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France and Japan Planning New Supersonic Jet
jonerik writes "According to this article from the Associated Press, Japan and France are cooperating on research to produce a supersonic passenger plane that would be able to carry 300 passengers (three times as many as the Concorde) and fly from New York City to Tokyo in a mere six hours. Current plans are for the plane to be able to cruise at mach 2.4 while reducing the noise and high fuel consumption associated with the Concorde during its years of service. Although Japan had previously done extensive research towards building a 250-person mach 1.6 passenger jet, the agreement with France - announced at the annual Paris Air Show on Tuesday - represents a interesting shift in technological alliances given the Japanese aviation industry's longstanding ties to the United States. 'To research closely in this area with the Europeans does represent something new,' said Yoshio Watanabe, an official with The Society of Japanese Aerospace Companies, which is heading the new initiative on the Japanese side."
I thought the problem was the sonic booms, not the engine noise. A little difficult to fly from New York to Tokyo in six hours if you've gotta go around South America, isn't it?
could be in operation by 2015
I'm betting that by 2015 there'll be a technology to make even faster yets which will hold up to 1000 people.
Is it just me, or it really seems that large scale technological advances are going TOO slow?
I mean, I wonder if anyone here actually took the Concorde?
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I know the parent is cliche now, but dang it, I've had many opportunities to fly some of the Mexican airlinelines lately, and it reminds me of the way things used to be. Hot meals. Silverware. The *whole* can of soda. Free booze (yeah, even domestic flights). Pillows. Blankets. Little doily-things on the headrest so the previous passenger's grease wouldn't infect your head. In flight magazine (yeah, in English). Enough legroom for my 6'2" body. And all of this in tourist class. And you know, on my last flight, I bought the tickets a couple of days in advance, and it was the same price as when I'd checked them a month in advance.
And just to show that I'm still a little sexist, latina stewardesses of the highest calibre.
--Jim (me)
Still:
If it's fast and fuel/cost/environmentally efficient, I say bring it on. It'll probably be a lot easier to implement than suborbital flight.
Yes and no. "Innovation" is a bit of a silly word in the engineering world. Engineering is mostly about "evolution" not "revolution". Occasionally, you see something like the SR-71, which break every existing mold, but such designs are few and far between. Consider something like the Boeing 787. It's claim to fame is a 20% increase in efficiency. To an aerospace engineer, that's huge. They'd trade their first-born for a 10% decrease in specific fuel consumption. To hit that 20%, a lot of innovations had to go into the design. But consider the big picture: is the 787, as a whole, really innovative? Not really.
Japan's aerospace industry in particular is very interested in technologies that even lay-people would see as "revolutionary". For example, if you research the field of hypersonic planes, a lot of that work is being done in Japan. In the United States, the focus is a bit different. Things have become not so much about "faster and higher", but "better, more efficient, and cheaper". Both are innovative in a way, but the former is more "sexy".
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
The reason for that is noise. There has been research recently that suggests that the shape of the aircraft can be used to reduce the boom, possibly to a point where the FAA would relent.
I'm sure it's for both reasons; a big deal was made of Japan's growing skill and interest in building their own large aircraft parts during the '90s.
Boeing executives were little bit wary about outsourcing so much of the 777's fine machine work and wing structural work to Japanese firms - partially because they knew Japan would one day be ready to build large aircraft on their own.
Japanese firms have learned a lot about how to build an aircraft from us over the past ten or so years, and now they're shifting toward working with the French, who have experience in the specific type of comercial travel they're interested in building for.
That sounds like an awful little money for such a project. I'm really not sure if they actually are planning to build working planes.
On the other hand, this makes some sense. The French not only participated in Concorde, but have been making supersonic fighter jets for a long time. It appears France is only country who can still build supersonic jets with 100% ingenious technology. And it's a major member of the European consortium (Airbus).
There have long been a frustration in the Japanese aerospace industry that the Americans banned them from pursuing cutting edge aerospace technology after the WWII. It is a commonly held view that the US didn't want Japan to acquire know-how in that area so that she can independently develop and compete in the military aircraft field. (Mitsubishi, Kawasaki, and Subaru used to make airplanes. Look where they went.) So, the US kept supplying technology to Japan while not allowing ingenious know-how to accumulate.
A famous incidence was when the Japanese were planning a new fighter/attack plane. Those in the uniform wanted to go ingenious design (they always want to go domestic even when the equipment is prohibitively expensive), but because of the pressure from the States, it became a joint project between Japan and the US based on F-16 design. The result Mitsubishi F-2 is mediocre at best.
I would imagine there is a genuine fear that aerospace industry gets monopolised by Americans in the near future among other countries. So, a supersonic passenger plane appears to be a good excusable exercise to develop and accumulate the technology, especially when Americans are not seriously doing it.
Suggests - a heavily modified F-4 Phantom on loan from the USAF proved that a noise cancelling shape was feasible. However, that design is a long way from commercial production.
OK, admittedly I Am an Aerospace Engineer (IAAE?).
Considering the big picture, the 787 *is*, as a whole, really innovative. Yes, really. Never before has a large civilian airplane been made with the technology that Boeing will be using to make the 787s: namely large integrated primary structures made from composite materials (not metals). Fuselage. Wing structures. Emppenage. Other secondary structures. Airbus is skeptical (publically) that Boeing, or anyone, can even make big planes that way. Mind you, 90% of that is politics and typical blustering of the chief competitor, but Airbus has never considered (again, publically) using composites to that extent.
General aviation doesn't count due to the size of the aircraft, low production numbers, the types of materials, and decidely low-tech manufacturing methods.
Regardless, your point is valid though. While I'd consider the 787 innovative, it's evolutionary and not revolutionary. For revolutionary, sadly, you need to look to the military programs -- or Burt Ratan (google Scaled Composites).
I disagree. The Internet and VoIP have increased the need to see people face to face. The reason's simple: these technologies accelerate the pace of business and other things that require flying. And while you can conduct business (and entertainment, and even leisure, to a certain extent) remotely, it's much to your advantage to see people face-to-face. That's why, incidentally, central business districts have little to fear from cheaper office rents in suburbia and farmland.
Remember how computing and the internet were supposed to herald the "paperless office"? Remember how demand for paper products instead exploded in the '90s? It's the same thing.
...on this thing in 2015? What will fuel prices be then? Look at the general state of the airline industry now, then general planetary fuel demands and projected demands. Just china alone is planning on adding 2000 airliners, and over 200 million cars during this upcoming decade, and no telling how many more ships. That's just one nation. *It's the fuel* that needs to be addressed and to have some advanced R&D, they already know how to build supersonic airplanes, most first and second world nations already own bunches of them. You civvie them up, supersize, done, an airliner.
They may build this thing but it will be beyond even "ludicrous speed" Concorde ticket prices is my best guess on it.
Dan Goldin killed the son of SST program at NASA when Boeing declined to build one. There were three outstanding problems.
1. Sonic Boom severely restricts the number of feasible routes. Even with the most boom friendly design, the plane has to fly less than Mach 1.4 to avoid serious overpressures on land.
2. A supersonic aircraft needs to fly at around 50,000 feet where it outputs gases which severely deplete the ozone layer. It puts harmful exhaust gases exactly where they do the most damage. This environmental problem has not been solved.
3. When the son of SST program was killed, profitable airlines were running $0.07 to $0.10 per seat/mile. At son of SST never came close to this. With the increase in the price of fuel (and lower labor and finance costs), the economic disadvantages to Mach 2+ would be even more dramatic.
"I know the parent is cliche now, but dang it, I've had many opportunities to fly some of the Mexican airlinelines lately, and it reminds me of the way things used to be. Hot meals. Silverware. The *whole* can of soda. Free booze (yeah, even domestic flights). Pillows. Blankets. Little doily-things on the headrest so the previous passenger's grease wouldn't infect your head. In flight magazine (yeah, in English). Enough legroom for my 6'2" body. And all of this in tourist class. And you know, on my last flight, I bought the tickets a couple of days in advance, and it was the same price as when I'd checked them a month in advance.
And just to show that I'm still a little sexist, latina stewardesses of the highest calibre."
You didn't get any of that for free. You paid for it in the price of your ticket. Air travel is *significantly* cheaper today than it was even 10-15 years ago. Why? Because discount carriers who dropped "luxuries" for lower fares started to take over the market. Market pressure forced the major carriers to drop the amenities as well.
"And you know, on my last flight, I bought the tickets a couple of days in advance, and it was the same price as when I'd checked them a month in advance."
This is stupid. When you book late, you *should* pay more. Why? Because allowing everyone to book at the last minute adds uncertainty and increases costs. When the flights are booked months in advance, the carrier can select which airplane to use (777-200 or A319, for example) and otherwise juggle the schedule to ensure that airplanes operate *full*.
This is one of the huge differences from the 70s - airplanes are "overbooked" or "underbooked" far less often. Requiring you to book far in advance allows the carrier to ensure that airplanes will leave at capacity. In the long run, that translates to lower ticket prices.
Moreover, charging higher prices for later booking allows business travelers (who often book days or even hours in advance, and who don't care about cost) to subsidise my ticket.
Face facts: air travel has reached the point where it is nothing more than a fast bus service. No frills, just cram an airplane full of people and get them to their destination 5 hours later. The seats are cramped, the bathrooms are tiny, and the airplane is noisy - but if if saves me money on my ticket, I'm all for it.
Oh, and if the sparse accomidations bug you, there's always First Class.
It's NOT a law of physics that an object moving through a fluid faster than the speed of sound must generate a shock wave. The Navier-Stokes do have solutions at supersonic speed that do not involve a discontinuity in pressure (shock wave).
A supersonic bullet not generating a sonic boom was designed in the 60s so if a sniper misses the target on the first attempt the target will not get a warning (the noise of a bullet is supersonic boom. Muzzle noise is far away and supposedly masked by a silencer). The bullet has a cylindrical shape with completely straight outer edge and internally it has a carefully designed inlet coupled to a carefully designed expansion nozzle.
It doesn't generate any aerodynamic lift. Generating lift would require breaking the symmetry and that, of course, would break the careful arrangement that eliminates the shockwave. An airplane must generate lift and there it would seem that this effect cannot be used. However, an airplane also has an engine. If the engine's energy is added to the equasions there can be solutions that generate lift and still have no pressure discontinuities. These mathematical solutions are proven to exist, but haven't been found, yet. If they are found, there is no guarantee that thay can be made into a practical airplane - but there's NO law of physics saying it's impossible!
Note that the shockwave CAN be reduced by orders of magnitude by careful design down to the point where it's probably not a problem. Here I am talking about totally eliminating it in the mathematical sense.
Stop worrying about the risks of nuclear power and start worrying about the risks of not using nuclear power.
Yeah, but the Mexican airline prices are competetive. I have my option of many of the US-based carriers, too. So the fact is, you PAY for those services on US carriers, too, you just don't GET them. And for the US carriers, I'm not talking the 80's and early 90's; I'm only going to pre-9/11. It was a big excuse to cut all of the service without cutting all of the fares.
Hey, I'm cheap, too. I won't pay for first class when I can get good treatment in tourist class. Hell, even BEFORE 9/11 I wouldn't touch Southwest with a 10-foot pole -- the Greyhound Bus of the skies. Unfortunately everyone else is become Greyhound too. And yeah, I understand the market considerations. Cheapies -- like me -- take the lower-priced tickets. Some people take the absolutely lowest prices they can find.
So, it's Aeromexico or Aerocalifornia or Aviacsa whenever I can get away with it.
--Jim (me)