Supersonic flight
Posted by Nicholas Gruen on Sunday, June 28, 2009
This plane is a very fast plane. It has flown from New York to London in 1 hour 54 minutes 56.4 seconds, which is more than I can say I have done. All of which reminds me to ask Troppodillians why, when the big supersonic passenger planes failed, there weren’t a few supersonic executive jets to buzz rich merchant bankers and celebrities around. After all it might be expensive, but there’s been plenty of money around. And the technology was already locked down with supersonic bombers like the F111. I would imagine that if you took all the bombs and other stuff away you could get a few execs and a hostie in there to pour the champagne?
This entry was posted on Sunday, June 28th, 2009 at 10:19 PM and filed under Uncategorised.
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Simple. The FAA in the US forbids supersonic flight over the continental USA except in military airspace. That kills half to two-thirds your already very niche market.
Posted on 28-Jun-09 at 10:42 pm | PermalinkI’ve often wondered this. I know Lear designed one in the 1980s but never built it. But it’s what Jacques said – plus the fact that most developed countires have a similar ban. Also landing and takeoff noise was a problem.
There may be more possibility now with new airframe designs that greatly reduce sonic booms. But it would be one helluva gamble to pour the billions in on the chance that the authorities would then relax the bans.
Still, I’ve always thought there was a market for a very small (say 20 seat), very expensive transoceanic airliner. But testing if that market exists would also be a really risky investment.
Posted on 29-Jun-09 at 8:02 am | PermalinkIf they could only chop off that 0.4 seconds, I think enough people would be ready to pay the price.
Posted on 29-Jun-09 at 9:29 am | PermalinkJames,
This is a serious blog. Jokes will not be tolerated.
DD,
I wonder if you could do the market research with a refitted F111 or whatever – with say 6 seats?
Posted on 29-Jun-09 at 9:35 am | PermalinkI believe it would be basically impossible to refit a military plane with any degree of ‘executive jet’ comfort – they generally have very thin fuselages, for obvious reasons.
Also, can you imagine that the plane pictured was designed with a slide rule – and I don’t even know how to use one!
Posted on 29-Jun-09 at 1:19 pm | PermalinkYoungsters these days. Really!
I think I could still use a slide rule (but I’d check with a calculator!)
Posted on 29-Jun-09 at 1:27 pm | PermalinkI couldn’t resist googling this. It’s a fun question.
Apparently there are plans for at least two supersonic business jets – the Quiet Supersonic Transport (QSST)and the Aerion Supersonic Business Jet.
I’m not sure it’s right to say that “the technology was already locked down with supersonic bombers like the F111″. The F111 was designed for a specific role — part of which involved flying very close to the ground. And even though it’s a bomber, it doesn’t have much internal space. Check out this diagram and see if you can find a place for a passenger compartment. There is an internal weapons bay but it’s small (two bombs). Most of carrying capacity comes from the 8 pylons on the wings.
Of course this raises the possibility of loading passengers into individual cylinders and mounting them under the wings. Perhaps you could avoid delays due to crowded airports by simply dropping the cylinders near the passenger’s destination (using a parachute of course). I’m not sure how to solve the toilet problem but I assume the technology was locked down during the space program.
A supersonic business jet would be designed around a very different set of constraints — as DD says, it would need to be quiet.
As for refitting an ex-military aircraft …
Posted on 29-Jun-09 at 8:20 pm | PermalinkA couple of points:
Firstly, the F-111 has an ejectable crew capsule that holds two people. It’s not possible to make this any bigger. There’s no other space inside the fuselage capable of holding passengers, so you’re limited to a pilot and one passenger. This makes the proposition very expensive per head.
Secondly, the F-111 has a subsonic range of almost 7000 km, but a supersonic range of less than 2500 km. It’s about 5600 km from London to New York, so it couldn’t make it that far supersonically. On a shorter trip, say 2000 km, it’s questionable whether the shorter flying time is worth it. Most of your time is spent getting to the airport, hanging about on the runway, waiting for clearance to land, etc. Shortening the in-flight time helps, but only makes economic sense if the opportunity cost of your time is in the millions of dollars per hour.
Posted on 29-Jun-09 at 8:32 pm | PermalinkHeh. Comment in moderation. If someone would care to help out?
Posted on 29-Jun-09 at 9:13 pm | PermalinkDon, I assume that Nicholas’ reference to the technology was to the supersonic technology. Presumably this was pretty locked-down by the time of the F-111 and if not, then is by now!
Interesting links, too. Neither has reached production or even certification yet, but interestingly the QSST claims to be able to travel supersonically in America whilst complying with applicable US laws – ie without sonic booms.
Neither would appear able to fly NY-London, or at least not supersonically. This would seem to be a key ingredident in getting these things to take off (haha).
Posted on 30-Jun-09 at 3:54 am | Permalink