NationStates Jolt Archive

Concorde, and the Tupolev Tu-144 were the world's first and only civillian SSTs. Concorde was the commerical sucess that the Tupolev Tu-144 was not. Concorde has a near spotless operating record with only one major crash, even though it did had several mechanical failures that could've resulted in crashes.

As of right now, airlines are going for bigger is better model, which explains the Airbus 380, Boeing 777 & 747. Subsonic aircrafts are more profitable than SUpersonic aircraft. Hell, Concorde was a fuel hog, even more of a fuel hogs than SUVs. Concorde was also introduced in a time where the US was having a gas shortage, which is why only British Airways and Air France ever added Concordes to their fleet. Also, because it had to be designed for Supersonic speeds, it needed a slick and slender fuselage, not much room to carry passengers and luggages.

Now Concorde and Tupolev Tu-144 were not the only Civillian SSTs to be thought up of. Boeing tried to make it's own SST, Boeing 2707 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_2707), however due to people complaining about the sonic boom (nevermind the fact that Concorde didn't reach Supersonic speed till it was away far away from the airport and ground), and other concerns (such as fundings cut from Congress) Boeing 2707 never made it past the prototype phase.

Now that we have the history of Civillian SSTs out of the way, do y'all think there'll ever be a market for Civillian SSTs in the future?

As for me, I dunno. I mean right now fuel prices are low, but they will shoot back up, and that alone can destory any hope of a civillian SST being a viable project. Also, people being well....idiots will once again complain about the supersonic boom (once again Concorde did not reach Mach 1 until it was well into Flight Level 300 or 30,000 feet.)

I guess if an alternative, renewable jet fuel was developed (and it could be done cheaply) there might be a market for it. One of the advantage of creating an Civillian SST nowanddays is the fact that more and more aircraft's fuselages s are being made out of compsite material instead of metal. Which will give it a sleeker profile (less rivets and less seam lines) and be lighter.

However, before people start flying on the new SST, whoever produces it has to convience the public that it won't fall to the same problem that brought down Concorde in it's first and only crash. Why, because people are paranoid, scared idiots.

Also, it need to have a low operating budget, which was another one of Concorde's weak point. It caused I think Airbus alot of money to maintain the bird to keep it flying. Because of the high operating cost, a ticket to fly on Concorde was also high. I forgot what the ticket price was towards the end of it's run.

So in order to make a civllin SST viable it needs the following.
1. Cheap, renewable jet fuel
2. Composite skin instead of metal
3. Protection against what brought down the Concorde
4. Low operating cost.

Somebody's probably going to try; the possibility of cutting flight times in half or more is simply too alluring to ignore.

Somebody's probably going to try; the possibility of cutting flight times in half or more is simply too alluring to ignore.

I can't remember which company is doing it, but someone is working on an SST business jet.

The problem with SSTs is that, to maintain supersonic flight, no matter what kind of material you use, frontal drag area and total drag force need to be reduced as much as possible, and control surfaces need to be able to be operated in both sub- and supersonic flight.

The problem with this is that, in subsonic flight, you're not going to be able to produce the amount of lift that you are in supersonic flight. So you can't make the airframe, fully loaded, too heavy because the wing surface necessary for supersonic flight is smaller and smoother. An interesting approach to this would be a swept-wing design, but again, this contributes to operation and maintenance costs and would likely have a moderate impact on ticket prices.

The other obstacle would be the fuselage. To accomadate more passengers and make the flight more economical for passengers, the fuselage would have to be widened. Even a moderate increase in fuselage cross-sectional area leads to a greater frontal surface area and, thus, a much greater drag force at high speeds. This leads the other problem plaguing SSTs - the engines required for supersonic flight with such aircraft need to output incredible amounts of thrust while maintaining a light weight. Such engines are very expensive, and increasing the number of passengers for an SST flight would almost certainly require larger, more powerful and lightweight engines, again increasing the cost of an already expensive fleet.

An improbable, but possible, solution would be a RAMJET engine. These would allow for supersonic flight with such loads, while being lightweight and simple enough to drastically reduce maintenance costs. Problem is, you can't just engage these from rest. My guess is, from simple searches on the internet, you'd need to engage these at a minimum speed of 200 kn/hr for decent efficiency at startup and acceleration... meaning you'd still need primary engines to get the airframe up to this speed.

So, basically - SST = unviable. Thank you, Internet, for making me this bored to respond to another blo... I mean, thread from Wilgrove.

So, basically - SST = unviable. Thank you, Internet, for making me this bored to respond to another blo... I mean, thread from Wilgrove.

You don't want SST's anyway. You want sub-orbital HST's.

renewable jetfuel is kind of a contradiction in terms. yes basically it would have to be energy efficient and cheep to operate, reliable and long lasting. not impossible, but do we really want to keep having to go faster and faster?

someday we'll want something to move people in signifigantly more massive commuter type numbers from surface to orbit and back again. something like a space elevator or a loftstrom launch loop might be more practical when the day comes we can once again dream of building such things.

w.p.a. in space? an intersting thought.

we need higher percapita availability and service levels of transportation infrastructure individuals don't have to indenture themselves to right here on the ground more then anything right now.

if people want super gofasts in the air, fine with me either way. but i think you can see right here one of the problems with making everything dependent on 'markets' and one of the sorts of things that might be achievable if people really wanted it otherwise.

as for the "fuel" problem, solar/battery combinations, with lighter weight batteries of some sort, might be one thought to look into. air propulsion is an obvious potential use for hydrogen too, more practical then putting it in personal vehicules, though one of hydrogen's obsticles is again also economic production.

mini-nukes? probably not, but nasa does have a very long range solar/battery flying wing research platform. its one of those projects they haven't exactly advertised, but its not exactly classified either, or at least it wasn't at the time i heard about it.

i'm not saying you could make that thing, or something like it, use that tecnology as it stands for supersonic speeds, just suggesting one more line of research to possibly address the energy consumption issue.

You don't want SST's anyway. You want sub-orbital HST's.

The idea of Mach 24 makes me giggle with anticipation.

I just don't see the real reason to innovate in the passenger airline field. The airlines don't make money on being the fastest or the most comfortable. They make money by transporting cattle class passengers distances for the least amount of money. If I recall correctly, the Concorde was not a commercial success. It was more a status symbol for both the people flying it and BA/AF.

I think the future relies on what Airbus and Boeing do. Bigger and stiff or smaller and more flexible, either one could be the way the airlines operate in the future. Neither have room for an SST. Both Boeing and Airbus are making a killing with their aircraft, why bother messing with the system?

None of them was really a commercial success. Both were heavily subsidized from other sources. Concorde was operating at a loss, while the Soviets didn't exactly count their money.

It was a good try, both planes, but it was simply not worth it.



2. Composite skin instead of metal Composites can't work at such temperatures. Except CMC, but they're way too fragile, which brings us to 3.

Really, composites are tradeoffs - they trade strike and heat resistance to get lighter weight. Remove that tradeoff, and you also remove the lightness.

An improbable, but possible, solution would be a RAMJET engine. These would allow for supersonic flight with such loads, while being lightweight and simple enough to drastically reduce maintenance costs. Problem is, you can't just engage these from rest. The real problem is that they're bigtime gas-guzzlers. So you'll have a whole plane of fuel with a few people on top.

The real problem is that they're bigtime gas-guzzlers. So you'll have a whole plane of fuel with a few people on top.

This is true, yes.

The whole idea of re-commercializing SSTs is bonkers, anyway, so why not make one the size of an A380 that holds a pilot, co-pilot, and the CEO of a multinational oil company?

We'll call it Exxon Air. :D

One of the advantage of creating an Civillian SST ...

Afaik, there are actually 5 civilian SST projects in an advanced phase.
Sukhoi (formerly Sukhoi-Gulfstream) S-21
Tupolev Tu-244 (with cryogenic fuel!)
Tupolev Tu-444
Aerion SBJ
Gulfstream-NASA Quiet Spike

renewable jetfuel is kind of a contradiction in terms.

Unless you switch to either:
methane from biomasses
hydrogen from renewable sources

Now that we have the history of Civillian SSTs out of the way, do y'all think there'll ever be a market for Civillian SSTs in the future?
Undoubtedly. Technology is about making our lives easier, and supersonic travel is one day of doing that.

Whether it can be plausibly done for the consumption of the general public is another matter entirely.

As mentioned earlier, it'll be the sub-orbital flights that will take over. Then it'll be the underwater train from NYC to London that will be the quickest way to travel between the continents.

http://dsc.discovery.com/convergence/engineering/transatlantictunnel/interactive/interactive.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transatlantic_tunnel

Now that would be awesome.

Concorde was the result of a joint UK - France reasearch programme and in order to justify it's development the state owned airlines were obliged to operate them to show that the tax Pounds/Francs were not wasted.
IIRC it is thought that the US government prohibited supersonic overflight in order to make SSTs unviable comercially beacause the US didnt have one at the time that could compete with Concorde/Tu144 thus strangling the market for SSTs.
Christmahanikwanzikah's post explained the practical weakness of SSTs so I won't go over this ground again.

The idea of Mach 24 makes me giggle with anticipation.

It sounds like something Gillette might try and therefore makes me fear for my face.

This is true, yes.

The whole idea of re-commercializing SSTs is bonkers, anyway, so why not make one the size of an A380 that holds a pilot, co-pilot, and the CEO of a multinational oil company?

We'll call it Exxon Air. :D

And then crash it in Alaska.