Slashdot Mirror
Successful Supersonic Jet Launch
Cave_Monster writes "Japan has hailed the test of a supersonic jet in South Australia's outback as a success. Unlike the attempt in 2002, this test saw the jet launch successfully from Woomera, South Australia." From the article: "Data gained through the test will be used in joint research by Japan and France towards a next-generation supersonic jet. No budget projections have yet been made for the entire project, which Japanese hope will produce a supersonic passenger jet capable of flying from Tokyo to New York in just under six hours - less than half the current time of a Concorde." We reported on the plan to do this, earlier.
And your slashdot wild ass guess is wrong. Planes aren't designed and maintained like cars where a breakdown could occur at any time forcing you to stop. Commercial jets are basically giant bricks with massive engines attatched. If the engines were to fail there's no gliding down to a nice touchdown at some airfield, they'd basically fall like rocks. Airlines don't rely on finding a runway in time because by the time you found one you'd be long dead. Do planes sometimes divert to an unscheduled landing do to mechanical malfunctions? Well of course, but it's more a matter of not taking an un-necessary risk rather than it actually being risky.
If you want actual evidence we have plenty of flights going over vast oceans all the time and the plane is designed such that multiple engines would have to fail to cause the plane to crash. The riskiest time for any air travel is by far the takeoff and landing and not at all the long cruise phase. Think about all the air disasters of the last 20 years or so. By far they're all takeoff and landings. The one exception I can think of is the metal fatigue incident where a section of the plane came off maybe 7-10 years ago. The other exceptions are terrorism and the military accidentally shooting down a flight.
AccountKiller
"Commercial jets are basically giant bricks with massive engines attatched. If the engines were to fail there's no gliding down to a nice touchdown at some airfield, they'd basically fall like rocks."
Well, not quite.