Concorde Sonic Boom - WOW
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ScudRunner
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Canus Chinookus
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I think supersonic planes will be around. There's some development on a bizjet I think.
I doubt there will be supersonic flight over North America for civilian planes ever.
When I was in Germany in 1988, I heard a couple of sonic booms. I thought someone was open pit blasting or something, till the locals told me they were sonic booms. One time, I saw all of the windows of a three storey building shake because of it. And you could feel it in your chest like a cannon going off a hundred feet away.
That's one of the reasons the Cold War West Germans hated the Americans in their country. It would never go over well in any populated area.
But in the middle of nowhere ocean. Sure.
My two cents.
-istp
I doubt there will be supersonic flight over North America for civilian planes ever.
When I was in Germany in 1988, I heard a couple of sonic booms. I thought someone was open pit blasting or something, till the locals told me they were sonic booms. One time, I saw all of the windows of a three storey building shake because of it. And you could feel it in your chest like a cannon going off a hundred feet away.
That's one of the reasons the Cold War West Germans hated the Americans in their country. It would never go over well in any populated area.
But in the middle of nowhere ocean. Sure.
My two cents.
-istp
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sky's the limit
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From my understanding Supersonic is incredibly inefficient unless you go WAY up; That scram jet thing was supposed to run on hydrogen wasn’t it?? From what little I recall the idea is you build a craft that goes up to like FL 2000, then gets up to Mach 70 or something stupid, Vancouver to Cape Town wheels up to wheels down like 20 min or something of the sort… And from an efficiency point of view you would have consumed less Joules of energy in total than a conventional fan.
Or I could be totally out to lunch...
Or I could be totally out to lunch...
If I remember rightly Concorde's Olympus engines at cruise altitude are still the most efficient aircraft engines* ever devised in terms of miles per gallon. Mach 2+ supercruise with no reheat necessary.
*By this I'm guessing "airliner engine" as I'm sure those funny looking things Rutan and co. fly around the world on a thimbleful of gasoline are pretty efficient.
Edit: if the below post refers to this one, reheat was NOT necessary during supersonic cruise (s'what I meant above), only for takeoff and acceleration through Mach 1.
*By this I'm guessing "airliner engine" as I'm sure those funny looking things Rutan and co. fly around the world on a thimbleful of gasoline are pretty efficient.
Edit: if the below post refers to this one, reheat was NOT necessary during supersonic cruise (s'what I meant above), only for takeoff and acceleration through Mach 1.
Last edited by Sparks on Fri Feb 10, 2006 9:10 am, edited 4 times in total.
Many are working on it (saw a show on the weekend) most are using the russian concorde ripoff for a platform but falcon has one in the works also (there was no mention of waiting on french engines) Most of the designs have the same problem as the cocorde with vis while on the ground so incoperete a dropping nose, this they explained is very undersirable as it greatly increases the weight and the strength of the sonic boom is directly related to weight. Falcon has solved this problem by designing a multi camera HUD for while on the ground also there climb is supposed to be so great and the weight low enough that they beleive going super sonic at altitude the boom will be bareley audible on the ground.
fighter planes have amazing visibility and obviously can demolish the sound barrier. What about a bizjet makes them unable to do the same? Is it the fact that fighters have wads of power to push a less aerodynamic shape through the air, or is there something else i'm missing?
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ScudRunner
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What about straping some uprated engines to a Citation X or that Falcon they cruise right up there around Mach .9
On a side note Sir Richard tryd to buy a couple Concordes when they retired them at BA and AF. But typical back room goverment BS closed that out. How pimp would that have been Virgin Concorde with "Mines Faster than Yours" on the fuselage.
On a side note Sir Richard tryd to buy a couple Concordes when they retired them at BA and AF. But typical back room goverment BS closed that out. How pimp would that have been Virgin Concorde with "Mines Faster than Yours" on the fuselage.
You can't just strap big engines on something and make it go super sonic. You must deal with lots of aerodynamic, structural and thermodynamic effects. The Boeing Sonic Cruiser was designed as a supersonic aircraft slowed down to subsonic speeds as opposed to a subsonic aircraft upgraded to a supersonic aircraft.. wrote:What about straping some uprated engines to a Citation X or that Falcon they cruise right up there around Mach .9
Wow, nice vid...
Also, Bede is right on about supersonic flight - you cannot just take standard subsonic designs and push them faster. Supersonic flight dynamics are very different from subsonic ones, and the reason the X-1 is touted as such a great achievement is not because they passed an arbitrary number, but because they solved some of the more confusing aspects of supersonic flight.
I think the viz problem is one that's gonna be around as long as we're working on concorde and Tu-144 derivatives. The articulated nose is a pretty messy solution and one we're gonna have to get around. I think part of the reason fighters can get so much better visibility is that the aircraft as a whole is a lot smaller. OTOH, the XB-70 Valkyrie didn't have a droop nose and cockpit viz was acceptable (though still not great). I'd love to see more work done on waverider designs.
And now that I've commented on just about everything except the original topic of this thread
, I think we will see supersonic bizjets as soon as the FAA pulls their heads out of their asses and realizes that newer technology and designs allow for sonic booms which are vastly reduced in power. I say bizjets because the smaller size reduces the power of the boom, and I think the airline industry will continue to be an efficiency governed industry for the forseeable future whereas bizjets cater to a market thats willing to pay a few extra $$ for some time save (and bragging rights).
reheat (or afterburner) actually increases fuel consumption rather drastically. There are very few supercruise aircraft (like the concorde) that don't need afterburners to pass mach 1. It was initially planned for the concorde not to neet reheat at all, but it was found that it took so long to pass throught the transsonic without reheat that it was actually more efficient to use a little afterburner to jump right through it.Sorry-concorde did have reheat equipped engines.
Yeah he offered to buy them for $1 each, and he promised to continue sched. concorde flights. It's a shame that the politics of BA and AF wouldn't let them sell those babies.Sir Richard tryd to buy a couple Concordes
Also, Bede is right on about supersonic flight - you cannot just take standard subsonic designs and push them faster. Supersonic flight dynamics are very different from subsonic ones, and the reason the X-1 is touted as such a great achievement is not because they passed an arbitrary number, but because they solved some of the more confusing aspects of supersonic flight.
I think the viz problem is one that's gonna be around as long as we're working on concorde and Tu-144 derivatives. The articulated nose is a pretty messy solution and one we're gonna have to get around. I think part of the reason fighters can get so much better visibility is that the aircraft as a whole is a lot smaller. OTOH, the XB-70 Valkyrie didn't have a droop nose and cockpit viz was acceptable (though still not great). I'd love to see more work done on waverider designs.
And now that I've commented on just about everything except the original topic of this thread
, I think we will see supersonic bizjets as soon as the FAA pulls their heads out of their asses and realizes that newer technology and designs allow for sonic booms which are vastly reduced in power. I say bizjets because the smaller size reduces the power of the boom, and I think the airline industry will continue to be an efficiency governed industry for the forseeable future whereas bizjets cater to a market thats willing to pay a few extra $$ for some time save (and bragging rights).
