How to make a supersonic transport viable

[PurpleTurtle]

Is there really sufficient demand?

I was a massive fan of Concorde, use to go outside every time I could as it flew over my garden in Reading a few minutes after 11am every morning, Olympus engines roaring.

However the passengers were largely celebrities and business types who *had* to be in New York for business meetings in person. For the latter, I expect video conferencing has dispensed with a lot of the need to really be in Manhattan for lunchtime.

[Arnie Cunningham]

As per my post above. I was sure Concorde could get too Mach 2 without reheat at all. It was just more efficient using reheat. Is that incorrect?

Eric Mc said:

That's what I understood too. You need that extra kick to overcome transonic drag as you pass from subsonic to supersonic. Once "on the other side", Concorde (and a small number of other aircraft) can go back to non-afterburner thrust and still maintain supersonic cruise.

[Eric Mc]

The Jet Set still jets about - however they do it in isolated luxury in either owned or rented biz jets.

Farnborough Airport is a very busy place (or at least was before the pandemic and is gradually picking up again). I've always thought that there would be a market for a supersonic executive jet rather than an airliner.

[annodomini2]

nikaiyo2 said:

Eric Mc said:

That's what I understood too. You need that extra kick to overcome transonic drag as you pass from subsonic to supersonic. Once "on the other side", Concorde (and a small number of other aircraft) can go back to non-afterburner thrust and still maintain supersonic cruise.

I always thought the F22 could attain and sustain supersonic flight without ever using afterburner? Isnt that why it won out over the F23.

If you believe a lot of the conspiracy crap, the F22 won because it is the prettier of the 2 designs and that the YF23 was more advanced.

According to this they were both supercruise:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercruise

[Eric Mc]

Arnie Cunningham said:

Once it was supersonic, any further increases in airspeed did not require reheat.

But it needed reheat to go supersonic.

[Mave]

Dr Jekyll said:

The model B proposal included a modified engine design expected to be 25% more powerful, so more powerful without afterburner than the existing engines were with.

Looking at the modifications, and some of the numbers shown, it's 25% more powerful at take off (hence my thought that is a useful way to reduce takeoff and climb noise) but not at Mach 1. That 25% drops as the aircraft accelerates, and there will be a speed where it makes less thrust than the original.

[Arnie Cunningham]

I agree. During the first lockdown, nothing flew over us for a couple of months. But we're starting to notice a bit more traffic during the old friday and sunday peak times especially.

Eric Mc said:

The Jet Set still jets about - however they do it in isolated luxury in either owned or rented biz jets.

Farnborough Airport is a very busy place (or at least was before the pandemic and is gradually picking up again). I've always thought that there would be a market for a supersonic executive jet rather than an airliner.

[Arnie Cunningham]

Eric Mc said:

Once it was supersonic, any further increases in airspeed did not require reheat.

But it needed reheat to go supersonic.

So is it just an urban myth that it could just about get there without reheat? Growing up around Concorde (pic is of me aged 3ish sitting in the co-pilots seat of one under maintenance at LHR), I always view Concorde as head and shoulders above any other aircraft ever built in terms of achieving the impossible....intended solely as a compliment to all the great engineers that worked on her.

https://www.airliners.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=75...
https://cs.mcgill.ca/~rwest/wikispeedia/wpcd/wp/c/...

"The aircraft used reheat ( afterburners) at take-off and to pass through the high- drag transonic regime (i.e. "go supersonic"). Although the engines were just barely capable of reaching Mach 2 without reheat, it was discovered operationally that it burnt more fuel that way, since the aircraft took much longer to accelerate even though reheat is quite inefficient."

Edited by Arnie Cunningham on Thursday 10th June 16:39

[Teddy Lop]

annodomini2 said:

nikaiyo2 said:

Eric Mc said:

That's what I understood too. You need that extra kick to overcome transonic drag as you pass from subsonic to supersonic. Once "on the other side", Concorde (and a small number of other aircraft) can go back to non-afterburner thrust and still maintain supersonic cruise.

I always thought the F22 could attain and sustain supersonic flight without ever using afterburner? Isnt that why it won out over the F23.

If you believe a lot of the conspiracy crap, the F22 won because it is the prettier of the 2 designs and that the YF23 was more advanced.

According to this they were both supercruise:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercruise

The yf23 looked awesome, kinda sinister, minded me of a smaller updated blackbird.

The boeing x32 was the real monster albeit different project.

[Maximus_Meridius101]

Eric Mc said:

That's what I understood too. You need that extra kick to overcome transonic drag as you pass from subsonic to supersonic. Once "on the other side", Concorde (and a small number of other aircraft) can go back to non-afterburner thrust and still maintain supersonic cruise.

Correct. It’s one of many things that killed the Tupolev Tu-144. It couldn’t maintain supersonic velocity without permanent reheat, whereas Concorde could. The TU-144 was deeply flawed in other ways as well, but that didn’t help.

[Maximus_Meridius101]

PurpleTurtle said:

Is there really sufficient demand?

I was a massive fan of Concorde, use to go outside every time I could as it flew over my garden in Reading a few minutes after 11am every morning, Olympus engines roaring.

However the passengers were largely celebrities and business types who *had* to be in New York for business meetings in person. For the latter, I expect video conferencing has dispensed with a lot of the need to really be in Manhattan for lunchtime.

You create sufficient demand with targeted marketing, and getting your business strategy / model right.

[Maximus_Meridius101]

I flew on Concorde a couple of times. What the captain referred to as the “green for go” button on take off, really did make for an astonishing experience. I’ve never flown on any commercial airliner that could / can routinely take off with such a steep attack angle, before or since. The Concorde had to go into “noise abatement mode” once in the air, until it was clear of the London urban sprawl, and there was a noticeable deceleration as it did.

Edited by Maximus_Meridius101 on Thursday 10th June 17:18

[Eric Mc]

I'm waiting for this company to produce an actual working aeroplane first. When is the last time a brand new aeroplane manufacturer, never having built a single aircraft ever, started off with a Mach 2 aeroplane?

[Arnie Cunningham]

I'm with you. At the last airshow I went to a few of the presentations by the CEOS and so forth from various startups, covering both SS and Electric flight.

In most cases I couldn't work out if the presenter doesn't know how aircraft fly, or a fraudster just on a money grab. Maybe both.

Fortunately there are also a lot of highly skilled, honest, and interesting presentations at the airshow too.

[Eric Mc]

Experience counts massively in aircraft and aero-engine design. If you are going to breeze onto the scene as a brand new start up making all sorts of grandiose claims, you'd better have poached the best people you can get from the other manufacturers.

[nikaiyo2]

annodomini2 said:

If you believe a lot of the conspiracy crap, the F22 won because it is the prettier of the 2 designs and that the YF23 was more advanced.

According to this they were both supercruise:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercruise

I thought the F22 was the more developed design and basically supercruised (and did all its other stuff) right out the box where as the F23 was kind of maybe designed to be possibly be able to supercruise after 20 years of F35 style development.

Eric Mc said:

I'm waiting for this company to produce an actual working aeroplane first. When is the last time a brand new aeroplane manufacturer, never having built a single aircraft ever, started off with a Mach 2 aeroplane?

General Dynamics & The F111?
Maybe pushing the rules a bit there

[Eric Mc]

nikaiyo2 said:

General Dynamics & The F111?
Maybe pushing the rules a bit there

Not really. General Dynamics was not a start up. It was the result of a merger of already well established aeropsace and industry companies, headed by Convair - which itself had been the result of the merger of Consolidated and Vultee - two companies that dated their histories to the 1920s.

Rockwell built the Space Shuttle orbiter having never built any sort of aircraft before - but Rockwell's aviation division was really North American Aviation, which had a long and distinguished track record in aviation.

One of BAC's first major projects was Concorde - but BAC was an amalgam of Vickers, English Electric, Hunting-Percival and Bristol.
So new "brand" companies have often started off with ambitious projects but they are normally really based on legacy companies with long experience in the field.

Boom is very different. As far as I know, they've never even built a balsa wood model glider - or an Airfix kit.

[Arnie Cunningham]

Do you know what Space X's recipe for success was? Did they buy a company, or head hunt en-mass?

[Eric Mc]

Good head - hunting.


And they were by no means an overnight success. A lot of hard work, trial and error, and willingness to not make any money for a long time meant they could keep going. Don't forget they are perfectly willing to experience crashes, explosions and general mayhem to get to a working product. That type of approach does not work with aircraft.

Building rockets is not quite the same as launching ground breaking, civilian, passenger carrying, supersonic transports. The regulation regime for aircraft, especially those intended to carry fare paying passengers, are many, many orders of magnitude more heavilly regulated regarding safety and performance.

[nikaiyo2]

Eric Mc said:

Not really. General Dynamics was not a start up. It was the result of a merger of already well established aeropsace and industry companies, headed by Convair - which itself had been the result of the merger of Consolidated and Vultee - two companies that dated their histories to the 1920s.

Rockwell built the Space Shuttle orbiter having never built any sort of aircraft before - but Rockwell's aviation division was really North American Aviation, which had a long and distinguished track record in aviation.

One of BAC's first major projects was Concorde - but BAC was an amalgam of Vickers, English Electric, Hunting-Percival and Bristol.
So new "brand" companies have often started off with ambitious projects but they are normally really based on legacy companies with long experience in the field.

Boom is very different. As far as I know, they've never even built a balsa wood model glider - or an Airfix kit.

Haha hence pushing the rules a bit...

I agree 100% about boom, its silly. I posted about my concept start up the other week, its about as credible :P