I heard a podcast about the SST Concord the other day and it’s been on my mind. Apparently there were several things that led to it’s demise. One was the crash which ironically was not the fault of the SST. It was caused by a metallic strip that had fallen from a Continental Airlines that had taken off minutes earlier. This fragment punctured a tire on Concorde’s left main wheel bogie during take-off. The tire exploded, and a piece of rubber hit the fuel tank, which caused a fuel leak and led to a fire.
Second, was the Concorde test flight with new Kevlar-lined fuel tanks that took place on September 11, 2001, at London Heathrow. The test flight was a successful demonstration of the aircraft’s modifications following a previous crash, and the crew only learned about the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center after they landed. There was apparently some negative association.
Also high operating costs, antiquated avionics (so I understand) and the limited routes due to noise pollution restrictions.
It’s that last bit that prompts my question. The primary routes were NY to London and NY to Paris. Most of that flight was over the Atlantic, right?
Couldn’t a new plane be designed with modern avionics that could fly supersonic over the ocean but subsonic when it reached land?
For reference, the fastest flight from NY to London for the Concorde was 2 hours, 52 minutes, and 59 seconds. The average time today is 7h 5m.
There is already the Boom Overture being planned, although nobody knows if it is serious. As for noise reduction, I’m sure any supersonic jet could just fly subsonic over land.
Boom is serious (as is, apparently, Astro Mechanica in developing a hybrid turboelectric engine) but whether there is actually commercial demand for supersonic flight in an era where the aviation industry is driven by low costs and easy access is in question. The Concorde SST, as much as it was beloved by aviation enthusiasts and wealthy people willing to pay extraordinary costs for rapid transAtlantic flight, was never profitable except on London/Paris-to-New York routes and had to be subsidized by British taxpayers (not sure about the profitability on the Air France side) through much of its operational history. Even the much quieter operation of newer designs still has a lot of restrictions, specialized facility requirements, and consumes a lot of fuel compared to transsonic aircraft.
NASA does basic and applied aeronautical research and has an interest in supersonic flight regardless of commercial applicability. There are, of course, military and non-commercial applications for ‘quiet’ supersonic flight even if it isn’t commercially viable for passenger flight.
The Boom aircraft has built and flight-tested a one man scaled down version, and apparently are currently building the first prototype full-size. They have orders for 130 aircraft, and the plans I can find online say test flights starting by 2027 and commercial service by 2030. Their demonstrator aircraft proved a concept that avoids creating sonic booms on the ground, which should help with commercial acceptance. They claim better fuel efficiency than the Concorde, not surprising considering the technology has improved in 60 years.
As usual, it all boils down commercial viability. If it costs about the same as first-class travel as they claim, there’s a market. If it costs significantly more, less of a market. Time will tell.
I’ve also seen occasional news articles about smaller business jets that would be supersonic. Obviously there will be a market for them.
A key component of commercial viability is the cost of time. If the travel time can be significantly reduced (2.5 hrs instead of 7 hrs is 64% reduction), then a slightly higher cost is still attractive.
Though the reality is that for commercial travel, a large part of the time hit comes on the ground, significantly reducing the actual time reduction. Add 2.5 hrs for pre/post flight ground processing for the passengers and you get 5hrs out of 9.5 hrs - 47% reduction. Still impressive.
Gets better for longer flights if they can keep mostly supersonic.
I think the most logical entry is the charter flight jet market. Those customers already pay for convenience and comfort. Though it may not be economical if most flights are over land/ prevent use of SST.
They could have flown the Concorde at subsonic speeds over land, but that would have negated the advantage of flying supersonic - and IIRC that Concorde used a lot more fuel per passenger than an ordinary airliner of that era. Given the plane’s limitations (it didn’t have the range to fly transpacific routes) it flew the routes it was best suited for.
Like with the notion that one should wait before trying to head to the stars (in your generation ship or what have you), because a newer craft may pass you at some point, I think regular supersonic travel is already on the verge of being obsolete, with hypersonic planes already undergoing design studies. But one way or another it’s the usual litany of high costs per mile and such, even if they are working on mitigating sonic booms.
The biggest benefit of time savings would be over the longest possible routes. Shaving 4 hours off of a cross-Atlantic flight may not mean all that much, but shaving 7-9 hours off of a cross-Pacific flight is huge.
This may also make first-class and business-class less meaningful. Enduring a economy-class seat for just a few hours is doable for anyone, and why pay thousands of dollars more for first-class if you’re going to enjoy that seat for a much shorter period of time?
I’m just assuming (maybe incorrectly) that in the intervening 50 years that innovations have been made that could correct the limitations and increase the fuel-per passenger issue.
I’m not suggesting we bring back the Concorde, but rather asking is super sonic feasible/viable with modern equipment.
Time-sensitive cargo that would benefit from reduced flight times, I’m sure there are military advantages to quieting supersonic aircraft as well. It’s basic applied research, so just validating the computer modelling of how the aircraft’s shape affects the shockwaves that produce the sonic boom over a range of transonic and supersonic flight profiles will give valuable data for other applications that rely on Computational Fluid Dynamics to predict flight behavior.
I am skeptical that there are many goods for which overnight international flights (which could probably get something anywhere in the world in 24 hours) aren’t fast enough.
Planes already fly slower than they’re able to just to save gas. Drag is drag, it increases with the square of speed, and there’s no free lunches. You can go higher or slower to save fuel, but faster is always going to cost/burn more.
IIRC in other discussions, one of the problems is that the law prohibits supersonic flight over the USA. That would be a simple fix, if the new technology actually does properly minimize sonic booms. Just change the law.