Will we ever fly supersonically over land? • Hacker News Board

Re: Will we ever fly supersonically over land?

#51

Post by Ericson2314 » Sat, Jul 03, 2021, 10:24 PM UTC

cortesoft wrote: post #39

Ericson2314 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely not. 300 kph HSR rail exists in developed countries. (2680 miles) / (300 kilometers per hour) = 14.3768064 hours That's coast to coast in ~ 1/2 day. Ships and blimps represent a much larger decrease in travel time over airplanes than rail. They perhaps pose a to be solved, but rail doesn't.

Yeah, but that is only from one part of the coast to one part. You would have to have so many lines to connect all the cities.

Yes, but even if we double the time estimate, I don't think that's prohibitively slow.

Only with the many day duration to traverse oceans eihtou planes do I get worried.

Re: Will we ever fly supersonically over land?

#52

Post by the__alchemist » Sat, Jul 03, 2021, 10:51 PM UTC

t0mas88 wrote: post #12

> These studies, along with tens of thousands of claims against the Air Force for property damage—horses and turkeys had supposedly died or gone insane—led the F.A.A. to ban civil overland supersonic flight, in 1973. There was also a political part involved. The Concorde was a British-French creation, not a Boeing. Had there been a Boeing supersonic passenger plane first there would probably have been different FAA r…

Military supersonic flight over land in the US only happens over unpopulated areas. Ie, parts of Idaho, Nevada desert etc. Most supersonic training is conducted over the oceans, eg >15nm from the east coast.

Re: Will we ever fly supersonically over land?

#53

Post by sneak » Sat, Jul 03, 2021, 10:55 PM UTC

xchaotic wrote: post #13

Solving some societal or civilisational challenge with supersonic flight seems very narrow minded now. Yes I would like to fly to my work HQ faster but due to pandemic I have not visited in 3 years now and it’s been fine, so a better solution is excellent remote work tools such as HQ videoconferencing etc which is such an easier problem, yet many people and companies still struggle with it. In the overall ROI for thi…

Fast transportation, like fast computers, or fast appliances, aren't required. They just make life better.

Re: Will we ever fly supersonically over land?

#54

Post by syntheticnature » Sat, Jul 03, 2021, 10:59 PM UTC

the__alchemist wrote: post #52

t0mas88 wrote: post #12

> These studies, along with tens of thousands of claims against the Air Force for property damage—horses and turkeys had supposedly died or gone insane—led the F.A.A. to ban civil overland supersonic flight, in 1973. There was also a political part involved. The Concorde was a British-French creation, not a Boeing. Had there been a Boeing supersonic passenger plane first there would probably have been different FAA r…

Military supersonic flight over land in the US only happens over unpopulated areas. Ie, parts of Idaho, Nevada desert etc. Most supersonic training is conducted over the oceans, eg >15nm from the east coast.

Military supersonic flight over land in the US is supposed to only happen over unpopulated areas. Having lived near a coastline (~1 mile from the shoreline) along a military flight path, I know they occasionally went a little early.

Re: Will we ever fly supersonically over land?

#55

Post by hollerith » Sat, Jul 03, 2021, 11:00 PM UTC

avereveard wrote: post #29

t0mas88 wrote: post #12

> These studies, along with tens of thousands of claims against the Air Force for property damage—horses and turkeys had supposedly died or gone insane—led the F.A.A. to ban civil overland supersonic flight, in 1973. There was also a political part involved. The Concorde was a British-French creation, not a Boeing. Had there been a Boeing supersonic passenger plane first there would probably have been different FAA r…

not really the same, fighters are quite smaller than airliners.

They might be smaller, but the boom is quite startling; I certainly wouldn't want to endure them regularly. I know because booms from fighters were common during my trip to West Germany in 1970. (I'm relying on what locals told my parents as to the source of the booms: I never saw a plane.) I've never heard a sonic boom in my 60 years of living in the US.

Re: Will we ever fly supersonically over land?

#56

Post by pyrale » Sat, Jul 03, 2021, 11:00 PM UTC

agent327 wrote: post #30

_Microft wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Air travel is not a problem because the emissions per kilometer are that bad but because one can easily travel one or two orders of magnitude farther than one usually would.

So your preferred solution is to restrict the allowed travel radius of people, a bit like with medieval serfs?

What a rhetoric device.

Is your preferred solution to let people die in droves to a mass extinction ?

Re: Will we ever fly supersonically over land?

#57

Post by jltsiren » Sat, Jul 03, 2021, 11:01 PM UTC

beerandt wrote: post #24

Ericson2314 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> While on many routes a car is worse than a small to mid sized airliner if there are less than 3 people in the car. I never said cars. Cars are terrible. I would not complained if passenger-only cars were banned everywhere. > Similar for your suggestion that we should take ships over the ocean, because cruise ships are much more polluting per passenger mile than modern airliners. There are alternatives like wind pow…

Air travel is generally more energy efficient than trains, beyond a 300-400 mile range, depending on what you're traveling over/through. Track and right-of-way is a scarce resource with large amounts of embedded energy. The sky, not so much.

That depends on passenger volume. Trains require massive initial investments, but the marginal cost per passenger is very low. Air travel is mostly about marginal costs, and it requires massive infrastructure at endpoints. For example, an aiport serving 50 million passengers/year is two orders of magnitude larger than a railway station with a similar passenger volume. And while the airport would be one of the 30-40 busiest in the world, the railway station would not be particularly noteworthy.

Re: Will we ever fly supersonically over land?

#58

Post by samstave » Sat, Jul 03, 2021, 11:02 PM UTC

dogma1138 wrote: post #33

t0mas88 wrote: post #12

> These studies, along with tens of thousands of claims against the Air Force for property damage—horses and turkeys had supposedly died or gone insane—led the F.A.A. to ban civil overland supersonic flight, in 1973. There was also a political part involved. The Concorde was a British-French creation, not a Boeing. Had there been a Boeing supersonic passenger plane first there would probably have been different FAA r…

Europe banned continental supersonic flights too which is why only the Atlantic route to NYC was an option you couldn’t do flights eastward.

Strap a 22 year old into a machine worth hundreds of millions, WCGW?

Re: Will we ever fly supersonically over land?

#59

Post by Retric » Sat, Jul 03, 2021, 11:05 PM UTC

avereveard wrote: post #29

t0mas88 wrote: post #12

> These studies, along with tens of thousands of claims against the Air Force for property damage—horses and turkeys had supposedly died or gone insane—led the F.A.A. to ban civil overland supersonic flight, in 1973. There was also a political part involved. The Concorde was a British-French creation, not a Boeing. Had there been a Boeing supersonic passenger plane first there would probably have been different FAA r…

not really the same, fighters are quite smaller than airliners.

Less than you might think. Wingspan Concord 25.6m vs F-22 13.56m. Maximum takeoff weight Concord 185,000kg vs F-22 60,000kg.

Expanding that to all supersonic military aircraft and the Rockwell B-1 Lancer has a higher maximum takeoff weight than the concord. It’s a loud and heavy beast.

Re: Will we ever fly supersonically over land?

#60

Post by redis_mlc » Sat, Jul 03, 2021, 11:07 PM UTC

crazygringo wrote: post #40

beerandt wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At energy and cost levels that exceed airline travel, per passenger-mile.

Do you have a citation for that? Quick Googling doesn't reveal any obvious authoritative answers (but a ton of guessing and unsubstantiated claims). The most authoritative/unbiased source seems to be this Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_efficiency_in_transport But the head-to-head comparisons are mostly gaps when it comes to trains, and the sections on trains and planes are in completely diffe…

In the US, interstate and some other categories of rail require massive cars and locomotives to be used instead of light-rail cars. This affects efficiency in the US.

An example is the Bay Area Caltrain, which shares track with a cargo train, so is required to use heavy-iron rolling stock.

Considering that airliner jet engines increase efficiency 1% averaged per year since 1945, airliners could be more efficient than heavy trains used for passengers.