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Trust me. This is very unpopular here. Personally, I think it is great. But there are many, especially the multi-million/billion dollar businesses, that want it abolished!

The Concorde, from memory, was banned from flying in Australia due to the sonic boom. Noise pollution. Nothing to do with fuel economy.

Air travel is very popular. PLUS. It is faster to travel by plane than by bus or train, so most people want to use it (ergo budget airlines). Who was it that said speed wasn't important? Two and a half hours to get from Melbourne to Brisbane by airplane, versus about twenty four hours by car or train. And if I could get there sooner by flying supersonic, I would. IF I could afford it.

Mark

[quote author=CoolP link=1321136482/30#43 date=1321716238
I'm sorry, Peter, I can't follow you on those 'NASA talks' you mention. I can't relate the passenger size of a plane to the actual supersonic boom appearance and/or avoidance. Please explain that in more detail if you like. Me is interested.   [/quote]

NASA's design for a quiet supersonic transport entails an aircraft that is designed around reducing the sonic boom footprint, requires a very special airframe. Therefore, its going to be small, and have little room for passengers:



I read in aviation week that NASA's design may reduce sonic booms, but the whole ideas of having an SST requires low sonic booms, because airlines are going to want to use their planes over-land too, and it can't be done. If there had been demand for an SST, we'd have a third-generation SST by now, like we have a third-generation 747. But there isn't demand. They've had concepts over the years, ideas, plans, they've all gone with the wind. Fact is, as cool as supersonic flight is, there isn't demand for SST's to spend the millions of research, development, and buying those sort of planes. Look at this site: http://heritageconcorde.com/?page_id=3103 There were 18 airlines who had orders for the Concorde, and only two decided to use them. The 2707 was cancelled because the U.S government saw it wasn't going to be economical for both airlines, and the government's subsidies, to make an SST. Don't say the technology isn't there, we haven't surpassed a 1967 record set by the SR-71 for fastest airplane in sustained level flight. We know how to build these things, but nobody has needed to, and that why we haven't.

CoolP wrote on Nov 19^th, 2011 at 3:44pm:


The Boeing 787, which fulfilled the Yellowstone Project's Y2 spot, was to be a direct replacement to the Boeing 767. Yes, the 767; the Dreamliner is meant to be a replacment for the 767-300ER and 767-400ER (the -9 variant). It is 20% more effecient, can fly farther, carry more people, so airlines can serve destinations that would otherwise seem uneconomical.

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Well, at least the 20% reference is correct. It's not on the overall volume, but only in regard to the predecessor, which, from the maths, is of course nicer to promote for a company.
But I doubt that they will reach that margin in service. This isn't a Boeing special though, but a sort of habit when new planes come up.
So far, I can't recall a plane not failing to match the 'savings'.


Sorry, Peter, but the other statements assume wrong things.
First of, the development on the US SST not only ate more money than the entire (two country!) Concorde program, it also lead to unsolved problems.
So, after around 1.5 billion Dollar were spent (at that time), no usable outcome could be reported. You can be sure that this outcome was watched closely by other countries, so I'm not talking about the nice 'yes, sure, it will fly, we just need more money' statements from the guys receiving the 1.5 billion, but from the other and competing side which later ran a SST.

On the simple comparison of the military thingy with the space suits and the in-flight refuelling, the liquid cooled skin and the too expensive materials being necessary to achieve that speed, I think some basic knowledge update may help you.
Building that one and an efficient supersonic plane which still sets the record for the supercruise while allowing very normal passenger transport is two worlds apart. But, as said, I wouldn't ask a Boeing technician about this aspect, but maybe some guys that actually build Concorde and had it running for nearly three decades.

Since they have experience in building supersonic military planes too, maybe it helps that they state that not much of that military knowledge and methodical approach was of use for Concorde.
As said, the one planes have two guys and feed them with oxygen, the other thing has 100 high profile people on board, paying for a Mach2+ trip.

I, for example, doubt that they will like the dripping fuel when the thing is parked at the gate. Such things are acceptable for the very tight and limited military usage, but a no-go on any commercial passenger transport plane. And that's just one example which has to be considered.

They did not relate or even prioritize the Concorde program complexity over the Moon landing for fun, Peter.


The US SST concept mainly broke up on the own targets. Mach3+ stuff is far away from any aluminium based plane and incorporates temperatures which, by design, can't be avoid but have to be evenly spread and kept in limits.
The two man speed record masterpiece could handle that at costs which exceeded even the expensive SST program, while offering .. still a two man plane. You can't simply blow them up to carry 100 or even those 250 people that were projected at Boeing. Well, at least they've tried and .. you know the outcome. The model is made of wood and represents those 1.5 billion tax payer's money.
Still, 1.5 billion at that time, not 2011.  

'Insulting' assumption of mine. We wouldn't have seen any big supersonic concerns if that plane had made it into production.   Remember? The PR stuff at big companies?

And, of course, the project didn't fail. Who would tell that to the tax payers?! No, it, of course, had a major use and the money wasn't lost. Oops, did I just assume some political statements of that time? Well, they took place and the only noticeable outcome always was promoted to be the wing design, which was there before they've started the SST plans and derived from post-WWII fighter concepts, some of them even being 'captured'. Up for history lessons?


And, third one, NASA isn't the only concept basis for transportation, as you may know. Also, the simple focus on the boom alone is a bit near-sighted. But, to be fair, I don't know what the article you refer to featured. Maybe it was just some thinking on the boom stuff, not so much a working concept of a future SST plane.

Other concepts for example leave the boom thingy out and alter the way the thing travels, and especially the heights. But, all of those, including the NASA ones, are concepts, mind experiments and also a way of showing the creativity in place.
So I would welcome any of them, while I clearly state that any size limit in the spheres of 80 passengers is nothing anybody every projected in the regard of being a vital SST limit, in any country's development centres.

I'd say that it would be nice to see a global work on not only transportation issues. But I have doubts that the economical background will really allow for that. Growing patent applications and lawsuits actually show that the main resource people care about is called differently in every country, but mostly gets printed on paper.  

The Boeing 2707 was a failure. How can you say it was a success? The idea was to build a large supersonic transport, and nothing was built except a wooden model. yeah they had lots of research, but the government thought that there would be demand for 500 SST's by 1990, and there were never more than 36 SST's ever built, and there was never a new SST design past the year 1971. As cool as an SST is, the imaginations of people from the 1950's and 1960's, that SST's would rule the world, won't come true. Plus, teh Boeing 2707 was designed to hold 250 people, to be a useful plane, rather than a cramped RJ-sized jet of the Concorde or Tu-144. Yeah, the Concorde cost less, but the 2707 was to be faster, land slower, carry more people, fly farther, and be an all-around better and more useful airplane; it proved to cost too much, and the 767 that came 12 years later held the same amount of people, was as fast as the 707's, it was more comfortable, and took over to become the most used transatlantic airliner. The Concorde and 2707 were incomprable airplanes, aside from the label SST.

A Boeing 747-100 and a Concorde used almost the same amount of fuel, and the 747 could carry three times as many passengers over a New York to London route. I'm sorry if you think otherwise, but you're thinking like there's demand for another SST, there really isn't. Maybe the SSBJ's will be somewhat popular, but as the Sonic Cruiser proved, airlines want profitability, seating capacity, and effeciency over speed. A 747 is pretty fast anyways.

CoolP wrote on Nov 19^th, 2011 at 5:16pm:


others here were saying like there was demand...