 2.75 hours. Often, there is a 1-2 hour layover, which means I can leave my house later and still pick up the direct flight from the hub. And that flight is $200 cheaper. For me, the break even is about 6-7 hours of drive time. Less th
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yes, you both are knocking on the door of private aircraft being advantageous.
Figure in a slow plane:
10 minutes to your local, small airport
10 minutes to preflight and take off
Travel at 105 kts direct (2.5 hours for the guy 250 miles from Dallas)
15 minutes to land, tie down
Call all of the above a little over 3 hours, but you got to choose when the 3 hours was (ie, if you're done early or a little later, no big deal, you're not meeting a scheduled flight)
No TSA, no "schedule", and no waiting for luggage. Th
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There's a fairly massive barrier to entry there though. Maybe there're aircraft out there cheaper than Cessna's; but given that they're canonical and ubiquitous, I went looking for pricing on the 172. And it the cheapest model offered starts at $274,900. That being the cheapest, lowest-end, most bare-bones model available; stock, with no add-ons. That, of course, does not include the time and money for training to get your license.
https://web.archive.org/web/20... [archive.org]
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aviation isn't cheap, but it can be more reasonable than people think.
a good 172 can be had for under 50K
Fixed expenses are the worst (hangar, insurance, annual maintenance) so the best way is 3-4 way partnership, this dilutes the cost to purchase and the fixed monthly/annual costs pretty significantly.
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For an airliner, what matters is the flight time+aircraft turnaround time. Currently a trip from New York to London takes 6h30, and London to New York averages around 8hrs, due to prevailing winds. When aircraft turnaround time is included, usually around 1hr in average, this means an aircraft can be used to fly one round-trip fly a day.
With a flight time of 3-4hrs, this new supersonic aircraft will be able to fly 2 round trip flights a day, and possibly 3 if turnaround is quick. For an airliner, this means
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Close, but no. Even small commercial planes require all passengers to go through TSA screening. You're thinking of private air service, which is, iirc, mostly exempt from the traditional passenger TSA screening.
Stupid in Largest Scheme (Score:2)
It makes sonic booms, and burns fuel like crazy. Meh.
I hope they don't think that they are going to supersonic that over my house!
Re: Sonic Boom (Score:5, Funny)
No. The One Percenters who will ride those planes simply don't care about you shitfolk.
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No. The One Percenters who will ride those planes simply don't care about you shitfolk.
Concorde proved that there aren't enough one-percenters to make supersonic aircraft economically viable. People want cheap fares and direct flights. Even most rich people aren't willing to pay a thousand dollars an hour for a quicker flight.
Most rich people I know are cheapskates. That's how they got to be rich.
Re: Sonic Boom (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: Sonic Boom (Score:5, Informative)
Not true; in fact the reverse! In its later years, (once BA and Air France had figured out that people did not actually care how expensive the tickets were, and racked up the prices), Concorde flight were very profitable.
Of course, this ignored the massive R&D costs that were written-off by the UK and French governments and could not be recovered due to the small number of units produced.
Concorde was retired mainly because Airbus decided to stop offering maintenance...understandable because it was 1960s technology.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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The bulk of both Air France and British Airways Concorde fleets were purchased at full price (their original fleets were fully paid for, but both airlines were offered aircraft at a discount that other airlines dropped orders for), so the comment about development costs is neither here nor there - the Boeing 787-8 is unlikely to recoup its development costs, even with over 400 ordered (the 787-9 and -10 will, however), but its a fantastic plane in service and airlines arent responsible for its development c
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No. The One Percenters who will ride those planes simply don't care about you shitfolk.
One Percenters can afford to own their own planes (although the lease/rent them for the most part). They dont land at London Heathrow with the rest of the peasantry, they land at Farnborough and have a limo to take them into central London.
For this to be viable it needs to be affordable for the upper middle business traveller. The C level execs of smaller companies or the regional directors of larger ones.
Re: Sonic Boom (Score:5, Insightful)
You are confusing the 1% with the 0.01%. There is an elite within the elite. The super-rich. The oligarchs and billionaires. The Forbes 500. The guys who consider themselves so far above everything, their private airplanes have underage prostitutes as a complimentary service for guests.
The 1% can afford $5k and consider it a good investment if it saves them some time and gives them the privacy of a small plane filled exclusively with people of their type. The reason golf clubs have a $10k yearly membership fee - it keeps out the peasants.
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Not going to comment on most of that, but I do agree that there's a market. It's probably a wise decision that they went for a smaller aircraft - weaker sonic boom and more frequent flights for a market of a given size (and the ability to serve lower-traffic markets). Combined with modern tech for aerodynamic efficiency, propulsion, sonic boom modeling, etc, and a long list of "lessons learned" from Concorde, I wouldn't be surprised to see this - or at least one of their competitors - succeed.
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"The reason golf clubs have a $10k yearly membership fee - it keeps out the peasants."
Agreed, but your $10k figure is way low at many locations.
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[citation provided] [dailywire.com]
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It is logical, that they have influence within their respective organisations.
It's the influence on politics, media and society that is disproportionate, because being a good manager or CEO or investor or funder doesn't say one thing about being good at politics, guiding a country or making politics.
The reaons the world is in such a sorry shape is exactly that we allow managers to run it, instead of visionaries and idealists.
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That's why modern government systems have checks and balances and separation of powers.
Which work great to keep idealists pragmatic, but fail utterly when all branches of the government are run by the same type of bureaucrats.
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Even ignoring the rampant anti-semitism there, nobody in the elite was killed during the holocaust. Name one super-rich who died in a concentration camp.
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nobody in the elite was killed during the holocaust.
The Holocaust wasn't aimed at the rich. But the purges of Stalin and Mao were. They killed plenty of rich people. My wife's laoye (maternal grandfather) owned a furniture factory in Beijing, and was quite prosperous. He was shot in the back of the head in 1949.
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You must mean the 1% of the 1%. It only takes 400-500K of household income to be in the top 1% in the US. The idea of someone (technically a household, most 1% households are two income) earning only 400K and flying private is ridiculous.
I am in a 1% household (500K/yr) and I rarely even fly business class unless someone else is paying for (NYC->London b-class ticket is $3-6K depending on when and who you fly).
"Upper middle class" in your eyes seems to be the top 2-3%, and the "1%" in your world must be
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I rarely even fly business class unless someone else is paying...
Yep, and that's the point. That's why it's called "business" class - because somebody else usually pays for it (a "business").
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The idea of someone (technically a household, most 1% households are two income) earning only 400K and flying private is ridiculous.
You're thinking "private luxury jet", but that is not the only way to fly privately, so it's not as ridiculous as you think [aopa.org]. The numbers on that page are for a low-end plane (an older Cessna), but $400k/year is the low end of the 1% so it seems appropriate. The highest number on that page, $32k/year, is well within the reach of someone making $400k/year if they want it.
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You don't have to be rich to fly a Cessna. Go to nearly any USAF base, and you'll find an aero-club, where young airmen making poverty wages take flying lessons. I know, I got my license at one.
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Even most rich people aren't willing to pay a thousand dollars an hour for a quicker flight. Most rich people I know are cheapskates. That's how they got to be rich.
Let's ignore the executive jet industry. These jets are owned by rich corporations and people.
Rich people like value (real or perceived). You forget that Concorde was "one class". There was no business, economy or first on Concorde. And while the service was better than economy class on a standard transatlantic flight, it was much below what first class provides. Concorde was literally falling apart. Seats were damaged. People would steal everything they could so they could have a souvenir of "Concorde" t
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"Yet rich people seem to have no trouble forking out MILLIONS of dollars for the ability of a) being able to travel where and when they want, b) NOT being groped and herded by the TSA and immigration/customs officials and c) not having to mix with the rabble. If you think rich people are worried about paying a price and that's why Concorde failed, you don't understand rich people. "
It's human nature. If you don't have to wait, stand in line, put up with shitty food, etc., would you? It's the same reason t
Re:Sonic Boom (Score:4, Informative)
The most profitable routes for supersonic aircraft are mainly over oceans, so the aircraft won't be supersonic over land for those routes. I don't know how they would handle a Los Angeles to New York route, though.
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TFA is a bit light on details, but it looks like they have based their design off research done by JAXA and NASA into reducing sonic booms. Maybe it's not that bad.
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"And, sorry to rant, just step back one second. If sonic booms from supersonic high flying aircraft are so loud, then how did the SR-71 engage in "covert" surveillance of the USSR? You'd just listen for it and know it was there. Of course, you need something to shoot it down (see Gary Powers, etc...) and I wonder if it's coincidence that Russia is known to have the world's best SAM systems?"
You might know the SR71 was there, but fat chance you could do anything about it. As for the U2, it flies ~20k ft low
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Re: Sonic Boom (Score:2)
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At $5000 a seat, you think they give a shit about sonic booms disturbing people?
Interestingly, women and minorities will be the most impacted by these flights.
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$5,000 is the price of a business class seat on the routes they're talking about (not even first class), and it's a quarter the price of the Concorde. It just might be cheap enough to get a self-sustaining amount of traffic, which will provide an ongoing incentive to develop cheaper and cheaper planes. It's getting past that initial wall that's the problem, which the Concorde never did.
Sonic booms are resolved two ways. First, the same way that the Concorde did: use it on trans-continental flights. North Am
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$5000 is the J price to London (usually LHR). If you're going to Dublin the same ticket can be had for closer to $2500.
Re:Sonic Boom (Score:4, Funny)
Do I have to check my privilege?
Or can I carry it on?
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If you have to ask, make your way to the Greyhound station.
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Interestingly, women and minorities will be the most impacted by these flights.
How so?
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These aircraft will whoosh over their heads and the massive sonic boom will ruin their hair (women) or weave (minorities).
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I'm low on the totem pole at my company but when I have to travel to Asia, it's business class. If I remember correctly my ticket to China was $4,500.
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I used to frequently fly overseas on business class. Most recently, from Atlanta to Dubai...that was a $5k ticket that the company paid for. As a 2%er, I'm personally too cheap to pay that kind of price for my own flights, even though my knees typically hit the seat in front when I'm sitting in sardine class. 14 hours in a tiny seat is cruel and unusual for anyone 6" or taller.
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You can't hear a sonic boom on the ground from a plane that is 45,000 to 50,000 feet high, get a clue.
It's almost as if you didn't do any research at all before posting that.
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Fact is rhe plane will go supersonic at a hight where no one on the ground will hear the boom. ...
No research required
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Didn't Branson already promise space based travel? Where are the rockets/planes for that? It's been several years.
Re:Sonic Boom (Score:4, Informative)
They spent five years developing their first commercial craft... and then accidentally destroyed it on its fourth test flight, killing the copilot and seriously injuring the pilot. Ironically, the crash had nothing to do with it being a rocket; a combination of too few safety lockouts and poor pilot training led to the air braking system being deployed at too low of a speed. Which was a brand new huge setback. The fact that it took five years to even get to that point was itself due to a series of delays, including a complete redesign of the motor (really, the first team should have just read the research on hybrid rocket engines, they would have learned that polybutadiene, while a classic binder for solid rocket fuel, does not make a good hybrid fuel).
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Corr: that was five years from the unveiling to the flight failure. It was nearly a decade since the initial announcement. Oh, and I forgot one major issue - they had a tank explosion in 2007 that killed three employees. It's just been a trouble-plagued process. But they're still working on it.
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really, the first team should have just read the research on hybrid rocket engines, they would have learned that polybutadiene, while a classic binder for solid rocket fuel, does not make a good hybrid fuel
How come? It seems they started with it then switched away and back several times. What's wrong with HTPB---honest question?
Re:Sonic Boom (Score:5, Informative)
Burn rate, mainly. Solids are very different from hybrids in that the oxidizer is intermixed with the fuel, and thus it's easy to get any burn rate you want, from "none" to "rapid unscheduled disassembly" ;) With hybrids, combustion only occurs on the surface as a surface/gas reaction and the rate of reaction there is limited, so it's much more of an issue. With polybutadiene, this means having more channels and thinner walls to get the burn rate up, which increases the odds that chunks will break off as it burns, among other problems. It's generally recognized that the optimal situation is to have a fuel that readily forms a low viscosity melt layer which can be easily aerosolized, dramatically increasing the surface area. So, for example, fuels like paraffin wax and polyethylene work very well for hybrids. Combustion enhancers like aluminum significantly help as well.
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Ah I see, thanks for the answer!
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I used to like sonic boom. Haven't heard one in years though.
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They solved that by strapping Ryu to the airplane, so he keeps blocking em with hadoukens.
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Read the article. They basically want to do flights where most of the travel route is over the ocean.
I'm more interested in which engines they are using. Aside from military engines I can't think of any single engine available today which has an afterburner (which they will need if they want to hit Mach 2+).
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Aside from military engines I can't think of any single engine available today which has an afterburner (which they will need if they want to hit Mach 2+).
You don't need an afterburner. The Rolls Royce Olympus 593 was in fact capable of pushing the concorde all the way to it's maximum speed without the use of the afterburner. However that meant the concorde spent a long time in the high drag trans-sonic region, so it was more efficient to use the afterburner to exit that regime as quickly as possible.
Re: Sonic Boom (Score:2)
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It's what we engineers call a 'paper airplane.'
Or 'vapor' airplane.