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Oh, Your Private Jet Is Just Subsonic?
zerogeewhiz writes "Found this article here at The Sydney Morning Herald . It seems that Bill and his mates need to move a bit quicker these days and for a cool US$80 million, you too can overtake the Concorde on a dash to Harrods for dinner.
As described in the article, the main complaint about Concorde is that it can only fly supersonic over water and creates those nasty sonic booms that punch holes in buildings and shatter windows. They reckon they can get rid of these waves by making the plane longer. These are gonna be fast but hideous. 737-700s are suddenly passe as a corporate jet..."
I'm somewhat confused on this count. Would extending the length of a plane actually prevent a sonic boom? According to Britannica : "If the aircraft is especially long, double sonic booms might be detected, one emanating from the leading edge of the plane and one from the trailing edge."
Has new technology been developed with regards to this?
Have you seen a photograph of a Concorde cockpit? It looks like something straight out of a 707, it's ancient. There's not an LCD, CRT, or even an LED to be seen. The typical "flight computer" is usually the pilot's own handheld PDA, ditto for GPS. If I were going to pay $big for private use of a Concorde, it by gosh better have some real avionics.
Even the B-52H has a nice modernized cockpit with screens galore. If that old clunker can be up to date, there's no reason why a Concorde can't.
A dedicated 100-Mb fiber link should be sufficient. Imagine hardball business negotiations in 9-channel Dolby surround sound.
Some of the my most memorable journeys have been long train trips. So what if it takes you three days to travel coast to coast? You get to relax, get up, walk around, meet some of your fellow travellers...it's great fun and a hell of a lot more civilized than being strapped into a supersonic missile like so many Aztec sacrifices...
Besides, you know how much we get pissed-off when some Yuppie asshole's cell-phone starts ringing when we are trying to enjoy a nice restaurant or theatre performance? "Look at me! I'm so fucking important that I need to disturb everyone around me!" Well that's just going to get a whole lot worse. "Look at me! I'm so fucking important that I need to smash out everyone's windows as I race off to yet another "important" meeting!"
Anyone know where I can get a Patriot missile battery cheap?
You're using her as bait, Master!
Concorde is "the world's dirtiest and loudest aircraft?" That's pretty sloppy reporting. It's probably true for commercial airliners, but there are probably many military planes that are louder and belch more smoke. I'll bet that the B-52 is dirtier and the SR-71 is louder.
Take a look at a photo of a sonic boom.
And for the record, the Lameness filter sucks.
I only post comments when someone on the internet is wrong.
"Engineers say the baby Concordes will herald a new supersonic age, something that seemed impossible when the Air France Concorde crashed outside Paris just over a year ago."
Maybe it's just me, but I recall that the Concorde flew supersonically for years before one of them crashed, and the one that bit the dust was due to metal on the runway, not a major design flaw. When the first automobile crashed, did we mourn the end of the age of the car?
Obviously, you've never been near a Concorde as it flies.
I was in London at Kew Gardens in 1997, right beneath the "draining toilet bowl" pattern for Heathrow, and a Concorde was coming in. At 10,000 feet, the Concorde was louder than a 747 at 2,000. When the Concorde came in at 2,000, it was so loud you had to put your hands over your ears.
Furthermore, the Concorde *can't* fly from London or Paris to Los Angeles. It burns as much fuel as a 747 just to get to New York, and it carries only 100 people. The plane was a money-loser when it was built, and everybody knew it. It was built purely for the prestige which, arguably, it has in abundance even though it crashed & burned last year.
Indeed - I have read that limited range is a significant commercial problem for Concorde.
When it was designed in the 1960s, New York to London was big business, and was the kind of range you could make money with. Now it's L.A. to Hong Kong, far beyond Concorde's reach unless you refuel. Which kills the speed advantage.
I've heard Concordes take off from Heathrow, and they are indeed loud. They have that turbojet shriek that you only hear from military jets nowadays.
I still want to ride on one.
...laura
Reminds me of watching "Beyond 2000" in the late 80's when they had visions of supersonic flight being common by the mid-to-late 90's. It's been nothing but food for thought ever since the Concorde went into service.
-- Never hit a man with glasses. Hit him with a baseball bat.
The Boeing Sonic Cruiser is a brilliant ploy to counter Airbus's superjumbo aircraft plans. The Sonic Cruiser can be targeted to the much more profitable First Class, Executive Class, and Business Classes. I think Boeing hopes that the airlines which buy the superjumbos will be stuck hauling the low profit "cattle car" coach class passengers only (and all the other airlines will rush to place orders for more Sonic Cruisers). But, those supersonic business jets would seem to cut into the Sonic Cruiser's market share. And companies like Southwest seem to be getting along fine targeting the low end passengers. It will be interesting to see whose business strategy pays off.
The maglev train's inventors have posted a proposal for a mach 3 train that would get you coast to coast in an hour and a half. Make the tube ultra straight and you can make the same trip in 45 minutes.
A Swedish engineering firm recently built the world's longest tunnel through hard rock for less than $10 million/mile. If the trans-continental tube came in at around that cost, it'd run $22 Billion. The trains themselves are estimated to cost around $5 million per car - a lot cheaper, and faster, than a $80 Million Gulfstream V.
A few things to keep in mind:
But the most important thing is: inertial navigation works just fine - especially if there are <20 airplanes in the world flying at those speeds and altitudes!
Unlimited growth == Cancer.