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Oh, Your Private Jet Is Just Subsonic?

Posted by Hemos on from the technology-innovation dept.

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..."

13 of 311 comments (clear)

  1. "Bill and his mates"? by barzok · · Score: 5, Insightful

    There's no mention of any customer at all. Are we taking potshots at MS for absolutely no reason now? There's no connection here at all.

  2. Extending Length to PREVENT Sonic Booms? by Rura+Penthe · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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?

    1. Re:Extending Length to PREVENT Sonic Booms? by costas · · Score: 5, Informative

      Short lesson on high-speed aerodynamics follows:

      * The "intensity" (read: energy) of a boom is proportional (roughly) to the speed of the aircraft and the angle of attack of the wing or fuselage.
      * To lower the energy wasted in a sonic boom, you can either go slower (neah...) or lower the angle of attack. For a wing, this is kinda easy: either sweep it back (notice a how much further back a fighter's wings are than an airliner's?) or make it thinner (so that the cross-sectional angle of attack, so to speak, is less).
      * For a fuselage it gets trickier: a fighter need only fit one person, and you can extend the nose long enough to lower the leading angle of attack. And you don't care about traling shocks or really shocks at all, because you're in a fighter. You're supposed to terrify people.
      * But for a commercial jet, you will have to take care of both ends of the fuselage, and the only way is to make them longer, and have them taper out smoother. Look at the Concorde's absurdly long nose (so long, it has to be pivoted so that the pilots can see the runway at take-offs and landings) and its thin tail. Now, you know why they're there.

      Supersonic business jets have always been possible. However, new, more efficient engines and cheaper high performance materials are only now making them affordable (well, relatively at least :-)...

  3. Concorde Avionics (or lack thereof) by green+pizza · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re:Concorde Avionics (or lack thereof) by SirWhoopass · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Aviation is one of those areas where, if it ain't broke, don't fix it [insert Concorde crash joke here]. People's lives are at stake with the equipment in an aircraft, so you don't want to upgrade simply to make everything look cool.

  4. Corporate Interceptor by Nick+Number · · Score: 5, Funny

    for a cool US$80 million, you too can overtake the Concorde on a dash to Harrods for dinner

    Er, for that kind of money you might as well pick up a used F-14 Tomcat. It may not have a cushy interior and cleverly-shaped bourbon dispensers, but show me another corporate transport that mounts Phoenix missiles. You'll be envied (and feared) by all your rivals chugging around in those wimpy Learjets.

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    1. Re:Corporate Interceptor by Nick+Number · · Score: 5, Funny

      Actually, a F-14 would be really cool for one really important reason: you can eject when nesessary.

      Yep, those high-paid executives do like to bail out when the going gets tough.

      What color is YOUR parachute?

      --
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  5. For this kind of money... by Waffle+Iron · · Score: 5, Interesting
    ... I bet that you could put together a teleconferencing system with close to IMAX quality. It would use a lot less fuel, too.

    A dedicated 100-Mb fiber link should be sufficient. Imagine hardball business negotiations in 9-channel Dolby surround sound.

  6. What happened to "Getting there is half the fun"? by Robber+Baron · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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?

    --

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  7. About private jet economics and lifestyle by daviddennis · · Score: 5, Informative

    I seem to remember Bill flew in Coach class until his well-known appearance made that a non-starter, so I don't think Bill's that great a candidate.

    Larry Ellison, on the other hand, will buy the first one available, the microsecond it comes up. And Warren Buffet will buy a few for his Executive Jet fleet.

    You can charter a Gulfstream V for $8,500 per flight hour, which means a transcontinental flight would cost about $ 38,000. Skyjet.com reports round trip charters on an IV at $60,000 for the same flight. Ownership is, of course, mind-bendingly expensive; a Gulfstream V is in the $45 million range, and the Citation X (fastest bizjet around, but less luxurious and with half the passenger capacity) is $18m. You also need a full-time pilot and copilot, together with very expensive maintenance, all of which amounts to an overhead of tens of thousands of dollars a month.

    After being squeezed in like a sausage in the USAIR tourist class cabin, I can very much see the appeal of having your own jet. I'm sure that if I was as rich as Bill or Larry, a jet would be one of the first things I'd get. Bear in mind that the Gulfstream has a top speed of Mach .80 and you can get up to Mac .93 on a Cessna Citation X. So it might not be worth the extra money to go supersonic unless you're doubling or tripling the speed of sound (as you do with the Concorde). The long and thin design also might not be as comfortable as the Gulfstream.

    The aforementioned Citation X is about 100 knots (or 25%) faster than a typical commercial flight, and you can arrive at a general aviation airport about 15 minutes before takeoff. Since general aviation airports are most likely a lot closer to you than commercial ones, you can save literally hours by just getting there in ten minutes and taking off almost immediately instead of taking an hour to get to the airport and taking off an hour later. This speed and flexibility is the jet's main advantage compared to, say, simply buying a first-class ticket on a scheduled airline.

    In other words, if your time is worth a lot, you probably want a jet. And if you can fill it to capacity, it's not that much more expensive than first-class airfare. A Gulfstream IV can fit 19 people; first-class airfare coast to coast is about $3,068 for a non-stop flight. So if you're paying $60,000 for your round trip flight, you're paying $3,157 per person instead of $ 3,068 for first class; not too shabby.

    (I spent quite a bit of time flying with a friend who owned a small propeller plane, so I can attest first-hand to the ease and convenience of general aviation airports. Sadly, I have yet to fly on a private jet).

    D

  8. The regulation on sonic booms by mr_death · · Score: 5, Informative

    The government takes a dim view of sonic booms over the US land mass.

    http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/cfrhtml_00/Ti tl e_14/14cfr91_00.html

    91.817 Civil aircraft sonic boom.

    (a) No person may operate a civil aircraft in the United States at a true flight Mach number greater than 1 except in compliance with conditions and limitations in an authorization to exceed Mach 1 issued to the operator under appendix B of this part.

    (b) In addition, no person may operate a civil aircraft for which the maximum operating limit speed MM0 exceeds a Mach number of 1, to or from an airport in the United States, unless --

    (1) Information available to the flight crew includes flight limitations that ensure that flights entering or leaving the United States will not cause a sonic boom to reach the surface within the United States; and

    (2) The operator complies with the flight limitations prescribed in paragraph (b)(1) of this section or complies with conditions and limitations in an authorization to exceed Mach 1 issued under appendix B of this part. (Approved by the Office of Management and Budget under control number 2120-0005)

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  9. Eye Candy by Kozz · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Take a look at a photo of a sonic boom.

    And for the record, the Lameness filter sucks.

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  10. Why dawdle at Mach 1 when you can have Mach 3? by jmichaelg · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Airplanes spend most of their power just pushing air out of the way - their drag rises as the cube of their airspeed. An alternative to trying to push faster through air is to build an evacuated tube between New York and Los Angeles. Put in a superconducting maglev train similar to what the Japanese have and let her rip. Since the tube's evacuated, you're not moving air out of the way so the majority of the fuel is used for acceleration and deceleration - the train coasts for most of the trip.

    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.