The skies of Oklahoma City roared for six months in 1964 as military aircraft intentionally rattled the population below with a daily barrage of thunderous sonic booms. It was a controversial test — the consequences of which have lingered to this day.
Two approaches in the works could revolutionize air travel by making future supersonic passenger planes compliant with the FAA’s new noise rules: Colorado-based company Boom Supersonic, which is specifically mentioned in the FAA proposal, plans to use physics to prevent sonic booms from ever reaching the ground, regardless of plane design. NASA, on the other hand, is flying an experimental plane called X-59 that is specifically designed to reduce the intensity of the boom.
If you thought that one hurdle was the massive amount of emissions that accelerate the death of the planet even more you’re wrong. Apparently it’s noise levels.
That one big hurdle is “What’s the fucking point”? The number of people who need to get halfway around the world six hours faster and who are willing to pay ten times as much for the privilege is vanishingly small, and frankly, that’s not a problem that needs solving.
I mean Boeing can’t even build subsonic airplanes any more and Airbus. . .well, they have “Bus” in their name. Who needs a supersonic bus?
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Sure that was why there was never really a business case for Concorde, but ……
- I would pay a little more to get there a little faster. Research is not only trying to quiet the boom but also trying to make it more economical.
- I believe the company listed there is focusing on private jets. Someone who can afford a private jet might be more likely to pay a premium to get there faster
I haven’t met a lot of private jet owners, but one in particular I absolutely know would buy a faster private jet if he could get one - and private jets are a lot like beach mansions - generally, the people who can afford one, can afford several.
You might be able to make it less uneconomical, but air resistance is a bitch. You wanna go twice as fast, you need four times as much power, and now you need a heavier plane to carry all that fuel. Which uses more fuel because of how heavy it is. Diminishing returns kicked in before you even got airborne, and now you’re just throwing thrust at the problem and you’re throwing fuel at the thrust.
Sure, there are some people who don’t give a fuck, and would be willing to expend whatever in fuel and emissions to build a plane that will use as much fuel as a commercial liner that carries hundreds to get six people to Dubai a couple hours faster, but no sane government would allow that kind of plane to be built or even land on their territory because of how plainly awful that math is for everybody not richer than god.
Right?
but air resistance is a bitch. You wanna go twice as fast, you need four times as much power
Unless your supersonic aircraft is up a lot higher than your subsonic one. Coffin corner is a different beast when you can go above Mach 1.
So perhaps this will work out as twice as fast for only 3 times the fuel. An acceptable tradeoff, perhaps.
There are people who DGAF, and there are people who don’t mind flying at a higher altitude, where the air is thinner and the resistance is less.
Oh, about the fuel thing… I go fishing with my Uncle, he’s got a little V8 inboard, probably spends $10 per day to go out and catch our licensed limits of fish. He’s got a friend who won the lottery and bought a big 1200hp outboard open fisherman, he’ll go blow $1000 in fuel in the same time to catch half as many fish, but he does get to go farther, faster.
Private jets should be illegal
You dont see an immediate usecase for faster travel and point out its cost as if costs do not come down over time.
Who needs a flatter screen, a few people with enough money to make freeing up a foot and a half behind their tv a worthwile expense isnt really a problem worth solving.
Your second point is amazing, irrefutable.
I was not aware that the concorde flew for about 25 years? That’s honestly pretty amazing.
Overall unnecessary though. Unless they demonstrate that it’s somehow more efficient, by flying higher and faster and the trip being shorter? I doubt it though.
The Concorde cut a 7-8 hour transatlantic flight to under 3.5 hours. People didn’t fly the Concorde to arrive four hours sooner. The difference of not being stuffed in a giant Tylenol for an extra four hours was the greatest selling point.
People absolutely used the Concorde to arrive four hours sooner. It’s short flight time made it possible for bussiness execs to have meetings on the other side of the ocean and be back home on the same day back when video calls weren’t an option yet.
I’m reminded of when Phil Collins flew the concorde so he could perform at both Live Aid concerts in 1985.
Efficiency per passenger mile is the big question. I’ll probably be worse than subsonic aircraft, but I’d guess that some of the technologies that make SS travel possible may make subsonic travel more efficient.
but I’d guess that some of the technologies that make SS travel possible may make subsonic travel more efficient.
I wouldn’t count on that. if a plane is optimized for efficiency during the longest part of its flight, which would presumably be supersonic cruise at high altitude, a bunch of things that make modern airliners as efficient as they are (blended winglets, and turbofan engines where the fan generates more thrust than the actual turbine engine exhaust) are directly counter to that
It’s an entirely different kind of flying. All together!
It’s an entirely different kind of flying.
This should be considered terrorism against the climate. There’s absolutely no need for this technology beyond convenience for the rich and privileged.
There are legitimate materials science, atmospheric sound propagation physics, and climate science modeling questions that are being answered by these tests. I believe it extremely short sighted to think the application of this technology and enhanced fluid dynamics to be limited to “rich people fuck the planet faster”.
I’m not saying that it is never fair to criticize a scientific endeavor, but enhancing our understanding of quickly transporting things through a dense atmosphere is not a bad thing.
I don’t really see how this could be used for anything else but even then it’s hard to see how the benefits would outweigh the harms of enabling climate arson.
If we can reduce the shockwave from sonic booms that could directly lead to more efficient plane engines. The main current impediment they have is the tips of the turbine blades can only get so close to the speed of sound before they explode from the forces they’re experiencing.
Which could have knock-on effects for anything involving an airfoil moving through a fluid. Helicopters, boats, wind turbines, hydro-power, etc.
Better understanding and control of the physics / materials science at the sound barrier would be very good news.
Then they should study that directly rather than how to better waste huge amounts of fuel making the lives of the rich more convenient at the expense of everyone else’s survival.
Might as well say flying is convenience for the rich and privileged. Because in the 1950s, it was. If you were poor, you still went on a boat. It could be we all do transatlantic trips on a plane like this in the future.
I mean it kinda is but the reality is people aren’t going to go backwards. However, that doesn’t mean we need to make the problem dramatically worse. I seriously doubt we’ll all be traveling this way but if we are it’s because we decided to value our convenience over the lives of the young and the poor.
The renewable transition cannot be stopped because it’s simply now cheaper to generate solar and wind. You install them once every few decades and only do basic maintenance to get power and store that into batteries. It could be that we have so much oil left over it won’t be expensive
Would it still be terrorism if the technologies being developed makes subsonic travel more efficient?
More efficient than standard air travel? I seriously doubt that’s possible but I guess it would be less bad then.
