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.
I think it would be cool to travel Mach 2 on a commercial airliner. But chances are some new type of propultion will come along before this project finishes.
google.slashdot
This is the ultimate dupe...the "Tokyo Express" was conceived in the late 60s, IIRC. The US Gov't offered plane builders a million dollars per mach number in hopes of having a supersonic, near orbital plane get from New York to Tokyo in a few hours. It never got done.
Or as Ben Rich, former head of the Skunk Works, said it wouldn't matter if it was a billion dollars per mach number.
Other than that, hopefully this will continue complementing the work of Airbus.
Unpretentious Sydney reviews by unqualified Sydney reviewers
I wonder how long it would take a hypersonic vehicle then, like an hour and a half?
Liberals call everyone Nazis yet they are the closest thing to it.
"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."
OK. So what's the rush? New York leaving?
... since they grounded the fleet.
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?
Reminder: Apple owns 1/255th of the internet.
Sub orbital hops would be quicker & cooler
Go Away! Not for Sale
The linked article states the jet is designed to fly at mach 2 which is the same as Concorde (albeit with three times as many passengers) so how is it supposed to fly Tokyo > New York in half the time Concorde could do it if it goes the same speed?
If my aging memory serves correct, one of the key issues that killed off America's SST project was potential damage to the Ozone layer. Has this problem been solved, or simply ignored?
"To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
...flying from Tokyo to New York in just under six hours - less than half the current time of a Concorde.
Something's wrong here. Flying from Tokyo to NY on a 747 takes about 12-13 hours. I expect a Concorde would do it in about 6 hours too.
Opus: the Swiss army knife of audio codec
If my aging memory serves correct, one of the key issues that killed off America's SST project was potential damage to the Ozone layer. Has this problem been solved, or simply ignored?
... perhaps one of the more aggressive ideas like the National Aerospace Plane concept of the 1980's.
I'm not certain which SST program you mean (SST just means supersonic transport, and includes the Concorde)
People were worried about ozone damage, but unless it was really catastrophic an environmental concern like that would never stop a major project if there was money to be made, short of a major international treaty.
No, economic and engineering factors killed the NASP and similar projects. It was cold-war thinking that wasn't even doable on a military budget at the time, and is questionable if it's doable now. It certainly had no chance of producing a profitable civilian commercial venture. Sure, NY to Tokyo in 2 hours is great, but not if you have to play 1.5 million for a ticket.
I stole this sig from someone cleverer than me.
With peak oil looming, shouldn't they be researching alternative ways of powering air travel?
Actually, "over the top" flights are the standard procedure for the suggested New York to Tokyo and similar flights. Happens every day.
That Woomera was named after an Aboriginal device to assist spear-throwing?
Wikipedia link
I've always thought it's a very fitting name for the town since it's where most of Australia's missle and rocket launches are done from. Whether it is just co-incidence or not I don't know, but it's quite appropriate.
..im on A SUPERSOOOOOONIC PLANE right now....
...yyooouuu caaAAAANNN TEEELLLLLL Byyyyy theee.....
... dddooopppppleeRRR EFFECT ON mmmmyyy teeexxxxxttttt....
"Derp de derp."
At Mach 10, you're talking a shade over 1 hour, 10 minutes. This assumes that the Australians (the only ones with a working Scramjet) can build a commercial version. If you're having to rely on a conventional ramjet, efficiency drops dramatically above mach 6.
The Americans abandoned the advanced passanger airliner project (which was blended-wing) in the late 90s, and there is no obvious indication that NASA has done much work on waveriders - some, mostly by being beaten to it by a bunch of Scots (and they were amateur rocket enthusiasts at that!) - but really not much. The US military seems to be much more interested in slow-moving ROVs and fully-automated robots, so don't look to them for producing anything worthwhile any time soon.
The Australians have the Scramjet, but nothing to speak of to put it on. The joint efforts by the Russians and the ESA to produce an orbiter seem to be stymied by the religious belief in rockets for everything. What we need is either someone who can get these two groups together (a particle accelerator might overcome the repelling forces) OR a non-aligned group with sufficient financial and intellectual backing to reverse-engineer from existing work a combined solution.
Last one to hypersonic mass transit is a chicken!
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Well, after years of educating the world, giving away our technology to the Orient and producing lawyers (50% of the world's lawyers!) instead of scientists and engineers, we are no longer capable of leading the world in tech innovations. Get used to it: Japan and China will own the major technological innovations and discoveries 25 years from now. All you guys who slept through Physics and ended up with a Liberal Arts degree instead contributed to this situation. Whine if you want, but we are at war with Japan and China (economically) and most USA Citizens can't even understand the issues. It took us 10 years to get to the moon in the 60's, we are estimating 12-14 years to do it today, and I bet it takes longer than that. Japan will be mining the moon for essential minerals before we ever get there again. We don't have anyone in the US capable of develping an SST.
Here's the other thing: If we did develop an SST before Japan, they would not let us land it in Japan. They would hold us up through safety inspections and paperwork, and finally, the only SST allowed to make trips to Tokyo would be the Japanese-sponsered version. If you think the US Patent process is obstructive to innovation and economic progress, you should compare it to Japan's patent system, which is ruinous to all but Japanese businesses.
I would suggest reading, "The Asian Mind Game" by Chin-Ning Chu, but it would be more productive for folks to read a few science and engineering texts and get to work!
"The mind works quicker than you think!"
Supersonic long range air travel SHOULD be the way we are heading, but everyone's so freaking scared of them now because of the concorde crash, which was only fault of that airplane in a miniscule way. Seriously, I don't get what people are so scared of. The thing flew for over 30 years with only one crash that wasn't really its fault (re: debris on the runway flattened a tire which ruptured a fuel tank). Hell, in that time, how many passenger jets have gone down? dozens. And people still fly on those.
Engine tech is what made it so expensive. Above mach 1, turbojets get horridly inefficient and hard to maintain. What we need to do is progress to ramjet technology for the cruise, and turbojets for take off and landing. Rams will get you up to mach 5 if you want to push that far. And the whole thing could be hydrogen powered (required for higher machs and decent efficiency doing it). Mach 3 or 4 would be pretty ideal.
Actually I would prefer to see a "really" cheaper way to travel, for instance I find it regretable that Dirigible are not more investigated.
The Hindenburg crash killed them originally, but people do forget that the Dirigible was actually quite safe, and could probably be safer now (even hydrogen based dirigible) and they need much less infrastructure than planes.
I believe that the state sponsored duopole (Boeing/Airbus) nature of aeroplane manufacturing is a strong factor stiffling innovation there.
As I explain here: http://ideasinprogress.blogspot.com/2005/06/japane sefrench-son-of-concorde-vs.html
the next SST is likely to be a small biz jet from the U.S., Russia, and/or Canada. The Japanese are just putting out cool press releases for their basic research.
>Create a super-duper bigass tunnel made with the best sound insulation money and indentured servitude can buy, make it long enough for the jet to be able to (with the help of high-tech japanese chip technology) accelerate across the sound barrier while in the tunnel
No, that's a really stupid idea. A related and much better idea i have seen proposed would be a mag-lev train tunnel that's drawn to a vacuum. I think they were estimating speeds peaking at about mach 15 for underwater transcontinental travel.
But this brings up another important point. Supersonic flight through air is horribly inefficient when compared to subsonic flight through air (or flight through a vacuum). The fuel and wear&tear costs of supersonic flight are a much larger hurdle than public policy.
in JAXA's home page you can find a video of the launch and some more technical info.
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.
Remember, Tokyo and New York time zones are 14 hours apart.
If you leave New York at noon, the trip would take six hours so the traveller would feel that it was 6pm, but local time would be 8am. You'd be ready to stop working for the day just when your counterparts are ready to get started. The same basic problem happens in the other direction.
You either need some downtime upon arrival in order to adjust (in which case, why hurry up to wait?) or whoever travels will be at a disadvantage.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
Just make another security line devoted to them. They are going to be willing to pay more, probably a lot more, it's no problem to roll dedicated security in to the package. You don't get any harder or easier screening than anyone else, but it's a special section just for passengers on that flight and thus goes much faster.
Or perhaps just better hardware. They have devices now that are essentially CT scanners for screening. They can you and your luggage rather quickly for all sorts of things, including non-metalic items. They can also see through your clothes, hence lots of privacy concerns. Between that and the price they are not really being adopted but again, price isn't a big deal and you could be told that's part of the package. The screener can see a ghosty white hazy image of your naughty bits if they want, but in turn you are screened in about 5 seconds with no need to take anything off, or even put your bag on a scanner.
Airbus is likewise trying to get EU funding for the 350 (which is a 787 clone), but it is illegal per a deal that clinton cut (basically allow Airbus one last gov. funded, but then no more). What is interesting is that Airbus is still getting subsidies even though they (and american gov.) say otherwise. Roughly, we acted tough for the last 5 years, but the EU gov. is still subsidizing it via low-key approachs. But you we are now proclaiming a victory (kind of like Sadaam proclaiming that he won against us).
This is completely wrong. The US and the EU agreed in 1992 (the Trans Atlantic Aerospace Agreement) that launch aid was limited to 33% of hte projects cost, funded at Government borrowing rate + 1% and was capped relative to the manufacturers gross income at any one time. Airbus has simply been using LEGAL funding under that agreement (which was available to all manufacturers on both sides of the Atlantic). Noone has claimed that Airbus hasnt received loans from the EU governments.
On October 6th, 2004 the US withdrew from this agreement but it contains a 12 month termination clause, allowing the EU to offer funding for the A350 program. EADS, the main Airbus shareholder, has already said that it will forgoe launch aid on the A350 and fund it entirely inhouse.
I also once "heard" two f4 phantom going supersonic. I couldnt see them, because they were 9km higher and 25km lateral distance... it still make the windows shake and caused the local police being swamped by people reporting bomb detonations or other stuff they thought the report belonged to.
HI O WISE PRINCE. WHT TOOK U SO DAM LONG?
I fail to see what available seats have to do with whether anyone actually uses the service, though, hopefully, the more seats the cheaper the price. But still, even this doesn't guarantee anything. This is, after all, the age of web conferencing. What is the point anymore of someone traveling halfway around the world just to press the flesh? I hope these folks have done more extensive analyses of potential sales than the poster has. Personally, I see this as more of a boon to tourism than a business service, and that is almost totally dependent on price and service. I do wish them luck, though.
"Is this Winkhorst a nova criminal?" "No just a technical sergeant wanted for interrogation."