SST. What happened to imagination

[Tim Jodice]

Reading some old books and I found this one. 

It always amazes me how adventurous people were 50-60 years ago. Everything can be done it seemed.

At the time it looks like it was assumed that with enough time everyone would be flying on supersonic airliners.

Hypersonic by the 90s? NY to Hong Kong in two hours! Imagine that. 

Those of you that have had a flight or two on the Concorde what was it like? 

Two scenarios. If given the choice would you pay a premium to cut your flight time? Would you pay the same for either a cubicle like space with a bed for 18 hours or a typical business class seat for 6 hours? 

 

 

[Hank]

Lawyers with 33-50% "commission".happened . . . .

[Danb]

Yes yes no

[MooneyMitch]

Supersonic passenger flight will return....... one company at least is on the edge of producing.....see boomsupersonic.com  

[jaylw314]

1 hour ago, Hank said:

Lawyers with 33-50% "commission".happened . . . .

It was less lawyers than flat out economics. 

Back then, the 1%'ers and 0.1%'ers were just not wealthy enough to build an industry that feeds off them.  The rest of the population might be able to afford a flight on the Concorde once in their life if they tried really hard.

Nowadays, who knows?  The dream has been replaced by commercial passenger space flight for the 0.01%'ers.  You can pretty much bet the average person will not be able to afford it in 10 lifetimes.

[EricJ]

Nobody was able to make the business model work, despite having a few decades to try it.    These days even the large, super-seat-efficient and relatively fast airliners, e.g., 747, A380, can't make bank.   We're in the middle of a life-changing, policy-changing, and potentially global-economy changing event and who knows what the air transport industry will look like on the other side of it.

I doubt it'll be supersonic airliners, though.

 

[carusoam]

In the 90s...

Corporate travel paid for a few people to travel on the Concorde... I  was soooo...close.   

The economic advantage was not staying a day in the hotel, and being exhausted by the travel...

The model must have been near workable... it took the combination of the DC10 followed by the Concorde (next on the runway) to make the statistics become unworkable...

DC10s engines shed parts on departure... Concorde’s Tires were allergic to engine parts...

 

Corporate travel affords many things that ordinary people don’t... 

Sonic Booms haven’t been conquered yet, or have they?

The Concorde was good from NYC to Paris... because they could be over the ocean during the transitions...

Find your individual wild goose (everybody should have one).... and chase it as far as you can...  

PP thoughts only, not an economist of flight....

Best regards,

-a-

[flyboy0681]

Having lived in two places where the shuttle landed, in CA and FLA, the sonic boom is a real problem. I couldn't imagine having them go on all day long with SST's flying over land. But like most people stated here, the economics just don't make sense and the Concorde proved that for a few decades.

[Hector]

Economists!! Even at $3-4K per ticket the Concord lost money on every single flight.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[N201MKTurbo]

11 minutes ago, Hector said:

Economists!! Even at $3-4K per ticket the Concord lost money on every single flight.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

I just looked and at the end a one way ticket was $6K

I have a friend who flew it once. He worked for the airlines and some how managed to get it for free. I think he won it in a contest.

[steingar]

The technology wasn't there when it was tried.  Big sonic booms, and the flights were never economical.  Concorde mostly lost money, it was a prestige thing for them to keep them flying.  I think we could do it now with advances in materials and engine technology, but the social engineering is against it.  You can't make money with one of these things unless you can fly supersonic over populated areas.  The laws were written long ago, and someone will have to change them before anyone will build the next generation SST.  But someone is going to have to build the next generation SST before anyone will change the laws.  Chicken and egg sort've thing.

[Tim Jodice]

55 minutes ago, steingar said:

The technology wasn't there when it was tried.  Big sonic booms, and the flights were never economical.  Concorde mostly lost money, it was a prestige thing for them to keep them flying.  I think we could do it now with advances in materials and engine technology, but the social engineering is against it.  You can't make money with one of these things unless you can fly supersonic over populated areas.  The laws were written long ago, and someone will have to change them before anyone will build the next generation SST.  But someone is going to have to build the next generation SST before anyone will change the laws.  Chicken and egg sort've thing.

I doubt that supersonic flight over land will ever be approved. I think most long flights that would make the speed worth while are over water. 

ETOPS seems to be very important in today's twins and that would make me think that there are alot of over water flights that already exist. 

[aviatoreb]

When I was a kid - I used to dream of intercontinental missile rides - shoot into space.  No sonic boom.

[carusoam]

12 hours ago, aviatoreb said:

When I was a kid - I used to dream of intercontinental missile rides - shoot into space.  No sonic boom.

Did you go to the same school with those other kids... Musk, Bezos, and Branson?

Those days seem to be getting closer...

Best regards,

-a-

[aviatoreb]

6 minutes ago, carusoam said:

Did you go to the same school with those other kids... Musk, Bezos, and Branson?

Those days seem to be getting closer...

I sure hope so!  

[cliffy]

Pollution? From an Airplane?  I guess you never saw an old DC-8 in the 60s coming down the slot into LAX leaving behind a trail of black you could walk on or watch as one departed to west at sunset?  They looked like they were burning coal!

For the first time in my 55 year career there really was a pilot shortage - until 3 months ago!

There will be a LOT of pilots walking the street again for a long time to come. Kind of like after the Viet Nam war. 

All the aviation dreamers were from a time far away in the past. All the passenger jets now push along at .7 to ,9 MACH so the only real dreaming to do in that regard is to go supersonic and that is a long way off now (with 90% of the worlds air fleet grounded and many airlines dumping even relatively new airplanes). The AB 380 is dead horse now and there was even a 12 year old A320 put to scrap a couple weeks ago. 757s 767s 747s A340s seem to be going to the grave yard from the major airlines. 

The dreaming now is how to be in the airline business 24 months from now. 

Edited May 12, 2020 by cliffy

[cliffy]

Yes even with a later single axial design burner can (rather than multiple "cans" ) they laid a trail until a new design can changed airflow and combustion process inside the engine. Fan bypass also contributed. 

In those days speed was everything. Gas was cheap and bragging rights prevailed. Think Convair 880 and 990 for speed. 

Bonus point question- What did the numbers 880 and 990 stand for?

(Sarcasm font on)   Terrestrial generation of electricity leaves no foot print and is Green technology at its best"   (font off)

[EricJ]

Evidently the smokey takeoffs in the old turbojets and many early fanjets were often due to water injection, which allowed a lot more fuel to be dumped in.

Edited May 12, 2020 by EricJ

[cliffy]

Well sort of.   They both stood for speed. On the 880 it was feet per second and the 990 was some other similar measurement 

BTW, the 990 did have a bypass fan design only it used an aft fan behind the complete engine complex, I believe it was a derivative of the engine in an F-104.

The 880 was straight turbojet just like in all the early jet airliners. Fans went from 30% bypass to upwards of 80% today. 

Noise was/is another issue. If you've ever heard an old 20 series Lear take off you'll know what I mean, Straight turbojets turn dinosaurs into noise!

 

[MooneyMitch]

Supersonic flight returns.............................very positive and very exciting article!

https://aviationweek.com/aerospace/aircraft-propulsion/booms-supersonic-xb-1-demonstrator-plots-course-overture

[steingar]

On 5/11/2020 at 10:51 AM, aviatoreb said:

When I was a kid - I used to dream of intercontinental missile rides - shoot into space.  No sonic boom.

Not how you do it, missiles suck at distance, way way more fuel to do the trip than could ever be economical.  Scramjet technology was invented here in the US, it would be the propulsion of choice for a space plane.  Skim the atmosphere going hypersonic.  But if we can't build a supersonic airliner we certainly can't build a hypersonic one.

 

[Hank]

59 minutes ago, steingar said:

. . . But if we can't build a supersonic airliner . . . .

Oh, we can BUILD one, we just can't figure out how to FLY one . . . . . .    

[aviatoreb]

1 hour ago, steingar said:

Not how you do it, missiles suck at distance, way way more fuel to do the trip than could ever be economical.  Scramjet technology was invented here in the US, it would be the propulsion of choice for a space plane.  Skim the atmosphere going hypersonic.  But if we can't build a supersonic airliner we certainly can't build a hypersonic one.

 

OK - hypersonic is cool too.  I admit.  27 times the speed of sound.  I could deal with that.

[cliffy]

One of the best aviation quotes ever was on the first flight of the space shuttle on the return John Young was flying and giving a running commentary of its handling and said,  "flies nice here around MACH 25 !!!!

I always thought it would be kind of "Mr. Cool" to walk into a interview for a flying job after retiring off the Concord and when asked how much flying time one had to respond with-  with--- wait for it------

OH not too much only about 12,000 hrs --------------------------------    ABOVE the speed of sound!!!!!!!!!!

[MooneyMitch]

https://www.airlineratings.com/news/boom-supersonic-jet-readies-rollout/

Boom XB-1 set to roll out in October..................