Once upon a time we had the Concorde Jet which retired out of service by Air France and British Airways on 10 April 2003 after the low passenger count following the 25 July 2000 crash and the general bear market for air travel post 11 September 2001.
Ticket price for a roundtrip between the Atlantic is around $12,000 burning about one ton of fuel per seat! Operational cost and the dwindling Economy took its toll on the Concorde and eventually priced it out of the market.
Going supersonic over land mass is a big no-no and the routes of the Concorde that were supersonic involves transoceanic flights. The Concorde made the trans-Atlantic flight in 3.5 hours where today the typical commercial flight would be around 6.5 hours.
However, as time becomes an ever more scarce commodity, people are looking for more creative ways to travel faster. Enter Bombardier's Antipode. Rocket boosters takes it to Mach 5 and it makes the trip across the Atlantic in 11 mins traveling at Mach 24 powered by a scramjet engine!
Wouldn't this be loud as hell? Joseph Hazeltine, an Engineer at Wyle, suggested an aerodynamic technique called Long Penetration Mode (LPM) which blows out cool air from the nose to cool down the surface temperature of speeds in excess of Mach 5 and also help to reduce the noise of supersonic flight.
Time is money.
- How would you pitch your MD for a possibly five-figure ticket to ride on the Antipode?
- Which aircraft do you like flying on for commercial travel?
- (FAA License Holders) Which aircraft do you personally enjoy flying yourself for private pilot's experience?
Reference:
The Antipode: Flying from New York to London in 11 minutes
That looks pretty dam cool, I'm sure a few billionaires would pay to get over to the Atlantic 11 minutes. However I doubt we will see something like this for the next 50 years.
You can't go wrong with flying on the A380, quieter than the 747, more spacious and I think in general more comfortable, after that I would probably say a 787 and shortly after a 777.
Dreamliner, thoughts? It uses a lot more composites which is something I am familiar with from my graduate work. However, the testing of composites is difficult to assess structural integrity as compared to metals. Since so much of the plane is made with composites, I am not so sure I would want to fly in a Dreamliner after it ages as composites cannot be readily repaired and can only really be replaced.
This would be so cool. I can only imagine what the G-Force would feel like when flying that fast! Really interesting article, thank you for sharing!
G force is a relative measure, once speed is reached the g force would equalize to slightly above normal, the acceleration however would exert extremely violent G forces equal or worse than a shuttle launch. This doesn't seem practical in any way because you would essentially reach speed in a at best form of a parabolic curve, more likely an exponential growth rate with a trailing deceleration tail, where the accelerant would have to be reduced while the aircraft is still gaining speed and then it would have to be relying on drag to slow it down over the majority of the flight duration.
That makes a lot of sense. I'm assuming that's the reason you feel pressure during the launch of a plane, but the remainder of the ride is smooth. Thanks for explaining that. Also, gave you a SB because of Calvin and Hobbes =]
No. That's extortionate.
Live a little man, come on!
I can get behind hyperloop--which would be cheaper, faster and safer than any other method of transportation--but $12k is about triple what it costs to fly business international. It'd be pretty fucking cool though.
I can conceive of limitless examples of how someone with money (I mean--who is liquid) could justify this. I've got one friend--my best friend in the world--who makes about $600,000 per year and can barely spare 5 minutes to talk with me on the phone in a week. There are people out there who could definitely justify saving 6 hours of flight time, especially those people who talk about $1 million the way normal people talk about $1 (i.e. finance-types on Wall Street and in London).
In fact, for the speed, the price seems downright affordable.
Time is money.
Money can make more money (compound) but money cannot always make more time (terminal illness).
Time cannot make more time as it is a diminishing asset therefore throwing money at time makes a whole lot of sense for those with sufficient liquidity.
I don't see this tech coming into the public domain - no firm would allow even their rainmaking teams to go on a 12k roundtrip. I dont see the prices going down further too - the cost of fuel for every added Mach is going to be insane. That being said, I'd wager a lot of billionaires would want this for their private jets. There's a startup called Boom planning to cater to exactly this market. I'm just going to wait till someone designs a VTOL supersonic jet that can take me anywhere at Mach 30.
I see it reaching the public domain--just not in the next 40 years. If it's technologically feasible and demanded by the public somebody will bring it to market.
Agreed. But with the way the currently proposed tech is designed, I don't see the public paying a premium to favour time over expense. Maybe if they build a supersonic plane with renewables, perhaps. But not with the current designs are proposed.
Not judging the technological capability at all, but of course there is a market for $12k round trip to London. I am just a corporate plebe compared to many, but every time I fly to Europe its usually $5-8k. My company probably wouldn't let me jump on the $12k flight, but I'd think everyone above my level probably could. Companies pay a lot of money for time and convenience of the executives.
My old company had a few corporate jets and they are MUCH MUCH MUCH more expensive than this. Combining this and a NetJets account would easily be suitable for most executives.
I dont think the demand is there for 300 passenger flights, but there is clearly a crowd that this caters to.
Odio eaque aut veniam molestiae. Ducimus ut quae corrupti dolorem rem et accusantium. Est minus perspiciatis repellendus dolores minus sed nulla.
Dicta illum dolor quia dolorum sunt aliquid. Quos eius nisi unde sequi. Laborum et ea ipsa id quia nihil est. Saepe ut eligendi nisi nihil laudantium et.
Et voluptatibus maxime ullam qui. Eum quas accusamus voluptatibus molestiae nostrum. Velit voluptatem quos perspiciatis maiores ipsum possimus reiciendis. Voluptatem non ea quia sunt repellat doloribus. Enim voluptatibus omnis assumenda molestias sit enim et.
See All Comments - 100% Free
WSO depends on everyone being able to pitch in when they know something. Unlock with your email and get bonus: 6 financial modeling lessons free ($199 value)
or Unlock with your social account...