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Son of Concorde

Posted by michael on from the faster-than-a-speeding-bullet dept.

targo writes "BBC reports that EADS is considering a new generation hypersonic commercial aircraft. "Son of Concorde" would be twice as fast, carry twice as many passengers while being much quieter than its predecessor. It would get from Tokyo to Paris in just two hours, US destinations are not mentioned. However, as Japan's failure last summer suggests, it might not happen too easily."

3 of 388 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Wait a second... by Lordofohio · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Yes, if everything else is equal it should burn more fuel, although I'm not sure how much more. The problem with flying faster than the speed of sound is that there is a huge increase in drag (and therefore the thrust required to overcome it) right around Mach 1. Above Mach 1 the drag doesn't increase as rapidly, but it does continue to go up.

    Until very recently every plane that flew above Mach 1 had to do it while on afterburners, but I believe the new F-22 Raptor can fly at "super cruise" which is some method of breaking the sound barrier without afterburners, which saves a huge amount of fuel. Last I checked the technology behind that was still secret.

    I question whether this proposed airplane will actually fly in the hypersonic region, since to an engineer that means Mach 5 or above. If it can actually make the Tokyo-Paris flight in 2 hours, you could spend a day in Tokyo, fly to Paris, get a night's sleep and live the day all over again in the land of love!

  2. Re:Economics? by Pig+Hogger · · Score: 5, Interesting
    As long as air resistance scales super-linearly with velocity, getting there faster will always prove less economical than travelling at a more sedate speed.

    Er, no. Concorde flew above 60,000 feet, where air resistance is much less than the customary 35,000 feet. Concorde was just as a fuel-efficient cruiser as subsonic planes; trouble is, it sucked 25% of it's fuel on take-off...

  3. Supersonic biz-jets more realistic by meldroc · · Score: 5, Interesting

    By going with a smaller aircraft, Learjet sized, you can reduce design and manufacturing costs. That and you can target the filthy-rich-let's-buy-a-trip-on-a-Soyuz-for-fun market instead of the save-bucks-at-all-costs airline market.

    Once a few supersonic bizjets are on the market, it would be easier to scale the designs up to airliner sizes.

    --

    Meldroc, Waster of Electrons