SchorschIsn’t this plane basically a mock-up for the photo ops because they promised this would be the day it was unveiled?:D
It was turned apart to some degree again, which isn’t really included in the term “system integration”. I read an account saying that you could look inside the cabin when standing at the landing gear. Anyways, nice weather down in Seattle.
SchorschWith weak engines that burn alot of fuel.
J85-21 (5000lbf wet) Specific Fuel Consumption at Maximum Power 2.13 lb/(lbf·h)
x 2
4,26 lb burnrate as oppose to say a single F404/RM12 at 1.78 lb.
http://www.geae.com/engines/military/comparison_turbojet.html
http://www.geae.com/engines/military/comparison_turbofan.htmlI’m also puzzled as to why you mention modern jets and then compare to a F-14.
Finally I also wonder what a F-5EM with 3 drop tanks is supposed to do? air combat? With 4500 kg thrust on a 9720kg TOW.. what’s the G-limit.. +3? 🙂 well good luck.
You don’t know much about engines and aircraft performance, do you?
First, dropping in an SFC for afterburner is extremely misleading. The majority of time it will be in dry thrust. Second, you use sea level static SFC values, as you don’t have anything else and I guess are not really familar with the concept of SFC. The values at normal cruise speed will differ substantially.
Third, most embarrasing for you, when you use a SPECIFIC fuel consumption, you shouldn’t add the values for two engines. You even gave the unit, read your own text and understand the concept of “SPECIFIC”.
Finally, nobody recommended to make a2a-combat with three drop tanks. These tanks are for cruise to combat zone or loiter. If you take a look at normal mission planning charts, they all suppose that when entering combat the aircraft is clean of drop tanks. Here you see the big advantage of drop tanks: you have the fuel, but you can instantly dump it and you are free of any additional structural weight or drag (except for the pylons). Any CFT doesn’t have this advantage, you always have drag and structural weight. Hence, CFTs are normally for a2g missions.
SchorschBy the way: an F-5 can carry 4 Sidewinders and 3 external tanks. In this configuration it has more than plenty of range (more than some much heavier and modern double-digit superfigthers). In a different configuration with the wet wing points busy with bombs this conformal external tanks seem of use, but here I think the performance impact is too much.
From Wiki:
Empty weight: 4350kg
OEW (guessed): 4700kg
Int Fuel: 2560l = 2100kg
Ext Fuel: 3x1040l = 2560kg
4x Sidewinder: 360kg
TOW: 9720kg
MTOW: 11190kg
At above configuration of less than 10 tons of weight more than 40% is fuel. You don’t look much better with an F-16. The fuel factor of an F-5E (without ext fuel and just armed with 4 AIM-9) is better than that of an F-14.
SchorschIn europe definately but i dont see it happening here in the US or in some of the developing asian countries.
I actually think that aircraft may take over on other connections from railway, as useful railway connections demand large investments. Countries like India and China, who are large in size and population, at the same time with limited infrastructure, will rely more on air travel. Or as John Leahy once stated, the A380 in dense configuration has lower operating costs than the Indian railway on some routes.
With aircraft technology advancing, the benefit of railway in terms of overall environmental impact decreases.
SchorschI agree , 0.85 avg. seems to be the sweet spot for the forceable future (atleast our lifetime anyway) .
IMHO what we will see now is as the world economy grows –
– Shift to better interiors , more legroom etc etc
– Greener – maybe even alternate synth fuel
– Better ATC managment
Agree. With more traffic between large urban centers it will be interesting how the airlines will organize the traffic. More point to point or reliance on hub’n spoke. I guess a mixture of both. Potentially short haul traffic will go back to the rail with improved infrastructure and increased fuel cost. Here in Germany for example the train is for some city pairs (f. e. Hamburg to Frankfurt) the fastest mode of travel from downtown to downtown.
I would see a limited chance that for short haul traffic (<500nm) the turbo-prop will have a comeback, potentially based on more sophisticated prop aircraft (see A400M with M0.68 cruise speed, compared to M0.78 of a normal single aisle).
I see no alternate fuels as their overal carbon footprint is sometimes quite bad and the price is still beyond affordability. The usage of alternate fuels is to some extent bull****ting the public by now. Lufthansa would need agricultaral area equal to ~8% of Germany to grow fuel for its operations.
Another thing I would bet on: The aircraft in 20 years or in 30 years will still have a pilot, most likely two.
And another thing: there are no big leaps any more, just careful evolution, especially when considered from the distance.
SchorschTo answer the primary question:
Speed.
As airports (and the drives to them) take more of a travellers time, there will be more pressure to regain some of the lost time by making planes faster. The trick will be to do that without losing much fuel efficency or causing extra pollution.
Why don’t change the airports? The current system actually focusses on pooling the passengers ahead of boarding to prevent any delays. I see no reason why check-in and boarding cannot be accomplished in 30 to maximum 45 minutes.
SchorschSo do you suggest that we will go straight from here to “Beem me up scotty” ? 😀
People, especially layman, see Super Conni, B707 and Concorde and conclude that speed increases with time and that is the nature of progress. That is wrong.
“Progress” costs money and must be economically reasonable, otherwise it is not asked for and nobody would invest in such technologies. When we look at speed, we can use the Concorde as good example for some basic conclusions. Concorde had a ~120% higher cruise speed than the B707, still the travel time between Heathrow Terminal door and JFK terminal door was reduced by at best 30%, potentially less.
The progress we have seen in the last 10 to 20 years is a reduction of fatal accidents with FAR25 aircraft to one tenth of the rate we had two decades ago. We have also seen a drop in relative ticket price (relative to income). These are the vectors of “progress”, more affordable or more comfortable, safer (and more reliable), “greener”. Not a knot more speed in sight, though. A380 and B787 have queitly settled were last time the B747 was, at about M.85 to M.89 cruise speed. B767 and A300 were down to M.8 in the mean time.
SchorschYou show a complete lack of knowledge . Delivery can only happen once Cert. is received.
But you can deliver a certified aircraft that isn’t operational. A380 is certified since December 2006, approved for flying 800 passengers. IFE was the challenge.
On hindsight we know that airbus execs were not OPTIMISTIC but frodulent , some sold their stock options when the prices were good just before they admitted to major issues , that wasnt being optimistic about the issue but being cunning enough to bail out when the going is good and leave the shareholders at bay. Boeing is simply being optimistic to a point they dont get into trouble with the SEC . They have to report all potential problems that are effecting the program and they have been doing it since last year. They have reported of a delay for FF , and have laid down a plan to get it into the air and cert. . As the plan gets into force they will make periodic announcments to shareholders regarding how they are going as far as the plan is concerned , and if so required warn of a delay ie. if they cannot stick to the timeline they have set for them .
It started at Airbus with optimism. Flawed leadership and bad management, the stock selling thing is just a doubious move of some executives but basically does not explain any problems of the A380.
Fun fact: The A380 disaster saved EADS at least one billion when purchasing the 20% share of Airbus from BAe Systems.
SchorschI fear that the market is too tight for such a product of European origin.
With the first rumors of that chopper came the possibility of a joint venture with Sirkorsky about a CH-53 upgrade, but it seems it’s over now.
A possibility for a Euro-Russian cooperation, based on EADS and OAK. Russia has some good experience in large helis, but funding a new Mi26 class helicopter would only make sense with partners. Look at the rest of the world: nothing new coming out, just refinements of CH-47 and CH-53. But helicopter with new blades, new gearbox, new engine and new system is basically a new aircraft, the hull itself doesn’t give away much on a helicopter.
SchorschMeaning that until we know of something we cannnot comment that a particular design is flawed , its still a waiting game.
I neither would say anything like that. Looking at A380, which development I followed a bit (fortunately not through the media), I see that there are always some “flaws”, which can be corrected within test program and have only a small effect on overall schedule. Many issues with systems can be detected before first flight.
I especially would like to know how Boeing does all that load flight testing, do they have just one fully flight test intrumented aircraft or more? How do they do calibration? Vibration testing normally takes lots of time and requires a flight worthy aircraft.
Let’s remember that B777 took 11 month testing, using 6 aircraft, and can be considered one the most sucessful test campaigns so far for a modern large civil jet.
A major flaw or incident (for example: wrongly dimensioned primary structure, damage of test aircraft) would be fatal (like for any test program). With a complex production like the B787 has, a problem like local strenghening of primary structure (a regular occurance on testing campaigns) may have negative effects.
SchorschNo , there is a big difference . A380 had a major flaw in its wiring designs cuz of the Different software versions , The execs were not forthcomming about it or about the size/magnitude of the issue until well they had parted away with some stock options of their own at a pretty decent price. Now comming back to the 787 , we dont know anything about any design flaw , rumours of Temp. fastners causing issues have been put to rest by the program head as to be out of context as they used precaution on the fastners and used a smaller size . Moreover the problems have now been isolated to the 1st aircraft , 2nd aircraft and partly to the 3rd aircraft .
That is the nature of testing: you don’t know the problems before you test it. So claiming the A380 problems as “obvious” and the B787 as “bug-free” beside the faster-issues is just illusional. No self-respecting engineer would make such statements, no matter if Airbus or Boeing.
SchorschStill a miracle to me how Boeing will stuff all certification work into this small time frame. They are not so many people who have experience with big aircraft testing and certification, but the people I know are all wondering how they are doing it and will follow the news with interest. After this obvious glitch in the program, it becomes apparent that Boeing does not have re-invented the wheel but just obliged the engineers to an impossible schedule and now faces the consequences. We will see. In reporting I see little difference between Airbus 2005 and Boeing 2007. Problems are denied until they cannot be kept secret any more. If EIS slips, they will admit early next year.
A 5 month certification flight test program is a bit too optimistic, especially as completion of the other aircraft is not granted. One should not make the error of taking fancy MS Project charts as the granted truth, normally they are an illusion.
SchorschTo answer the primary question:
Speed.
As airports (and the drives to them) take more of a travellers time, there will be more pressure to regain some of the lost time by making planes faster. The trick will be to do that without losing much fuel efficency or causing extra pollution.
Speed will most likely not increase. Transonic drag rise is a physical fact, going beyond Mach 1 requires too much compromise. The current speed is fast enough, average speed on a highway hasn’t increased since 1960, either. We will see as Distiller stated new guidance and more efficient planning. Aircraft will become lighter. If A380 become successful we will maybe see a blended-wing body concept by 2025, but as Boeing gives the A380 no success I doubt.
Generally there are no big visible leaps in technology in sight. Aviation has just reached the limits set by physics, as other transportation methods.
SchorschAs for fuel efficiency how about nuclear energy replacing kerosene, as the technology matures it will become possible for better miniaturisation, small enough to fit in an aircraft…
No, not even thinkable.
Schorsch“Unchanged, this delay is eating into the buffer that was built in to the program.”
Higher speed flight. 24/7 Flight test program to be expected.
I like that one: it is not that Airbus did not intended the same, but from hands on experience I can say you that test aircraft have downtime, and these downtimes are normally unscheduled.
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