New Supersonic airliner

Author
Discussion

Eric Mc

121,779 posts

264 months

Wednesday 16th November 2016
quotequote all
If the boom can be nullified - then I think civil, over land, supersonic flight WILL become a reality.

telecat

8,528 posts

240 months

Wednesday 16th November 2016
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Shame Concorde "B" never flew. The estimated range was 5,000 miles.

http://www.concordesst.com/concordeb.html

Evangelion

7,640 posts

177 months

Wednesday 16th November 2016
quotequote all
I was just about to post this ...

http://metro.co.uk/2016/11/15/richard-bransons-new...

... when I noticed someone had already started this thread.

I bet the windows won't be that large on the real thing.

Dr Jekyll

23,820 posts

260 months

Wednesday 16th November 2016
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Nanook said:
NordicCrankShaft said:
I liked the bit that said affordable followed by $5000.
That's more of less what a return on BA, in business class, from Heathrow to JFK costs.
It's also roughly what they charge for London City to JFK in an airbus carrying around 32 passengers, all business class. It's difficult to see how a supersonic aircraft made in much smaller numbers could have remotely comparable costs. Unless they work on the principle of spreading the purchase cost of the aircraft across 2 return trips a day instead of one.

CanAm

9,115 posts

271 months

Wednesday 16th November 2016
quotequote all
This is the "prototype" that they aim to have flying in 2017



QUOTE:
XB-1 SUPERSONIC DEMONSTRATOR
Our XB-1 demonstrates the key technologies for efficient supersonic flight: advanced aerodynamic design, light-weight materials that can withstand supersonic flight, and an efficient super-cruise propulsion system.

Engineering development of XB-1 ("Baby Boom") is proceeding rapidly, with aerodynamics defined, systems ground tested, and initial structural components in fabrication. Vehicle assembly starts shortly, with first flight planned for late 2017.

I know its only a render but no sign of ejector seats!

Otispunkmeyer

12,557 posts

154 months

Wednesday 16th November 2016
quotequote all
joshleb said:
Is there as much need nowadays for the rapid trip across the world?

With wifi now being accessible on planes, does it not make more sense to go in luxury and able to do work and chill if required?

Use of video conferencing has surely revolutionised international companies meetings and reduced importance of face-to-face interaction?
Video conferencing.... oh my. We've used it all from Skype for Business to some custom Polycom thing that had cameras that zoomed into your face when speaking and microphones all over the room. All have been characterised by intense faffing to get a connection, followed by 2 hours of people sounding like they're under water and occasionally having their ugly mugs being censored by the pixelator.

Still no replacement for having them in the same room as you, physically.


brickwall

5,192 posts

209 months

Wednesday 16th November 2016
quotequote all
Eric Mc said:
There will be no civil supersonic craft again until -

a) the economics make sense
And herein lies the problem.

Concorde could fly 100 passengers to New York using about 100 tonnes of fuel.

Using the same amount of fuel, a 787 will fly 300 passengers to New York, and back again. Concorde used 6x the fuel per passenger kilometre. Even assuming an all-business-class plane with 100 seats, it's still 2x.

In a world where airlines operate on shaving 5-10% of fuel and getting 95% business class load factors, a plane using 2-6x the fuel will never make sense. Any new Concorde would need to be a lot more efficient.

Eric Mc

121,779 posts

264 months

Wednesday 16th November 2016
quotequote all
It's unfair comparing Concorde to a 787. Concorde's rivals were expected to be 707 or DC-8 derivatives - aircraft of the same era in which Concorde was designed.

However, as I keep saying, I don't think that we will see a supersonic airliner again for at least a generation. What we WILL see are supersonic business jets.

brickwall

5,192 posts

209 months

Wednesday 16th November 2016
quotequote all
Eric Mc said:
However, as I keep saying, I don't think that we will see a supersonic airliner again for at least a generation. What we WILL see are supersonic business jets.
I agree with you on this point - the most likely place to see a new supersonic aircraft would be as a business jet. Not least because half of the touted business case behind these jets is that they save valuable executive time.

Willy Nilly

12,511 posts

166 months

Wednesday 16th November 2016
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Is a sonic boom a sonic boom, or does it vary with things like the size of the air craft?

Eric Mc

121,779 posts

264 months

Wednesday 16th November 2016
quotequote all
Bigger objects will make a bigger boom. But the boom can vary a lot no matter what size the aircraft is due to atmospheric and weather conditions. Many aircraft create a double boom as you get shock cones coming off the nose and the tail.

Famously, the Space Shuttle almost always laid a double boom as it approached Cape Canaveral or Edwards Air Force Base to land.

43 seconds in on this video you will hear the two bangs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6r8wU2tDrc

davepoth

29,395 posts

198 months

Wednesday 16th November 2016
quotequote all
Dr Jekyll said:
It's also roughly what they charge for London City to JFK in an airbus carrying around 32 passengers, all business class. It's difficult to see how a supersonic aircraft made in much smaller numbers could have remotely comparable costs. Unless they work on the principle of spreading the purchase cost of the aircraft across 2 return trips a day instead of one.
It's much smaller than a 737. Working on the assumption that it'll pack 40 passengers in seats like an economy class it'll be about the same size as a Bombardier CRJ200 - 20 tonnes empty. A Boeing 737 MAX is 62 tonnes empty.

Looking at fighter jets the F-22 is about the same weight as the Bombardier CRJ200; it has roughly similar dry thrust to the 737 and is capable of supercruise in a military configuration.

So assuming that this new jet can be made to be as efficient through the air as an F-22 (and I would think it would be possible since the war fighting considerations can go out of the window) it shouldn't be beyond the realms of possibility to build a 40 seat airliner that can exceed the speed of sound using about the same amount of fuel as a 737.

The devil will be in the detail of course - maintenance of the airframe and engines will no doubt be very expensive. But look at it this way. Entrepreneurs have built space rockets that are more cost effective than anything that "big aerospace" ever managed - if the same trick can be repeated for supersonic air travel things could be very interesting indeed.

jamieduff1981

8,022 posts

139 months

Thursday 17th November 2016
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What you can get as a smaller company is the opportunity to design and build a product, and then sell the customer one or more visions of how to use that product.

Huge organisations suffer from stakeholder input that results in endless delay and highly contradictory specifications.

This project hinges on the supersonic drag coefficient, the fuel consumption in supercruise and the sonic boom. A lot of the work will/should take place in a supersonic wind tunnel before anyone starts trying to build an aeroplane. They're likely already well on with this. The prototype will be more about proving the drag numbers and therefore fuel consumption work in practise. If key elements of the aircraft's shape work as intended, it's fairly scalable.

Notice how in the late 40s and early 50s the UK and US were building single seater aircraft in weird and wonderful shapes to gather performance data and prove / disprove theories.

Although the pace of new aircraft rolling out has slowed significantly in latter years, researchers have never stopped experimenting and producing data. The immediate application is not always clear until someone has a particular specification in mind. What is certain is that more information is available now than to Concorde's designers which applies not only to aerodynamics but propulsion and materials technology as well.

Eric Mc

121,779 posts

264 months

Thursday 17th November 2016
quotequote all
And computer modelling too.

I was watching a series of lectures on the Space Shuttle recently and one lecturer was saying that there were many aspects of the Orbiter that they would have designed differently if they had had modern computer modelling techniques available to them in the period 1972-74.

Mave

8,208 posts

214 months

Thursday 17th November 2016
quotequote all
davepoth said:
It's much smaller than a 737. Working on the assumption that it'll pack 40 passengers in seats like an economy class it'll be about the same size as a Bombardier CRJ200 - 20 tonnes empty. A Boeing 737 MAX is 62 tonnes empty.

Looking at fighter jets the F-22 is about the same weight as the Bombardier CRJ200; it has roughly similar dry thrust to the 737 and is capable of supercruise in a military configuration.

So assuming that this new jet can be made to be as efficient through the air as an F-22 (and I would think it would be possible since the war fighting considerations can go out of the window) it shouldn't be beyond the realms of possibility to build a 40 seat airliner that can exceed the speed of sound using about the same amount of fuel as a 737.
There's a huge error in this logic - a 737 and an F22 may have similar dry thrust at sea level static, but 1) they will have very different max dry thrust to each other around the flight envelope, and 2) the 737 will be throttled back at cruise whereas the F22 will still be at max dry to supercruise.

Talksteer

4,843 posts

232 months

Saturday 19th November 2016
quotequote all
davepoth said:
Entrepreneurs have built space rockets that are more cost effective than anything that "big aerospace" ever managed - if the same trick can be repeated for supersonic air travel things could be very interesting indeed.
I'd be very careful with the equivalency there, the customers are very different as is the market.

Aero engines and airframes are a very optimised product in a competitive market. The level of optimisation is such that a new entrant would be like Manor F1 vs Mercedes F1 in % terms not that far behind in practical terms unlikely to ever win a race.

So it's true that the big aero companies are not radically innovative and carry a high cost base but they aren't the launch alliance with a sole supplier with a non price sensitive customer.

In short I'm unconvinced by Boom since they have a boom. If they didn't have one I could see the utilisation model working provided that they could sell enough aircraft.

robinessex

11,046 posts

180 months

Saturday 25th March 2017
quotequote all
CanAm said:
This is the "prototype" that they aim to have flying in 2017



QUOTE:
XB-1 SUPERSONIC DEMONSTRATOR
Our XB-1 demonstrates the key technologies for efficient supersonic flight: advanced aerodynamic design, light-weight materials that can withstand supersonic flight, and an efficient super-cruise propulsion system.

Engineering development of XB-1 ("Baby Boom") is proceeding rapidly, with aerodynamics defined, systems ground tested, and initial structural components in fabrication. Vehicle assembly starts shortly, with first flight planned for late 2017.

I know its only a render but no sign of ejector seats!
Forget a Veyron. I'll have one of these !

Dr Jekyll

23,820 posts

260 months

Saturday 25th March 2017
quotequote all
robinessex said:
CanAm said:
This is the "prototype" that they aim to have flying in 2017



QUOTE:
XB-1 SUPERSONIC DEMONSTRATOR
Our XB-1 demonstrates the key technologies for efficient supersonic flight: advanced aerodynamic design, light-weight materials that can withstand supersonic flight, and an efficient super-cruise propulsion system.

Engineering development of XB-1 ("Baby Boom") is proceeding rapidly, with aerodynamics defined, systems ground tested, and initial structural components in fabrication. Vehicle assembly starts shortly, with first flight planned for late 2017.

I know its only a render but no sign of ejector seats!
Forget a Veyron. I'll have one of these !
In the spirit of PH, I feel obliged to point out that you could probably get a decent Tornado for less money. Find a decent independent to maintain it and the saving on depreciation will more than cover the fuel bills. No doubt Eric can tell us what acronym stands for whatever is going to blow up if it hasn't been changed already.

Eric Mc

121,779 posts

264 months

Saturday 25th March 2017
quotequote all
It actually looks a bit like one of these -


Evanivitch

19,803 posts

121 months

Saturday 25th March 2017
quotequote all
Talksteer said:
davepoth said:
Entrepreneurs have built space rockets that are more cost effective than anything that "big aerospace" ever managed - if the same trick can be repeated for supersonic air travel things could be very interesting indeed.
I'd be very careful with the equivalency there, the customers are very different as is the market.

.
This, massively. Government programmes often have a huge programme and gold-plating of requirements overhead that just isn't seen within industry programmes.

Take the shuttle for example, a remarkable feat of engineering, but a financial pit. It would have been significantly more cost effective to use single use systems in nearly all instances. It did sell the idea of "routine" space concept, but it never really was used frequently because of the overhead of test and commissioning before every flight.