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A successful Japanese trial of a ramjet engine designed for Mach‑5 aircraft

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Re: A successful Japanese trial of a ramjet engine designed for Mach‑5 aircraft

#61

Post by jojobas »

amanaplanacanal wrote: post #49
darkteflon wrote: post #6

Cool science. But the article fails to take even a cursory stab at contextualising the plan against the economic, environmental and political backdrop - doesn’t even mention that there’s already been one failed supersonic commercial flight programme. This is as pie-in-the-sky as it gets.

I think the SpaceX plan for point to point travel might be even more pie in the sky. Or maybe a tie.

Point to point rocket travel was never a good faith pitch, it was a hype thing (and your pension money are going into the fraud soon).

Re: A successful Japanese trial of a ramjet engine designed for Mach‑5 aircraft

#62

Post by Tuna-Fish »

vitally3643 wrote: post #57
hdndjsbbs wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a lot of the Concorde failure is tied to its status as a British-French project. Trans-Pacific flights are much longer and there's a lot of money in PEK -> LAX than in JFK -> LHR. Qantas wanted to offer London to Sydney, but they couldn't fly supersonic over land. Mainland China or Japan to Australia is a feasible route for high-margin, low-capacity supersonic flights. If you could make the flight from Beijin…

I was pretty sure the whole Concorde thing failed because people don't like it when you sonic boom an entire city dozens of times a day. And that all attempts to reduce the sonic booms necessarily resulted in flight times that aren't significantly faster than traditional subsonic flights, rendering the entire thing moot. It was impractical due to physics, not some weird racism. You simply can't push a supersonic shoc…

However, there are markets where you don't have to fly supersonic over land, the distance is long enough for the speed to matter, and there is massive amount of demand. The only problem is, such markets require a longer range than what the Concorde was capable of. Notably, all the very frequently traveled trips over the Pacific.

Re: A successful Japanese trial of a ramjet engine designed for Mach‑5 aircraft

#63

Post by rafram »

vidarh wrote: post #55
gottorf wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Dubai to SFO is also a possible route Is there really that much premium traffic between Dubai and the Bay Area?

A couple of searches suggests only Emirates operate a direct route between SFO and Dubain, so it wouldn't seem so.

Emirates just dominates long-haul flights to Dubai overall. Other (mostly flag carrier) airlines handle other airports in the region. Qatar Airways through Doha is also a big player in flights between the US/Europe and Asia.

Re: A successful Japanese trial of a ramjet engine designed for Mach‑5 aircraft

#64

Post by godelski »

darkteflon wrote: post #6

Cool science. But the article fails to take even a cursory stab at contextualising the plan against the economic, environmental and political backdrop - doesn’t even mention that there’s already been one failed supersonic commercial flight programme. This is as pie-in-the-sky as it gets.

  > This is as pie-in-the-sky as it gets.
All your critiques are things we heard about Starlink too. "Oh, you're just reinventing Globalstar[0], which already failed. What makes you think this time will be different?" The question isn't wrong, per say, but most of the time it is used dismissively rather than in earnest. There's thousands of products you use today that were invented and ahead of their time. Hell, Google itself is famous for this. A great example being Google Glasses. When they first came out you could get punched in the face[1], but now there's Meta Glasses, Snap's, and dozens of others. The landscape changes, and fast. Just because others failed before doesn't mean others later won't.

It's not bad to ask these questions, but it is easy to be too dismissive. People love to tear things down, but not build them up. The two go hand in hand, but there needs to be a more measured approach. Frankly, projects can fail for many reasons. Too often it is simply bad luck. You either learn from the past or you repeat it.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Globalstar

[1] https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/google-glass...

Re: A successful Japanese trial of a ramjet engine designed for Mach‑5 aircraft

#65

Post by toyg »

KennyBlanken wrote: post #59
hdndjsbbs wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a lot of the Concorde failure is tied to its status as a British-French project. Trans-Pacific flights are much longer and there's a lot of money in PEK -> LAX than in JFK -> LHR. Qantas wanted to offer London to Sydney, but they couldn't fly supersonic over land. Mainland China or Japan to Australia is a feasible route for high-margin, low-capacity supersonic flights. If you could make the flight from Beijin…

It's not tied to anything other than there not being enough people who care enough to spend the sort of money required. The people who have that kind of money are going to be more interested in flying in a jet share doing mach .96 leaving when they want to leave, going where they want to go, when they want to go, how they want to go, with who they want to go with. You get treated like a criminal for forgetting your s…

Yeah, this is something that changed from Concorde times (and possibly even sped up its very demise): the market for reliable, high-quality private planes has grown massively. It's now pretty easy to shuttle between the big cities in almost complete privacy through secluded airports.

Re: A successful Japanese trial of a ramjet engine designed for Mach‑5 aircraft

#66

Post by rafram »

atoav wrote: post #4

The actual time to skim off IMO is all the airport procedures.

Really? Obviously it varies by country, but there’s no customs/immigration when leaving the US, and security usually takes <5 minutes with PreCheck. Sometimes immigration takes a while on the other side, but it’s quick at airports with biometric gate systems. You still hear people talk about airport buffer time in units of hours, but I think that’s increasingly out of date.

Re: A successful Japanese trial of a ramjet engine designed for Mach‑5 aircraft

#67

Post by toyg »

vitally3643 wrote: post #57
hdndjsbbs wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a lot of the Concorde failure is tied to its status as a British-French project. Trans-Pacific flights are much longer and there's a lot of money in PEK -> LAX than in JFK -> LHR. Qantas wanted to offer London to Sydney, but they couldn't fly supersonic over land. Mainland China or Japan to Australia is a feasible route for high-margin, low-capacity supersonic flights. If you could make the flight from Beijin…

I was pretty sure the whole Concorde thing failed because people don't like it when you sonic boom an entire city dozens of times a day. And that all attempts to reduce the sonic booms necessarily resulted in flight times that aren't significantly faster than traditional subsonic flights, rendering the entire thing moot. It was impractical due to physics, not some weird racism. You simply can't push a supersonic shoc…

England in the '80s didn't give a shit about little people. Had it been really profitable, Concorde would have continued operations. It just did not make sense economically, particularly once they stopped making new airframes.

Re: A successful Japanese trial of a ramjet engine designed for Mach‑5 aircraft

#68

Post by fragmede »

XorNot wrote: post #58
mckn1ght wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can also essentially work remotely in an airplane now. I haven’t tried videoconferencing, but I easily do all my other software work on trips. So a couple extra hours might even be a benefit: more time with no distractions to wrap up that slide deck, maybe a 1:1 or two, get your free drinks from premium/business class, doze off to a movie, wake up for an early start at your destination.

12 hours on a plane is 12 hours on a plane. And there's currently no amount of ticket money that can make that shorter.

Shorter, no, but having a private cabin with a shower, and a lounge with a bartender on the plane, not to mention Starlink, would make those 12 hours a lot more bearable vs 12 in an economy seat.
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