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.

Comments

Intercontinental US

[pwnage]

I wonder how they're going to make that time with the current FAA restrictions that do not permit supersonic travel by passenger jets within the continental United States?

Re:Intercontinental US

[photon317]

I have no knowledge about these things, but my Slashdot Wild-Assed Guess is that what would suck about an "over the top shot" route for a passenger aircraft is the risks for the passengers. In any of a number of scenarios flying over open water or over inhabited land, a plane may need to (and be able to) set down hard in the middle of nowhere and still have a decent chance to save the majority of the passengers. Even if the pilot manages to make some kind of controlled descent into arctic waters (or onto arctic ice) and the passengers make it out of the plane on those rubber raft slides, they're stuck in a very unhospitable and very cold environment that will take rescue operations considerably longer to reach.

Insightful???

[Anonymous Coward]

The people who would take a flight like this, at least initially, would be the kinds of people who could be given a special pass to speed through security and baggage check: business executives, financiers, wealthy celebs, politicians (excepting senior senators from Massachusetts), and the like. In a world population of six and a half billion, there's only a few thousand of these people, maybe a couple tens of thousands at most, who would be using this flight as a speedier replacement for private or company jets.

Who the hell modded parent insightful? Did you even read the article? Parent claims only "a couple tens of thousands at most" would use this, yet the article reports a 300 seat aircraft is aimed for. Figure minimum of ten aircraft built (ridiculously low number), that's 3000 seats. Tokyo to New York in six hours; figure one return flight of this distance per aircraft, per day (totally underutilising the aircraft). That's 6000 potential seats per day. Now figure these aircraft are flying 50% empty on every flight (yet again, totally underutilising the aircraft). That's 3000 passengers transported per day.

Every one of these figures has been stacked ridiculously in the parents' favor, and yet still the net result is that with a total market of only "a couple of tens of thousands at most", you'd be relying on every one of your passengers to make just over one flight per week, every week of the year.

With more realistic load figures (say 70%) and more realistic production numbers (figure 32 aircraft minimum, that being exactly twice as many as there were production Concordes built), you'd be carrying 13,440 pax per day - requiring each passenger to take one flight every 36 hours, year-round.

Parent simply doesn't know what they're talking about. There are a LOT more than 20,000 people who would pay the money to fly this, particularly with Asian business expanding, and Asian businessmen wanting to travel to Europe and the US.