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Will there be a supersonic passenger jet again?

Not likely unless fuel costs come waaaay down.

Boeing cancelled the sonic cruiser (a faster, but still subsonic airliner) in favor of the more economical 787 because they realized that fuel cost and consumption are what drives the airline market.
 
Originally posted by: Gibsons
Not likely unless fuel costs come waaaay down.

Boeing cancelled the sonic cruiser (a faster, but still subsonic airliner) in favor of the more economical 787 because they realized that fuel cost and consumption are what drives the airline market.
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Pretty much nails it
 
The single biggest drawback of supersonic aircraft is that they can't be flown over land at super sonic speeds (sonic boom), which is what most air travel is. But 500MPH is still fast enough to get pretty much anywhere in the world in a day.
 
Originally posted by: Demon-Xanth
The single biggest drawback of supersonic aircraft is that they can't be flown over land at super sonic speeds (sonic boom), which is what most air travel is. But 500MPH is still fast enough to get pretty much anywhere in the world in a day.
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Yep, I think the noise was the biggest problem.
 
Originally posted by: Demon-Xanth
The single biggest drawback of supersonic aircraft is that they can't be flown over land at super sonic speeds (sonic boom), which is what most air travel is. But 500MPH is still fast enough to get pretty much anywhere in the world in a day.
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Yup. Many complaints about the noise is what caused the concorde to be retired.
Fuel costs shouldn't be an issue as business CEO's and celebrities are unlikely to care much about their airfare costs - time is more important to them.
 
the biggest limitation was the governmental restrictions on the noise. that is why Concorde was limited to transatlatic coast-to-coast flights which was not the original intent.
 
Originally posted by: virtualgames0
Yup. Many complaints about the noise is what caused the concorde to be retired.
Fuel costs should be an issue as business CEO's and celebrities are unlikely to care much about their airfare costs - time is more important to them.
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But for CEOs and Celebritys, getting a small buisness jet can save them hours on the ground rather than hours in the air. Plus, thier luggage isn't likely to get lost. 🙂
 
One day I'm sure, it gets easier at high altitude.

Unless ofcourse uploading comes first, then it may never come; no market. 🙂
 
Supersonic Transport vehicles will be needed IF we plan to perform interspace transport, as a vehicle will need to
accelerate to supersonic speeds to gain access to transport transfer stations in low orbit, then return with passengers.

These may not be very big, limited to mabye 20 passengers and crew for sub-orbital short term docking
& personel transfer with glide path return to earth station terminal ports.

I don't see them as a 'shuttle' like vertical launch operation consuming vast amounts of fuels to reach a service orbit,
but more of a 'piggy-back' platform where a mother ship takes off conventionally from a space support operations port,
flies to high speed and altitude and then releases it's corrier craft with an aerospike hypersonic drive engine to
acheive a velocity that will allow it to climb & shortly hesitate in space at the upper terminus of earth's gravity well.
duration without docking would be under 30 minutes in the proximity of a pre-positioned space port station.
Mechanical docking before orbit decay may extend it's linger time to over an hour becore breaking contact and re-entry of the vehicle.

The orbiting station will loose energy from each docking with a transport vehicle and will have to be re-accelerated daily to extend it's orbital capability.
We should be able to place and maintain orbital mechanics in the 350 mile altitude range and reach that position rather easily.

For example: most ICBM missles are flown to reach an altitude of approximately 750 miles before positioning
and release of the RV warhead, and from launchg/boost to final impact takes 25 minutes or less.

The Shuttle itself has effectivley reached it's low orbit position in 9 minutes from launch.

We should be able to use a combination of mother ship to carry a transport vehicle to altitude in less than 20 minutes,
Aerospike thrust to reach 5,000 MPH & inertial coasting to reach nearly 100 miles altitude in another 10 minutes,
then the use of peroxide reactors (or hypergolic engines) to intercept and dock with the station in another 15 minutes or so.

Food for thought - technically we can do this now, (Rutan proved it) but the orbital transfer platforms have to be there first.
 
Man, we suck. That was invented 32 years ago and it's still the fastest commercial plane? 32 YEARS! I just watched "The Island" last night (pretty good movie) and that takes place 13 years from now...and man some of the technology was so cool in that movie like the giant hover train and flying motorcycles, but no way are we going to have that stuff in 13 years. Not even 50
 
DARPA and NASA are working on ways to shape planes to reduce the sonic boom by a fairly large amount...if this research produces a result that can be scaled to large aircraft, it may be possible to get the FAA to reverse the ban on supersonic overflights.
 
Originally posted by: A5
DARPA and NASA are working on ways to shape planes to reduce the sonic boom by a fairly large amount...if this research produces a result that can be scaled to large aircraft, it may be possible to get the FAA to reverse the ban on supersonic overflights.
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They've had some success as well. Text
But it's largely irrelevant given the price of fuel. You could make an absolutely silent SST and it still won't make a profit if it's a gas guzzler like the Concorde.
 
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