Boeing sonic cruiser

two words! ITS UGLY!!!

BSC or Fireflash or both?

Oh well… you can’t please everyone :p

Yeah it was…it does beg the question as to how they could see where to land? :p

Who said anything about there being pilots in it :D! Remember what was in back of aircraft in Airplane?

two words! ITS UGLY!!!

The cockpit was also bizzarely located in the tail of the aircraft was it not?

Yeah it was…it does beg the question as to how they could see where to land? :p

Yep its not viable becouse of the various reasons, though it would have been awsome to see and travel on but sadly not to be, i reckon speed to be the key in the future, maybe Boeing or Airbus are working on a scramjet propulsion system so we can traval New York to Tokyo in 2-hour, not bad :p

Seriously though i think this could happen, it may need drastic redesign of the a/c and development of an operational scramjet propulsion system, something NASA is already testing this tech on its X-43A program and has so far achieved speeds of MACH7 😮

Scramjet is in any case of lomited usefulness, because dealing with fuselage heating is an issue.

Just how hot do the cabin windows of Boeing 2707 get in cruise?

The cockpit was also bizzarely located in the tail of the aircraft was it not?

Fireflash was a nuclear powered aircraft if I remember rightly?

Yes you are right, Fireflash was a 6 engined atomic powered aircraft, capable of accomodating up to 600 passengers. It had a maximum speed of Mach 6 (approximately 4,500 mph or 7,200 km/h) and cruising height of 250,000 feet. The cockpit is located above the main fuselage and between the two banks of engines, and its First Class section was located in the wings. The radiation shielding must be maintained on a regular basis as passengers can only spend a maximum of 3 hours in the aircraft before succumbing to radiation sickness.

Having said this, based on its maximum speed, I calculated that it could do a LHR-JFK in 50 minutes, and LHR-SYD in about 2 1/2hrs 😮 – how cool is that! 😀

I know it is all fiction, but surley there are some boffins out there that could develop something on a similar principle…? I suppose the idea of flying on an atomic airliner would scare some people though due to health risks?

Yep its not viable becouse of the various reasons, though it would have been awsome to see and travel on but sadly not to be, i reckon speed to be the key in the future, maybe Boeing or Airbus are working on a scramjet propulsion system so we can traval New York to Tokyo in 2-hour, not bad :p

Seriously though i think this could happen, it may need drastic redesign of the a/c and development of an operational scramjet propulsion system, something NASA is already testing this tech on its X-43A program and has so far achieved speeds of MACH7 😮

I thought the sonic cruiser was a smokescreen for the 787 to keep the competition (i.e. Airbus) away from the real development?

For the time being the sonic cruiser was a very very daft concept for the current market and Boeing were very wise to cancel the project.

With the projected lack of interest, Airbus would have made them look very very silly.

Fireflash was a nuclear powered aircraft if I remember rightly?

Is it me, or does this BSC represent something like the Fireflash from Thunderbirds…?

I know this will sound crazy to some, but what powered the Fireflash anyway, have designers considered using the same principles…?

Their is already one, not done by Boeing but by Aerion, its called the Aerion Supersonic Business Jet and i think is coming out around 2010.

Read somewhere that it’s powered by P&W engines and goes at mach 1.6 and the price tag is in the region of $80 million

http://www.aerioncorp.com/index.html

I can see this concept coming back as a bizjet.

Boeing Boeing’s vision for a supersonic business jet echoes its Sonic Cruiser, a high-subsonic commercial jet that was canceled in 2002. Both aircraft employ a tail-forward design with horizontal stabilizers positioned near the nose.

Source: Popular Science – Whooshhh! (printer friendly form!)