Concorde Successor

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3231354.stm

Bullshit, someone needs to read Skunk Works. I can just envisage a large
passenger jet built of Titanium, which leaks fuel before takeoff and needs
servicing at the end of each flight.
Concorde was the optimum performance.

 

Titanium construction isn't a guarantee of fuel leaks. The Space
Shuttle was originally designed to be made of titanium.

--
Platypus - Faster Than Champ
VN800 Drifter, R80RT, Z200
DIAABTCOD#2 GPOTHUF#19
BOTAFOS#6 BOTAFOT#89 FTB#11
BOB#1 SBS#35 ANORAK#18 TWA#15

 

I was the optimum design in it's era for sure, and the shape is probably
optimum too. However, the materials and power power units were not
optimumised. With more powerful engines and new materials used it is
almost certain it could go faster and higher.

There is even more to consider now though. Computers! With these you can
create new shapes that are be better at going faster with less friction,
but may be less 'flyable'. For example the F117 would be almost
impossible to fly if it relied on traditional control systems.

 

In terms of materials etc. I was referring to the SR-71 Blackbird.
Going above the Mach 2-3 envelope would generate an excess of aeroframe heat
almost impossible to dissipate. It would also lead to even more extreme heat
distortion problems. Flying higher creates other problems with intake volume
and solutions in turn reduce low altitude efficiency. I expect that Ben
Rich's variable intake cones as used on the Blackbird are subject to several
patents!

Lockheed, after the creation of the Blackbird, killed requests for a
hypersonic sub-orbital aircraft as they had realised it was impractical. It
would need to be an orbital rocket system and the fuel load to transit 100
passengers must be pretty large.

Lets face it you don't need to go much faster than Concorde. Say a
replacement was built it in Titanium and pushed to a sustained Mach 2.5?
more than fast enough for Global commuting.

 

Hog posted ...

Heh .. **** that, the faster the better ...

Try to get rid of Jet Lag.

 

Correct, but I think the Concorde development addressed fuel tank issues to
some extent. The Blackbird had further problems, at Mach3+ they had to run a
heat pump to protect the cameras and pilot. They were using the fuel as the
heatsink, having developed a special fuel which was happy at 450F.

 

Ummm...because it was the only practical metal for an aeroplane flying
sustained Mach3 never mind 6. This was one of the finding from Lockheed
detailed in Ben Rich's book.
I doubt that sacrificial ceramic tiles are going to find there way into
airline workhorses.

 

Hog wrote

Who says it has to be metal?

Sacrificial you are prolly right about but don't dismiss the efforts of
Brave British Materials Engineers. We will find something for the
merkins to steal to make it work don't you worry.

 

I'll bet they are. ISTR though that they have achieved much higher than
Mach 3 with the old Bell X-x series. Although this was a very small
plane, and certainly not subject to the same expansion problems in the
larger planes.

Although they are experimenting with alternatives now, SCRAM jets and
even the old RAM jets are being considered. Not forgetting that chap
experimenting with a light engine.

The trouble they have is that most of the Concorde clientel were killed
in the twin towers, and unless they can find other routes, and other
buyers, it will never become a viable option. I can't see the cost of
developing a new plane would justify and extra Mach 0.5 though, the time
saving just wouldn't make it worthwhile.

 

50s technology. The X-15 was doing Mach 6 in the early 60s.

http://www.airartnw.com/firstreentry.htm

Heat (and drag) is produced when the supersonic airflow is turbulent.
When it's smooth, there's less heat and drag. So, improved
aerodynamics. It should be possible to show improvements over the
efforts of 40 years ago. Skylon, for instance:

http://www.gbnet.net/orgs/skylon/

Worthless on grounds of prior application - see Miles M52 and the
computer-controlled intake ramps on Concorde.

Kick the plane out of the atmosphere and you can go as fast as you like.

--
Platypus - Faster Than Champ
VN800 Drifter, R80RT, Z200
DIAABTCOD#2 GPOTHUF#19
BOTAFOS#6 BOTAFOT#89 FTB#11
BOB#1 SBS#35 ANORAK#18 TWA#15

 

Platypus wrote:

I'd like to go at 3e8 m/s.
Does that mean I'm warped?

 

I can certainly see how it would have been more convenient for Bilbo and
Gandalf etc...



Ah, my coat. Thanks.

 

Oh, fair enough - you know more about aircraft design than a
multinational aerospace company, cos you read it in a book.

You should drop them an email, you'll save them a lot of trouble.

 

Er, the faster you go, the worse jet lag gets.

 

Is that true?

Actually it's not something I suffer from so I wouldn't know.

I find sleeping little enough so one's constantly irritable means when
one should be suffering from jet-lag one seems 'normal'

 

I think so - it's a factor of having to adjust your body clock. If
you travelled by sea to New York, the change in Sunrise/sunset time
each day would be gradual, and you'd suffer no effects.

If you instantly teleported to New York in a UK evening, , you'd have
to, start a 2nd daylight day when you got there.

Flying by jet is somewhere in between the two.

 

Not really, you'd only be an afternoon behind, and you could have a
decent lie in the next day.

 

More to the point, instant teleportation would mean the reverse would
be true, so you'd be able to pop home to bed whenever you felt like
it.

 

Travelling east-west is easy. You just stay up a bit longer or go to
bed a bit early.

Travelling from west-east (eg. US->UK) is trickier. You either have
a very short day, or you leave the west in the evening and arrive in
the east in the morning, having had a night lasting a couple of hours.
By that point your body thinks it's the middle of the night but the
clock says it's the next morning. If you sleep all day to catch up,
you're awake just in time for nightfall.

 

The difference was in endurance. The Bell made a fast dash to speed, the
SR-71 maintained it for hours producing new problems. I liked the passage in
that book about the end of life airframe analysis. The titanium fuselage had
been so annealed that it was tougher than when originally constructed. I
was also greatly amused by the tales of learning to work with this (then)
new material, brought back memories of Fast Reactor development - titanium,
inconel and pe-16 come to mind.

These wouldn't get a passenger jet off the ground from a static start within
local noise regs though.