[Misty_miss]

It seems weird that in 2012, we do not have a supersonic commercial airliner to travel round the world in. So I was thinking, since Concorde was retired from service in 2003, do you think it will ever return? If not, do you think there will ever be another supersonic airliner?

England to the USA in 3 hours must've been awesome.

[Kage]

(Original post by Misty_miss)
It seems weird that in 2012, we do not have a supersonic commercial airliner to travel round the world in. So I was thinking, since Concorde was retired from service in 2003, do you think it will ever return? If not, do you think there will ever be another supersonic airliner?

England to the USA in 3 hours must've been awesome.

I do think their will be, but not yet.

If I'm not mistaken, they are designing or have designed a plane capable of supersonic flight without that bang, since the Concorde could never reach supersonic flight over land due to the sound.

[Schleigg]

Too expensive and not enough custom. Especially in this economy. If you could go to more places than London - JFK then maybe. But the cost of getting the aircraft serviceable would be humungous in itself! Then there's the training burden and getting over the PR of the Air France disaster!

[janet9]

There are some full length documentaries on YouTube about Concorde and the last few flights, why they got shut down in the first place (expense, mainly). I watched them once when I was bored out of my mind. Check them out, you might find what you're looking for.

This, however, might make your jaw drop.


We'd be living in a total Futurama world! And it's possible!

[dean01234]

I hope so, like you say it would be awesome to get to america in 3 hours. Its one of the only examples of technology going backwards, but all that said I think that I am still going to hold out for light speed travel

[zippyRN]

right

the only thing stopping concorde from flying at present is the fact that Airbus have retired it's support as design authority and refuses to sell the design authority rights, even if you could find a suitable buyer for the design rights ( which would have to be either a military aircraft builder, someone like QinetiQ or NASA or at the very outside Marshalls)

London to New york in three hours was important before video conferencing etc and when telephone calls across oceans cost silly money had had to booked in advance ...

while it cut down the flight time it still has the same land end time issues as conventional airliners ... where with ETOPS you have routes like the 'new Speedbird 001 -004 that fly A318s frome London city, vis a refuelling + clearing US customs stop in Shannon RoI to JFK saving the travel time out to LHR or LGW

[Foghorn Leghorn]

(Original post by janet9)
There are some full length documentaries on YouTube about Concorde and the last few flights, why they got shut down in the first place (expense, mainly). I watched them once when I was bored out of my mind. Check them out, you might find what you're looking for.

This, however, might make your jaw drop.


We'd be living in a total Futurama world! And it's possible!

That's ****ing epic!

[arnoob]

(Original post by janet9)
There are some full length documentaries on YouTube about Concorde and the last few flights, why they got shut down in the first place (expense, mainly). I watched them once when I was bored out of my mind. Check them out, you might find what you're looking for.

This, however, might make your jaw drop.


We'd be living in a total Futurama world! And it's possible!

I hope that something like this will be developed in my lifetime

[joey11223]

(Original post by Foghorn Leghorn)
That's ****ing epic!

Can you imagine if the mechanism to slow the tube when it approaches it's destination malfunctioned though....flying out the end at 6,500km/hr...not good.

....also thinking about it this whole thing works via a vacuum. So if they're building tons of this pipeline throughout countries..and seemingly the idea would be to extent this across the ocean (ocean bottom?), one tiny hairline crack in a part of the tube would have a totally devastating effect on the entire structure?

[Foghorn Leghorn]

(Original post by joey11223)
Can you imagine if the mechanism to slow the tube when it approaches it's destination malfunctioned though....flying out the end at 6,500km/hr...not good.

....also thinking about it this whole thing works via a vacuum. So if they're building tons of this pipeline throughout countries..and seemingly the idea would be to extent this across the ocean (ocean bottom?), one tiny hairline crack in a part of the tube would have a totally devastating effect on the entire structure?

What a way to go but eh!

[Megaross]

Yes but funnily enough R&D on supersonic jets isn't overnight.
Theres actually an array of different jets being designed as we speak.

[zippyRN]

(Original post by Megaross)
Yes but funnily enough R&D on supersonic jets isn't overnight.
Theres actually an array of different jets being designed as we speak.

cost per seat is the big factor -

how much of a premium would you pay to fly the supersonic aircraft over the price you pay for business class on a conventional airliner flying from a major airport bearing in mind you are still going to have to drive / train / cab to the major airport ? and would this premium still be worth it if you had to travel to Gatwick or Heathrow, when you could get a conventional flight from Manchester ...


(London centric) how much more would you pay to fly the supersonic aircraft from a major airport over what you pay to roll out of your office in The City and jump on the DLR or walk across to LCA from Canary Wharf to get on the BA001- 004 A318 which is all business class ...

[Silver Arrow]

(Original post by Kage)
I do think their will be, but not yet.

If I'm not mistaken, they are designing or have designed a plane capable of supersonic flight without that bang, since the Concorde could never reach supersonic flight over land due to the sound.

That bang is called a sonic boom and it happens when you travel faster than the speed of sound. There's no way of designing a plane that isn't affected by it.
Concorde was retired due to the high cost of maintenance and lack of public interest. Economy seats are where airlines make the money, not business or first class.

[Kage]

(Original post by Silver Arrow)
That bang is called a sonic boom and it happens when you travel faster than the speed of sound. There's no way of designing a plane that isn't affected by it.
Concorde was retired due to the high cost of maintenance and lack of public interest. Economy seats are where airlines make the money, not business or first class.

I know that, but look at this:

http://www.nasa.gov/connect/chat/sonic_boom_chat.html

Not where I first saw it, but its indeed possible to make the sonic boom a lot quieter than it was on the Concorde. Though, as mentioned in the article, the concorde is much larger than a missle or similar smaller craft.

As for that vacume tube idea, I saw that myself just now on Sourcefed haha.
On that note though, I guess you could same the same for stopping rollercoasters. If those copper fins don't come back up after they are let down, they could also hit a wall

[theronkinator]

(Original post by Schleigg)
If you could go to more places than London - JFK then maybe.

It used to come to Leeds Bradford Airport pretty often. I lived in the flight path and for some reason Concorde used to fly way lower than any other plane. I used to love seeing it fly over my house as a kid.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79LE4ty_gkM

[thefish_uk]

(Original post by joey11223)
Can you imagine if the mechanism to slow the tube when it approaches it's destination malfunctioned though....flying out the end at 6,500km/hr...not good.

....also thinking about it this whole thing works via a vacuum. So if they're building tons of this pipeline throughout countries..and seemingly the idea would be to extent this across the ocean (ocean bottom?), one tiny hairline crack in a part of the tube would have a totally devastating effect on the entire structure?

I'd be more worried about the maglev losing power and the pod crashing into one wall or other of the tube. If a pod did stop in a tube for some reason, how would you ensure the one behind doesn't go into the back of it? If the pods take only 6 people at a time you're going to end up with many, many pods in the system at once and I find it difficult to believe that one pod would have sufficient stopping distance with the one in front (think 2 second rule on the motorway). You could make the pods carry more people but this would probably involve making them longer which places more constraints on the way the tube is built.

I don't think they'd put it across the bottom of the ocean - too bumpy! Maybe they would instead suspend it at constant depth from some buoys. They would need to ensure that there are regular gates in the under-sea section so that if there is a leak it doesn't trash the whole system by filling it with water.

I think that this system would require a hell of a lot of time and money to develop to a point where people are going to think it's safe - it's just so different from anything else we've ever built!

[Drewski]

There are some bizjets on the drawing boards that would fly supersonically, but whether they'll ever fly is another matter. zippyRN has covered all the important points.

Fact is, beyond the public "oooooh" factor, there's just zero demand for such an aircraft. In 1969 2 aircraft were flying for the first time. One of them changed passenger aviation entirely, the other was a commercial flop.

They were the B-747 and Concorde. The masses want to fly long distances for no money and will put up with it taking a few hours longer if it's £3,000 cheaper.



Could it ever return to flying/service? In theory yes. In reality; no way.

[Megaross]

(Original post by zippyRN)
cost per seat is the big factor -

how much of a premium would you pay to fly the supersonic aircraft over the price you pay for business class on a conventional airliner flying from a major airport bearing in mind you are still going to have to drive / train / cab to the major airport ? and would this premium still be worth it if you had to travel to Gatwick or Heathrow, when you could get a conventional flight from Manchester ...


(London centric) how much more would you pay to fly the supersonic aircraft from a major airport over what you pay to roll out of your office in The City and jump on the DLR or walk across to LCA from Canary Wharf to get on the BA001- 004 A318 which is all business class ...

Dude I don't know, I'm a 20 year old business student do you really think I've ever flown business class?
And to be fair I don't know about London, I go there for gigs and leave for fresh air and non stabby surroundings as soon as I can.

You can't ask me to put together a business model on a whim for an aircraft which I do not know a great deal about, nor was I implying I would. All I know is there are supersonic jets in the works because I've read articles about them.
Even if they are a poor business venture in terms of money they'll be an engineering marvel.

[Silver Arrow]

(Original post by Kage)
I know that, but look at this:

http://www.nasa.gov/connect/chat/sonic_boom_chat.html

Not where I first saw it, but its indeed possible to make the sonic boom a lot quieter than it was on the Concorde. Though, as mentioned in the article, the concorde is much larger than a missle or similar smaller craft.

As for that vacume tube idea, I saw that myself just now on Sourcefed haha.
On that note though, I guess you could same the same for stopping rollercoasters. If those copper fins don't come back up after they are let down, they could also hit a wall

All that stuff is theoretical and still in testing plus how likely will NASA be to just lend it out to civilian airliners? The bigger a plane is, the bigger the sonic boom it will produce. That's OK for jet fighters which aren't that large but not commercial airliners that will be carrying a few hundred people.
Who knows, maybe a company will one day develop a supersonic private jet for the ultra mega rich to travel in but for commercial flight? I don't think so. It will be a long time before supersonic flight is introduced to the public if at all.

[Alex17595]

(Original post by janet9)
There are some full length documentaries on YouTube about Concorde and the last few flights, why they got shut down in the first place (expense, mainly). I watched them once when I was bored out of my mind. Check them out, you might find what you're looking for.

This, however, might make your jaw drop.


We'd be living in a total Futurama world! And it's possible!

Futurama world?!
My Geography teacher was on about tubes that use suction to get you around places