I feel the need...the need for speed

We will see supersonic flight when someone figures out how to eliminate the sonic boom. Once that day comes I am sure there will be a huge shift in the current commercial travel. You have to remember a good portion of flight occurs over areas where you can't go supersonic because of the noise. With that out of the equation supersonic flight becomes the primary means of travel IMO.

It isn't like we cannot do it now, if the boom and shattering house windows wasn't an issue at least.
 
Capt. Caucasian said:
I was thinking the same thing. To add a few more: significant advances in navigation, automation and reliability. There is a reason why most airliners in the 1960's had three or more engines. Think 'ETOPS'.;)
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When the reliability factor goes up again, I'd be willing to bet that in 100 years or less you'll be seeing ESOPS.

I met the guy who invented FADEC this summer (literally the guy, he just retired from Pratt this year if I recall) he told me that they were growing turbine blades for the new engines that are a single crystal. That's crazy to me. Metallurgy has progressed so far its unbelievable. That one guy basically single-handedly killed the flight engineer, and as cool as I think it is to have FEs, that is progress to advance the technology so far that you can remove a crewmember.

Think about it, we don't have navigators really at all anymore thanks to IRS, GPS, and the like, that and when was the last time you saw a flight engineer on your flight between New York and LA? In the old days that was more than common place, that was pretty much mandatory. A captain at ACE told me that when he first came up to Alaska god-know's how long ago, he flew up in the DC6 and they had an engine failure on the way up and no one cared. If you had an alaska jet divert on the way up because he lost a motor it'd be headline news.
 
Doug Taylor said:
Godless accountants took over the world.
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:yeahthat:That's really what it is; guaranteed profitability instead of innovation. I've heard it speculated before that if the airline industry had never been deregulated, manufacturers and airlines would have had slightly more tolerance for innovation due to not having to compete in the unregulated market.
 
OhioStatePilot said:
shdw,

That aircraft delays the sonic boom until Mach 1.1.
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I am not talking about a delay in the boom, I am talking about an elimination of it. When aircraft can fly super sonic without registering on the richter scale I suspect the limitation over the US will be lifted/rewritten for this kind of aircraft.

Have you had the pleasure of having an aircraft fly super sonic over your house by chance? When I was in Florida on a vacation one of the space shuttles landed. The boom from it going by, aside from being incredibly loud, knocked pictures off the wall and shook tables, lamps, etc in the place we were staying. Delaying till 1.1 is great, but what happens when you go for Mach 2 like the Concorde, or higher which I am sure we can achieve aerodynamically at this point.
 
shdw said:
I am not talking about a delay in the boom, I am talking about an elimination of it. When aircraft can fly super sonic without registering on the richter scale I suspect the limitation over the US will be lifted/rewritten for this kind of aircraft.

Have you had the pleasure of having an aircraft fly super sonic over your house by chance? When I was in Florida on a vacation one of the space shuttles landed. The boom from it going by, aside from being incredibly loud, knocked pictures off the wall and shook tables, lamps, etc in the place we were staying. Delaying till 1.1 is great, but what happens when you go for Mach 2 like the Concorde, or higher which I am sure we can achieve aerodynamically at this point.
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It appears from what I read on their website that the Sonic boom is really not much an issue. Only in the U.S. there is a route over canada they can go super sonic, over the oceans its not an issue and apparently over the middle east it's not an issue. Not sure you need mach 1.5 to go from new york to atlanta. Then again I have never had to worry about creating a sonic boom so I dont really know what countries do and do not allow it.

I'm still curious...the original question was would you want a job flying super sonic at FL510 or would you rather stay in the more common sub sonic flying?
 
akmountaineer said:
Personally, I'm holding out for the commercial development of suborbital transports.
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Right now it's going to be nothing more than a short joy ride for the ultra wealthy, BUT in 20 years it could be New York to Tokyo in an hour or less based on the technological advancements made from these early "joyrides." Hopefully it's the start of some real innovation in a stagnant industry.
 
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