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Can Boom Supersonic Succeed Where the Concorde Failed?

johncoogan.com

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Re: Can Boom Supersonic Succeed Where the Concorde Failed?

#61

Post by yawaworht1978 »

Can supersonic aircraft be as big as the 747 etc jumbos without much worse energy requirements?

Or does the fuel consumption rise by a factor?

I can see the Concorde had almost mach2 as top speed?

Is there another Sonic boom at mach2,3 etc?

Unless it's a fuel efficient mach3, there's not much point to it, most flying time improvements should be done on checking in and boarding, the flight itself for flights less than 2 hours in duration can't be optimized , a supersonic plane wouldn't even accelerate to top speed before it has to slow down on short flights like paris-london.

Re: Can Boom Supersonic Succeed Where the Concorde Failed?

#62

Post by project2501a »

cpursley wrote: post #54
D2man wrote: post #33

Am I the only one here thinking this is an unwanted future ? Aerospace is already profiting to few rich people on earth and represents 2% of global emissions and this is saying "well we need to go faster consuming yet huge amount of fuel" for the wealthiest. Please stop these technos solutionists gadget and start to think real problems like the climate crisis.

It's always entertaining to see techno-luddites on HN - where the average person is wealthy and probably drives a gasoline car for most daily activities. This is like criticizing the automobile back when only the ultra wealthy could afford them and most people still road around on horse or foot.

It's also fun to see people who believe in global capitalism and make Ben-Shapiro-level of arguments.

Re: Can Boom Supersonic Succeed Where the Concorde Failed?

#63

Post by captainmuon »

Can anybody tell how such a plane will sound like over land? Growing up in Europe in the 90s, we regularly saw fighter jets doing maneuver and we called the noise they make a sonic boom: a loud, scratching and thundering noise that seems to come from the wrong direction. But I've also heard that planes almost never flew supersonic over civilian areas and an actual sonic boom sounds like a double clap, and is much more terrible. So is the noise I remember a sonic boom or not?

I think I could live with the kind of booms we heard as kids, as they were not worse than "regular" airport noise and the double- or triple-glassed windows common here block them out mostly. Especially since a civilian plane will have >30 years of technological advantage and will take noise into consideration, which military designs likely don't.

Re: Can Boom Supersonic Succeed Where the Concorde Failed?

#64

Post by tomatocracy »

sofixa wrote: post #34
j-pb wrote: post #27

> Boom is building for reliability from day one, and by simplifying the design of the plane and using software solutions wherever possible, they should be able to avoid many of the pitfalls that the Concorde faced. Oh boy. Given softwares track record when it comes to reliability and safety I think that's a mistake. I do trust engineers, I don't trust software engineers.

What do you mean? Airbus planes have been using software very heavily ( fly by wire for instance) since the first models, and recent ones ( A350) have pretty serious server rooms onboard. Just because Boeing are incompetent and criminally negligible doesn't mean that airplanes shouldn't use any software.

There's a view that over reliance on software contributed to the total loss of flight AF447 (since pilots were not sufficiently experienced in how to fly the plane in the various fallback modes to be able to react appropriately in an emergency).

Re: Can Boom Supersonic Succeed Where the Concorde Failed?

#65

Post by ignoramous »

user-the-name wrote: post #53
D2man wrote: post #33

Am I the only one here thinking this is an unwanted future ? Aerospace is already profiting to few rich people on earth and represents 2% of global emissions and this is saying "well we need to go faster consuming yet huge amount of fuel" for the wealthiest. Please stop these technos solutionists gadget and start to think real problems like the climate crisis.

This is 100% correct. The last thing we need is more inefficient aviation for the super-rich.

Historically, things that were only meant for the super rich eventually got commoditised for everyone. And: Under current capitalist regimes, this is how humans push the envelope of possibilities, like it or not.

Climate crisis is urgent but token efforts to strike down nascent businesses on the cutting-edge such as Boom is not how the world solves it (discounting the fact that Boom has a path forward to be carbon-neutral: https://boomsupersonic.com/sustainability)

Re: Can Boom Supersonic Succeed Where the Concorde Failed?

#66

Post by nickkell »

cpursley wrote: post #54
D2man wrote: post #33

Am I the only one here thinking this is an unwanted future ? Aerospace is already profiting to few rich people on earth and represents 2% of global emissions and this is saying "well we need to go faster consuming yet huge amount of fuel" for the wealthiest. Please stop these technos solutionists gadget and start to think real problems like the climate crisis.

It's always entertaining to see techno-luddites on HN - where the average person is wealthy and probably drives a gasoline car for most daily activities. This is like criticizing the automobile back when only the ultra wealthy could afford them and most people still road around on horse or foot.

The people posting here may be wealthy, but I’d wager the vast majority aren’t Concorde wealthy

Re: Can Boom Supersonic Succeed Where the Concorde Failed?

#67

Post by hef19898 »

notahacker wrote: post #12
DaiPlusPlus wrote: post #4

"...where Concorde failed?" Hold on, when did Concorde "fail"? Concorde was profitable: https://simpleflying.com/did-british-airways-make-a-profit-f... ---- The reasons for Concorde's discontinuation are legion - I think even if it weren't for the 2000 Air France crash it would have been discontinued simply due to the age of the fleet, what other airlines are still running 50+ year-old airframes today? Let alone thos…

> Concorde was profitable Your own article points out that it really, really wasn't, especially not for the parties investing in its development, not their customers who profited mainly because they got the aircraft at knockdown prices (and operated it without any supersonic competition) in what was later described as one of the worst deals ever negotiated by any government $3bn was spent developing an aircraft they…

So basically numbers any tech company can get multi-billion dollar IPO nowadays?

Re: Can Boom Supersonic Succeed Where the Concorde Failed?

#68

Post by BrianOnHN »

captainmuon wrote: post #63

Can anybody tell how such a plane will sound like over land? Growing up in Europe in the 90s, we regularly saw fighter jets doing maneuver and we called the noise they make a sonic boom: a loud, scratching and thundering noise that seems to come from the wrong direction. But I've also heard that planes almost never flew supersonic over civilian areas and an actual sonic boom sounds like a double clap, and is much mor…

Fighter jets are loud as hell, without the sonic boom.

I've heard a lot of fighter jets. But I also don't believe I've heard an actual sonic boom.

Re: Can Boom Supersonic Succeed Where the Concorde Failed?

#69

Post by Reventlov »

captainmuon wrote: post #63

Can anybody tell how such a plane will sound like over land? Growing up in Europe in the 90s, we regularly saw fighter jets doing maneuver and we called the noise they make a sonic boom: a loud, scratching and thundering noise that seems to come from the wrong direction. But I've also heard that planes almost never flew supersonic over civilian areas and an actual sonic boom sounds like a double clap, and is much mor…

There is not really a sonic "boom": the sound you hear is shaped as a cone (behind the plane) so it's continuous and emitted as soon as the plane is supersonic. You only hear it one time because you're static, hence the "boom" (everyone on the path of the plane will hear it at different times). A supersonic plane is very loud, and if you're static it sounds like some explosion ( https://www.thelocal.fr/20200930/loud-bang-heard-in-paris-wa... for a "recent" example).

Usually military plane avoid going supersonic close to cities.

Extract from wikipedia:

  A sonic boom does not occur only at the moment an object crosses the speed of sound; and neither is it heard in all directions emanating from the supersonic object. Rather the boom is a continuous effect that occurs while the object is travelling at supersonic speeds. But it affects only observers that are positioned at a point that intersects a region in the shape of a geometrical cone behind the object. As the object moves, this conical region also moves behind it and when the cone passes over the observer, they will briefly experience the boom.

Re: Can Boom Supersonic Succeed Where the Concorde Failed?

#70

Post by _8op6 »

yawaworht1978 wrote: post #61

Can supersonic aircraft be as big as the 747 etc jumbos without much worse energy requirements? Or does the fuel consumption rise by a factor? I can see the Concorde had almost mach2 as top speed? Is there another Sonic boom at mach2,3 etc? Unless it's a fuel efficient mach3, there's not much point to it, most flying time improvements should be done on checking in and boarding, the flight itself for flights less than…

There is only one boom, when you cross the sound barrier.
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