New supersonic commercial aircraft?

There’s a good deal of info on the Tu-244, Tu-344 (the BACKFIRE derivative…yes, BACKFIRE), and Tu-444 SSBJ in the Red Star book on the Tu-144.

Aparently SUKHOI is workin on a SSBJ ( Super Sonic Buisness Jet) – They promise to put more informaiton on there website soon.

http://www.sukhoi.org/eng/planes/projects/ssbj/

🙂 love to see that one take off!!!

😮 Check out the nose on Gulfstream’s Quiet Spike concept! http://www.flightglobal.com/Articles/2006/07/25/207986/Farnborough+Quiet+Spike+sonic+trials+nose+ahead.html

NEXST1 SST?!

was it somehow that has to do with Japanese scale model explosion back in July 2002? or perhaps a newer one?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/2127429.stm

got the info from GOOGLE site under “jet crashes” (web, not images)…

12 passengers?? What would be the ticket cost 10,000$ ??

http://www.janes.com/aerospace/civil/news/misc/janes060727_1_n.shtml

Plans for a fleet of supersonic jets linking the world’s major financial centres, with London as a hub, were disclosed to Jane’s at the Farnborough Airshow last week. Designed by Lockheed Martin’s renowned Skunk Works, the 12-seater jets would be much smaller than the 100-passenger Concorde, retired in 2003 – and would use radical aerodynamic technology to eliminate the sonic booms that prevented Concorde from cruising at high speeds overland.

Nice pic here http://www.janes.com/business/images/SAI%20QSST1.jpg

The near-sonic speeds have much of the disadvantages of supersonic flight, and little of the benefit, as Convair 880 and 990 showed.

One could argue that the Convair 4-jets suffered as much from the design being over-tailored to the requirements of a single customer as they did from anything else.

Don’t forget that Spantax used the CV990 on charter services for a good few years with considerable success.

I think the military has found refueling both expensive and risky.

If you are flying with a subsonic plane, like B747 (E-4 or VC-25), or B-52 or B-1 or B-2 with fuel running low, and approaching an equipped airfield… what is the more comfortable and cheaper way to refuel:
land, refuel, take off with full fuel load
or have a fully fuelled tanker (say, KC-10) take off as the plane approaches, tank in air and return to land on the airfield to be refilled?

more comfortable for whom? Certainly not for passengers. Though you’re probably right and in air refuelling is too expensive no matter what – my logic was that since passengers are already paying extra for the speed in the sense that fast plane is pricey, so much fuel is pricey etc, why not pay for aerial refuelling too? It would cut a trip 1-2 hours shorter, compared to a stop to refuel.

Sometimes when i think soberly about it all i fear we may never see supersonic travell for all based on carbon fuel. Perhaps we’ll even see vacuum tube maglev lines over pacific first, however expensive that idea is.

He did precisely this. It is United Airlines.
However, Boeing cannot do it again because of Air Mail Act. What is the situation with Airbus, or Tupolev?

I am not saying monopalizing the line or a particular type of aircraft. They can offer it to who so ever seeks it and if no one seeks it then produce it for themselves and fly it all the while offering it to those who want it . I think this is permisible isnt it??

Result? Douglas started a brand new manufacturer and produced a plane that was actually better than Boeing 247. The DC-2!

For the sake of Passenger travel this would be even better (airbus producing a better supersonic airplane then boeing )

Makes me wonder though… would it be feasible to have aerial refuelling tankers ready for certain busy corridors? Lets say groups operating from hawaii or marshall islands, for flights from US to china or australia. I wonder how much would that cost…

I think the military has found refueling both expensive and risky.

If you are flying with a subsonic plane, like B747 (E-4 or VC-25), or B-52 or B-1 or B-2 with fuel running low, and approaching an equipped airfield… what is the more comfortable and cheaper way to refuel:
land, refuel, take off with full fuel load
or have a fully fuelled tanker (say, KC-10) take off as the plane approaches, tank in air and return to land on the airfield to be refilled?

I agree. Aviation is heavily subsidized as it is, for both makers of planes and airline companies. The smaller an airline is, more heavily subsidized it is. Europe is prime example of countless small (and not so small) airlines that literally exist because of their respective govt’s subsidies, without which they’d go bankrupt in no time.

So why not redirect some of those subsidies and help faster travel? Ironic thing though is that where shaving half the time off would help most – long haul pacific rim flights – are also most expensive to pull off due to extra weight of so much fuel needed. Makes me wonder though… would it be feasible to have aerial refuelling tankers ready for certain busy corridors? Lets say groups operating from hawaii or marshall islands, for flights from US to china or australia. I wonder how much would that cost…

Huge number of tech advances we have today are a result of govt investments, mostly in the manner of fuelling research for the military, which then later trickled into commercial use sphere. So what’s the big deal of just circumventing the military step and pump money straight into making life better for average passenger? 😀 Damn, i should stop myself before i’m labeled a communist 😀

I guess we need another Howard Hughes to come along and order a bunch of these airliners and absorb the cost down. I often dream of what would happen if boeing or airbus started an airline of their own

He did precisely this. It is United Airlines.
However, Boeing cannot do it again because of Air Mail Act. What is the situation with Airbus, or Tupolev?

and started flying 30-50 of these jets (PAX from 225-300) across the Pacific and Atlantic . Other airlines would be forced to seriously consider them if they want to compete with the airline shaving close to 50% of the time .

Boeing did produce and fly a bunch of revolutionary, fast planes. Other airliner were forced to seriously consider them – but all delivery slots were already sold to United Airlines.

Result? Douglas started a brand new manufacturer and produced a plane that was actually better than Boeing 247. The DC-2!

The boeing Sonic cruiser was a good attempt to try to bridge the gap b/w the high costing high supersonic passenger liner and the slow going airliners of today however in my opinion it wasnt pushing the envelope too much (although it offered about 20% greater speed) .

Indeed. The near-sonic speeds have much of the disadvantages of supersonic flight, and little of the benefit, as Convair 880 and 990 showed.

I think that had the concept of a mach 1.4-1.6 flight been feasable or a serious and lucrative venture the airlines would have demanded it . Nowdays the airlines are more concerned about fuel economy,maintaince hours,MTBF,logistical footprint,and aerodynamic effeceincies etc etc . I guess we need another Howard Hughes to come along and order a bunch of these airliners and absorb the cost down. I often dream of what would happen if boeing or airbus started an airline of their own and started flying 30-50 of these jets (PAX from 225-300) across the Pacific and Atlantic . Other airlines would be forced to seriously consider them if they want to compete with the airline shaving close to 50% of the time . The boeing Sonic cruiser was a good attempt to try to bridge the gap b/w the high costing high supersonic passenger liner and the slow going airliners of today however in my opinion it wasnt pushing the envelope too much (although it offered about 20% greater speed) . The sonic cruiser actually not that expenisve to develop (would have cost boeing about 9 billion dollars at that time) and if they really wanted a supersonic aircraft they could easily spent another 12-15 billion . FOR ONCE the governments on both sides of the atlantic need to stop giving subsidies so that two Fat aviation mamoths can compete better with each other and start giving subsidies where they will actually really benefit the passenger with aircrafts such as this . It is nothing really for The US govt. (and partners such as japan etc) to pay about 2-3 billion a year for about 3-5 years when the total budget is in trillions of dollars every year. Ofcourse rather then pay boeing a charity they can make an investment and get return on it aswell . Something to think about!!!

With hindsight, were their estimates right?

Nobody knows, because you’re talking about aircraft that never flew. There is no yardstick to measure their estimates against.

If a manufacturer isn’t enthusiastic about their own design, who else is going to believe in it?

The super-rich will always place a higher premium on comfort than they do on speed. That’s why Mr Abramovich has a B767 and not a MiG 31. :D:D:D

Second-hand B727 or B737 is much bigger, and can be refurbished to be much more comfortable, than a new-build Gulfstream or Falcon. It is much cheaper, too.

Many of the rich do have old airliners refurbished for VIP – but many buy brand new, much smaller planes for some reason.

While ATR VIP is on offer, I haven´t heard much talk of them having large numbers of customers. ATR VIP, even newbuilt, would be more spacious and comfortable than a jet with a similar pricetag.

So, I suspect that if supersonic travel were available at reasonable, even substantial premium price, it could well have a niche.

While XB-70 did not enter service, it did have a substantial test flying program. What was the fuel burn and range like?

Boeing and Lockheed were not mere enthusiasts. They spent millions just to build fancy mockups, and much more to develop planes and estimate their performance. And they stood to risk milliards if they were challenged to build the planes to their performance estimates and did not meet those. With hindsight, were their estimates right?

JAXA NEXST is considerably less defined than Boeing and Lockheed projects were… and estimating the performance of all possible SST projects is even harder for enthusiasts.

I thinks its already in the stages of feasability/concept development, its a supersonic business jet (SSBJ), named “The Aerion”, powered by P&W JT8D-219 engines, i think it does have a $100Mill price tag.

Link

I have to say, I find this new jet very exciting. Looks pretty feasable and could be a huge success. Anyone know when it may be due to come out, if it does?

Yup. Even though concorde flight did earn a fine sum with each its flight (it better had, with $8000 a seat pricetag in the last days), more so than operational cost was with fuel, maintenance and salaries, when one takes into account the programme development cost – there’s no way whole programme was justifiable economically. Over mach 2 is really not needed. Makes life harder with all the special materials for overheating and additional maintenance. Mach 1.5 – 1.6 range being suggested for all these business jets seems the right way to go. It’s still almost twice as fast as regular airliner.

The link is in your quote.

Sorry, never noticed that there. 😮

To Add to that fuel consumption isnt the only parameter worth looking at . There is aircraft maintainability , maintaince costs , Costs of buying components , airframe life etc etc which are required to get a more balanced outlook not to mention the cost to buy the aircraft in the first place.