NASA exploring potential for supersonic passenger jet which could fly from London to New York in 90 minutes
NASA exploring potential for supersonic passenger jet which could fly from London to New York in 90 minutes
NASA's X-59 research jet is designed to travel faster than sound while muffling the resulting sonic boom. The space agency is exploring whether the plane's tech could also apply to future commercial airliners - allowing travellers to cross the Atlantic at speeds greater than 1,500mph.
Pretty sure we already had one of these and it was deemed not economically viable after like 30 years of operating at a loss basically.
It seems to be an attempt to solve one of the two problems with the Concorde - reduce the sound of the sonic boom so that it can fly at supersonic speeds over land and not just water. This would make the planes more economically viable as they can fly more routes. The other problem, though, which is not mentioned in the article, is the absurd amount of fuel the Concorde needed. Still going to be a major issue if they haven’t made these more efficient.
There exists a research paper claiming that a much more fuel efficient plane is possible: https://arc.aiaa.org/doi/10.2514/6.2022-3314
Problem is, it is locked behind a paywall that I cannot circumvent. But even if the paper is only half-true, it still implies a large efficiency gain is possible.
But there is a Lego set of it coming out in a week or so and it is majestic.
I wonder if Concorde would have been more feasible in the pacific with less worry about the disruptions caused by the sonic boom.
Everyone complaining that the Concorde was not viable doesn’t understand what nasa is supposed to do. The reason Concorde wasn’t profitable is because in order to make a supersonic airliner, they had to make trade offs between performance, efficiency, capacity, and things like runway selection and route selection, and those trade offs made it impossible to turn a profit.
NASA does not have a profit motive, it exists outside of the system of profit. It exists to push forward our understanding of aeronautics and space, they’re not in it to make something viable so they can sell it. They think they’ve figured out how to make the sonic booms quieter and they’d like someone from industry to help fund the next round of research, so they do things like business feasibility studies. (they’re not entirely outside the system of profit after all)
But the primary goal here is to study ways to mitigate sonic booms, that’s the big thing
If sonic booms could be reduced to a quieter level, I wonder how it would affect the design and operation of future military aircraft, whether they would feel like they were more free to fly at supersonic speeds over populated areas and whether they would fly supersonic more frequently (this could be doubtful because it would use up more fuel and create more wear on aircraft components, driving up fuel and maintenance costs).
Are fuel and maintenance costs something heavily consider though?
for detection purposes, the sonic boom isn't all that important for military aircraft, which are usually detected by light (either radio or infrared) and most of the time they don't fly over populated areas anyway (and when the do frequently, they usually care about things other than civilian comfort)
tldr maybe but it would probably be like 10th on the list of priorities, it'll make its way in around the edges but not fundamentally change it
Considering the current goal is to fit as many passengers in a single flight, I doubt this new "Concorde" has a wide market except in the luxury category.
ok, but can it land
Well it's not russian so 🤷♂️
What does it run on?
Unicorn dust and glitter apparently
This is not futurology, it's the past, it was called Concord, and wasted loads of fuel and money, we don't need that again.