Aside from military applications, there are global emergency response, upper stratosphere atmospheric research, and anyone who believes that we can ameliorate climate heating through stratospheric aerosol injection. Of course, these all fall into the domain of governments or well funded NGOs for which cost is not the primary consideration; it is unlikely that supersonic transport will ever be cost effective on a commodity basis.
Subsonic and transonic form and skin friction drag follow the thermofluid drag equation, but supersonic flight is a totally different mechanism for most of the drag experienced at those speeds. It is still more expensive in terms of energy loss and fuel consumed than flying at optimized transonic speeds but for certain regimes the supersonic wave drag actually goes down the faster you go (and especially the higher in altitude).
Back in the early 2000s Boeing studied a concept they called the Sonic Cruiser, a plane that wouldn’t have been quite supersonic but would have cruised at just below the speed of sound. IIRC one reason it never came to fruition was that any technology that could make such a fast airliner reasonably fuel efficient could make a traditional subsonic airliner even more efficient, which is what most airlines preferred, so Boeing ended up developing the 787 instead.
True, but in the past 50 years there have also been innovations that have made transcontinental flight less necessary. Why spend even three hours on an airplane, if you can just hop on a Zoom call in 30 seconds?
Sure, tourism is still a thing. The market for transcontinental travel hasn’t disappeared entirely. But it’s decreased: A lot of business that used to require travel is now done electronically.
Granted, the larger portion of the Concorde’s clientele was business however over the past 50 years, American tourism to Europe has significantly increased, with approximately 15-17 million Americans visiting annually in recent years, making the U.S. one of Europe’s largest tourism markets.
The vast majority of that tourism is sustained by cheap air travel. I doubt many tourists outside of characters in an HBO show about a dysfunctional media dynasty are going to be willing to shell out five figures for a transAtlantic flight.
The private business jet market has been booming in recent years. I could see the people who buy those kinds of jet buying private supersonic jets. Money is no object to them
The QueSST tested yesterday and it is a single seat plane. It makes sense that if it works out a next step would be a (say) 12 passenger private luxury SST.
You may think it is crazy but remember Jeff Bezos has his and hers (for his girlfriend) private jets. Super rich are now buying super-yachts two at a time…one for luxury and one to follow it to carry toys. Cost is not a problem for these people.
Yeah I wouldn’t make anything supersonic much larger than that. If somebody invented an airbrake maybe, it’s too much mass going too fast if anything fucks up or a goose gets sucked into a jet or something.
How big is the market for a supersonic executive jet that can only fly from coastal airports and is the size of a 737 in order to carry enough fuel for intercontinental travel?
Jeff Bezos just took delivery on a 127 meter, $500M ‘motorsailer’ that has to be accompanied by a 75 meter support vessel. He’s not in a hurry to get anywhere, at least until the proles start demanding the HGH-enhanced flesh off of his bones.
Isn’t the point of these new SSTs to be quiet enough to fly over land? I thought that is what they are aiming for. If not then why bother? Just update the old, noisy ones. We know how they work already. Whether they manage to pull it off remains to be seen.
They still make a supersonic shock wave; that is physically unavoidable. It is just mostly deflected upward where it can be dispersed before being reflected back down to the surface. As it stands, both regulation in the United States and Europe severely restrict overflight by supersonic aircraft, even military aircraft except in national emergency.
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In the US, at least, it seems regulations and oversight are falling by the wayside. I know this is FQ so I won’t go into it more but really happening. I don’t see why this could not be another left on the side of the road with little fuss.
And we shouldn’t dismiss just how loud the sonic booms were; from what I can tell, they were in the 100-110 dB range when the aircraft was at cruising speed (~Mach 2.0) and altitude (~55,000-60,000 feet).
That’s like a really loud thunderclap, and I can see why people on the ground track for the Concorde might not like hearing that multiple times a day or regularly.