[Closed] Anyone know anything about fast (civil) aircraft?

God knows. I'd love to be part of a project like that tough!

Me too.

FiL is a former Concorde pilot and still involved in aviation. He's pretty convinced supersonic travel is coming back. Have a look at [url= http://www.reactionengines.co.uk/lapcat.html ]lapcat a2[/url]. 4 hours to Australia

Can't believe only 3 of us find it interesting...

Not a chance in hell for anything other than business jet or a niche aircraft for the very rich. The fuel costs of supersonic travel are prohibitive for airlines. The majority of an airlines cost base is fuel so unless get can charge a ticket price to make it work it won't happen, and at the ticket prices you'd have to charge you're looking at a very small market. The original Concorde only made money because they got the aircraft for nothing and they targeted very wealthy people prepared to pay the ticket price.

All the reasons why supersonic travel didn't take off before are all still there.

I've not looked at the details, but just looking at that title page they seem to claim "anyone can afford to fly", and a little further down £2500 each way for a flight from London to New York. They either have a different definition of "anyone" or a different definition of "afford" to me.

I reckon you've got as much chance of flying in a pig.

Fuel consumption will still be astronomical, which means expensive, seems they're saying $5000 a ticket, making it comparable to business class. So basically it's the same price as Concorde was. It'll suffer all the same drawbacks (no supersonic flight over land, aforementioned exorbitant running costs). Big meh from me.

Even if you could do it you'd have to ask whether we should really do something which will produce so much co2 per mile.

But I don't believe it could be viable unless it was just to move a few billionaires about

I like the look of that plane but I doubt I can afford the ticket.

Yes, why not? I think there is a market for it so long as they can keep the cost down.

But they won't be able to.

They've gone for 45 seats. Concorde used to fill 60 of 100ish. So the numbers might stack - or might not

njee20 - Member
But they won't be able to.

They've gone for 45 seats. Concorde used to fill 60 of 100ish. So the numbers might stack - or might not

I stand by my 'no chance'. I don't believe air is less dense than when Concorde flew. I'll concede some advancements in composites and engines (although nowt fundamentally different, you'll still need some f-off afterburners to get you to Mach 2.45) which will mean a marginal gain in efficiency, but that's a tiny plane, so the running cost per seat will be huge.

Vanity project only.

The numbers can always stack up on paper - it just depends upon ticket price. The market for conventional business jets is booming and stronger than ever with demand for new aircraft so high the manufacturers can't build them quickly enough. But that doesn't mean it will get built - it's still a paper aircraft and they have to find the $100bn dollars or so that would be required to bring the thing to market. There are a number of ventures looking at supersonic business jets and have been for the last 5 years or so, but none are any closer to being launched.

But who is the aircraft aimed at? Normal business jet users? If so then the reason rich people buy bus jets is for convenience so they can fly into the most convenient airports. A supersonic plane will have higher take off and landing speeds due to the delta wing, so will need longer runways, so that will severely limit the number of local and regional airports they can operate from, so might not be particularly attractive for the traditional business jet customers.

Is it aimed at niche airlines? They have the problem of runways too which might limit them to the business and bigger airports with high landing fees and will not be liked by airports who like high volumes of passengers to spend lots of money in the airport terminals shops, bars and restaurants. And unless they can get over the issue of sonic booms over land then that will also limit the appeal of the aircraft - no good being able to fly fast if you have to divert hundreds of miles to avoid overflying built up areas and cities.

It's an interesting technical project, but I can't get too excited because if anything like this does see the light of day it will be aimed at the top 5% of air travellers, so I can't imagine normal punters like us will get a chance to fly it.

Whatever happened to that fancy jet engine project, the one that went from conventional turbo fan to ram jet all in one unit? (or something like that, supposedly the key to hypersonic planes operating out of normal airports)

It'll suffer all the same drawbacks (no supersonic flight over land, aforementioned exorbitant running costs

It was pointed out to me by someone who could have used Concorde frequently that he had no need to because he was never in that much of a hurry 🙂

Early version of lapcat

[img] [/img]

^
😆

Nah,

Concorde didn't stop because of the accident, or the fuel costs or the Yanks being sniffy at it. I know some people talk 'Concorde moments' as being some dark time when the human race went backawards - we used to be able to get from London to NYC in 3.5 hours and now it takes 7, we went backwards but we didn't really - Concorde was about business people being able to have a meeting in NYC the same day or whatever, but we replaced it with something far faster - the internet.

If they make it work, great for them - but good luck finding enough Beyoncé's and Andrew Lloyd Webbers to pay for it.

Isn't this the design that Branson's ordered the first 10 off of the line? 😆

The original Concorde only made money because they got the aircraft for nothing and they targeted very wealthy people prepared to pay the ticket price.

Can't recall where I read the fact, so dismiss it if you know any better. Concorde only began making a profit during the last few years of its life time when a new CEO was running the show. They asked the passengers what they [i]thought[/i] the ticket was costing, then started to charge accordingly, as most of them were not buying the tickets themselves, so never saw the price.

The original prices, though high, were never enough to cover the cost of running the things.

The market for conventional business jets is booming and stronger than ever with demand for new aircraft so high the manufacturers can't build them quickly enough.

With the kind of fuel usage for that little beauty, even a few dollars on a barrel of oil is going to make a massive dent in the (possible) profit.

And you'd need some major players to start buying them as they'll probably need to fly into some big airports. And the big players have all the slots at Heathrow and JFK where basically this will have to fly to/from.

Shame as it does look mint, but I think the reality is we've moved on from that kind of thing. I'm sure the uber-rich may be salivating at the idea but the runways may be its limitation.

Can't recall where I read the fact, so dismiss it if you know any better. Concorde only began making a profit during the last few years of its life time when a new CEO was running the show.

Yes, you're correct, Concorde was given to BA/AF for nothing. It was always run as a willy waving/ "look at us" exercise, not really for profit unless you count the favourable marketing/kudos element.

Concorde didn't stop because of the accident, or the fuel costs or the Yanks being sniffy at it.

[quote=njee20 ]I'll concede some advancements in composites and engines (although nowt fundamentally different, you'll still need some f-off afterburners to get you to Mach 2.45)

Except of course that Concorde didn't need afterburners at all to reach Mach 2.0 and only used them because it was actually more efficient to accelerate through the transonic region faster by using them.

I suppose the question then is whether they've even matched the performance of the engines in Concorde let alone exceeded them (well strictly speaking I don't think the engines were anything special, but the inlet ducts would probably still be state of the art today).

Why don't they just take a TU-160/B1B Bomber and replace the bomb bays with passenger seating, boom (ironic), you have a supersonic passenger plane?

Here is the simple facts, last week I had a meeting with a developer in Moscow, 2 prospective clients in Switzerland, a few weeks back I was attending some training in Utah while dealing with out Russian Dev and a couple of guys in SE asia on some other stuff along with 3 clients both over 4hrs away. At the end of every day I slept in my own bed.

Some stuff will be better done face to face but it's coming to a minimum. For the rest of us the cost benefit of day tripping UK to Sydney means it's not a decent option yet.

It's not a reason not to keep pushing on but the commercial is when we are in the Star Trek type age not this one.

Actually BA made a fortune out of Concorde, it is a myth it was a loss maker. For sure, getting the aircraft for free off the government was a big help in the overall business case, but even if they bought the aircraft it still would have been a big earner for BA. The reason it was a big earner was that they targeted the very wealthy people prepared to pay more for the exclusivity, kudos and time saving. They also realised that the majority of people who flew it didn't actually buy the tickets themselves - their PA's did or their management team if celebrities, so they canvassed the 'typical' Concorde frequent flyer and asked them how much they would pay for a ticket to fly Concorde. The answer they gave was significantly more than the actual ticket cost so they doubled or more the ticket price overnight. If Concorde was not a financial success then they would not have been investing millions of pounds in upgrading the cabin and installing all the post-crash safety modifications.

Air France were not so successful with Concorde as there was not the high end high spenders traffic demand between JFK and Paris, and they were keen to ditch it and we got a perfect storm of events (mainly political) that lead to the eventual withdrawal of it altogether.

And the WWW was not a step forward, despite better comms business is still fundamentally done face to face - the demand for global air travel is rocketing despite the WWW and instant global comms. People are people at the end of the day and if you're going to sign a multi-million dollar contract with someone you still want to see the whites of their eyes before you put pen to paper - or click on that electronic signature button.

People are people at the end of the day and if you're going to sign a multi-million dollar contract with someone you still want to see the whites of their eyes before you put pen to paper - or click on that electronic signature button.