No-boom supersonic flights could slide through US skies soon This week, a bipartisan bill was introduced that would allow supersonic flight over the continental US for the first time in 52 years, as long as they're quiet. The Supersonic Aviation Modernization Act would allow America's aviation watchdog to issue licenses allowing flights over land "at a Mach number greater than one so …
"If it's not Boeing, I'm not going..." {strike that} "If it's Boeing, I'm not going..."' Okay, brought forward to modern times.
Unfortunately, most of those pushing to lift the restrictions were not alive in the early 70's and don't remember just how well reasoned the prohibition on supersonic flight over populated area were. Growing up in the late 60's and early 70's in far north Dallas, the sonic booms generated by military aircraft were quite regular and teeth jarring at times. (even though calling the area populated back then may have been a bit of a stretch)
While drone sized models may show promise of being able to reduce the intensity of the shock wave, a full-scale aircraft is a different thing altogether. Forgive me if I'm a bit skeptical of claims of 90 dB shock wave from a plane going Mach 1.7... but then again, 2049 has left 24 years to meet the goal (or revise the shock wave intensity up).
I guess with delays at the departure and arrival terminal ballooning by hours, they are searching for any way possible to shorten the travel time in between. Here's to hope. I still believe in magic...
NASAs QueSST has more or less proven that low intensity sonic booms are possible by shaping the shockwaves to overlap and partially cancel out, causing it to be a low intensity sort of "wump" instead of a sharp crack as older aircraft had. Boom however for instance uses none of that tech and claims to be able to rely on atmospheric conditions alone to prevent their shockwave reaching the ground which seems AT BEST extremely conditional and very impractical in practice
Do remember hearing sonic booms when i was a kid in Boston. Been a long time since i last heard one. Do wonder how a thermocline would be confirmed to be at the right altitude and intensity to mitigate the boom. Sounds like the speed of the planes would need to be modified depending on the local weather conditions. Sounds possible though. Perhaps thermocline is not accurate though it seems a reasonable term for temperature differences creating layers in air.
I had 2 thoughts reading this.
- is this what they are wasting valuable Congressional time with everything else going on
- Shirley this is a matter for the States to decide? ‘You Know Who’ lives delegating from a Federal level:
Personally I’d be worrying about the supersonic contrails….
The USA tested sonic boom population tolerance in the 1960s over Kansas using the XB70. It's one of the reasons they outlawed SST flight over land.
Boomless flight requires flight at a critical speed only just over the speed of sound AND at the exact right altitude AND under the right atmospheric conditions. It's something that you can't do with scheduled services - meaning this is billionaire private jet territory
Let me just check how much was a Concorde ticket back then. Ooops!
To be fair:
1. Concorde required a flight engineer - which was one of the reasons BA/AF wanted it gone.
2. Concorde consumed as much fuel taxiing from stand to runway at Heathrow as regional airliners consumed flying to Berlin. I always wondered why they didn't just tug it out to a runway-adjacent hard standing for engine start.
3. When BA first launched Concorde services they did some market research on what people were willing to pay, and it turned out to be double what they'd actually expected to charge. The underlying operating cost was not as high as one might imagine (albeit they never had to amortise any capital cost since the British/French governments sold them for a quid).
4. Concorde never actually turned a loss. It was always profitable - but following the post-9/11 downturn in aviation, BA realised that subsonic first-class was more profitable per seat, and so they were better off dumping Concorde and depriving the market of that option in order to force people into the higher-margin upstairs seats on 747/A380.
So there was a market for this, and I have no doubt there will continue to be a market for this. And using modern engine tech, the fuel bill will likely be more reasonable than Concorde's (which still allowed them to turn a profit!).
All of which still doesn't make this a better option than building out high speed rail (bringing Texas triangle or Midwest cities within an hour of each other), and interlinking those regional networks to allow coast-to-coast sleeper services. Boarding a train at 6pm in NYC or DC, having dinner and a good night's sleep before you pull into LA at 9am is always going to be more comfortable than getting up at 5am to be at the airport for 7am so you can get touched up for your 9am flight and then sit like sardines for n hours. Faster flights don't make up for the fact that airports are a painful experience and - by their nature - usually out of town, well away from the place you're actually travelling to (Los Angeles being somewhat the exception to the rule).
I mena, I have no doubt that Boom will try to get Overture passengers the Concorde experience - a private check-in desk and security suite so they can basically arrive and walk onto the aircraft. But at JFK they'll still have 40minutes of taxiing, and at LAX they'll need a private helicopter or else spend the next hour or two in traffic.
As soon as passenger rail travel becomes popular enough it too becomes a target for people with bad intentions and you can bet your top dollar the TSA is going to want to install the same level of security theater in rail terminals before letting you onboard.
And yet... You can travel internationally across Europe and you might, might get spot-checked on the train itself by border police when you're passing into (say) Switzerland.
Of course, I appreciate that the US is stuck with the Mall Ninja/Paul Blart characters in the TSA, as well as the Air Marshals who have been bitter ever since they were made redundant barely a year after they were created when metal cockpit doors and a simple bolt largely eliminated any risk of hijack.
The only serious security checks on European rail is on the Eurostar, and that's because the British government is perpetually fearful of dirty furriners. From a security point of view, anyone wanting to (say) try and bomb the Chunnel would be better off trying to get a car bomb onto Le Shuttle than dragging a much smaller device onto Eurostar.
Lets be honest, the main reason was that it was not possible to let the Frogs and Rosbeefs parade their technical prowess all over USA (and the rest of the world) when Boeing, Lockeed, McDonnel, Douglas and co were unable to build anything comparable.
The ban basically killed the Concorde production, as all the American companies at that time had some ordered, but they cancelled the order when the ban occured. Which left only AF and BA dealing with the few they already had delivered... After also cancelling their orders.
I wonder how low those tests were done in the US WRT to the sonic booms over cities? After all, Concord could fly significantly higher than your average passenger jet. Would the sonic boom really have been that loud on the ground when it was at full cruising altitude? Personally, I have no clue, I don't think I have ever experienced a sonic boom of any kind. AFAIK, they are rare in the UK, mostly caused by RAF interceptors chasing down Russians probing our airspace being authorised go supersonic after leaving the likes of RAF Lossiemouth up in the North of Scotland and are pretty much heading straight out to sea at that point.
By flying F-104, B-58 and friends, ince the only supersonic planes they had around where fighters and bombers.
I stumbled on a paper : Effect of sonic boom on people: St Louis, Missouri, 1961-1962 through a search.
Apparently they flew between 31k and 46k feet
For reference Concorde was flying at 57k feet (and could go higher), but the fighters they used were unable to go that high ( though not by much ) the Hustler (B-58) could go that high though...
But they probably loaded the deck by flying at the regular airliner altitude, which is much lower than where the Concorde flew.
Even when the Concorde flew, peasants couldn't afford the ticket... in modern money it would run at more than 10K€... [last price 2 decades ago was at 5K€]
And remember there was only one class : Luxury Cramped Cattle.
[understand that as small cramped seats, no cabin luggage, not much legroom, but with champagne, foie gras and caviar instead of a soft drink and some semi-stale stuff that pass for food in current cattle class]
Tell me you haven't flown on Concorde without tellimg me you haven't flown on Concorde :lol:
The seats were plenty comfortable with loads of legroom. Headroom was limited but that's wasn't a problem once you are sitting down. The wine list was rather good. I don't recall any Foie Gras or caviar but I did have a decent steak - although obviously not as good as at Peter Luger the night before.
In 1998 my ticket was ~£800 London to New York, coming back on Concorde. Demand was quite low for the early flight back hence the good deal.
I keep hearing the Roger Ramjet theme.
I have a vague recollection that one of the reason that supersonic passenger transport was largely abandoned was the hazard that emissions from SST aircraft could further imperil the ozone layer which was then suffering from the effects of CFCs.
The sound energy from the boom might also have environmental effects such as on the fairly high flying migratory birds and patterns of storms and rainfall which for a half dozen such aircraft would be insignificant but hundreds or thousands globally could seriously screw up an already fucked planet.
Garrrr --- This is the country that invented the leaf blower. The reason supersonic flight was banned in the USA was because the Concorde was not an American airplane.
FWIW, I lived in a town with an airforce base. Sonic booms were normal. Sometimes people got cracks in the ceiling or windows -- as they have in every other city I've lived in since, without the sonic booms.
What a piece of engineering! First saw Concorde in about 1964 - my uncle was a draughtsman on the project.
Joint build between two countries, one using metric, the other Imperial was one thing but then I learned that at full chat the fuselage was about 18" longer than when it was at rest on the ground. Any engineers out there ready to take that on? Every element of the fuselage needing the same coefficient of expansion - including the controls.
And while I'm fondly reminiscing what about that classic photo of Concorde at Mach 2 above the Atlantic? Taken from a UK jet fighter that I believe needed an in-flight refuel just to get there, managed to keep up for the minute or so that it took to take the photo, then had to return to base. Concorde just kept pootling on to New York, for an interesting definition of "pootle".
And Concorde, while needing reheat (afterburner) to get to supersonic speed, could then supercruise - maintaining that speed without using reheat (which requires prodigious volumes of fuel).
Supercruise ability is something that is still a 'boast' for military combat aircraft - not all can do it.
I suspect there is only a minority of first class passengers (those that can afford this) that need to rapidly go from A to B because of business reasons etc. - these can mostly be achieved by videoconferencing and electronic transactions these days. So that leaves those that want to be pampered for 7-15 hours or so in a mini-palace with hot and cold running servants delivering unlimited food and drinks (or those with a double mini-cabin so you can get up to some mile-high hanky-panky). Getting there in half the time just buggers up this concept - so where is the market for these supersonic travellers willing to shell out a fortune for a seat vs. a trad first class experience? The ones that want to chalk it up as a "been there done that" experience will quickly dwindle. Likely a poor business investment for an airline.
"I suspect there is only a minority of first class passengers (those that can afford this) that need to rapidly go from A to B because of business reasons etc. "
The number of business reasons has dropped significantly with modern communications so what's left are situations where a person needs to be on-site someplace in a hurry to effect repairs or head off some other problem. The ticket price will have to be something that's less than the savings from solving a problem quickly. If a technician/engineering needs to take tools/parts with them, there will need to be that option along with being able to get those tools and parts through security quickly and not wind up in Murmansk.
The business downside is it's not economical to be running these flights every couple of hours unless there's enough consistent demand between city pairs to keep the planes full. If it's just one flight in the evening, it might make more sense to save money on the ticket, get a bigger seat and leave in the morning and arrive about the same time. For super long flights there could be a market, but it will mean aircraft with the range. It would have been nice to take Concorde from LA to Sydney, but they couldn't go that far.
With higher speed rail (100mph average), getting across the US could be a 24 hour trip. Bringing loads of luggage isn't a problem. Skis, golf clubs, bicycles, all good. The Auto Train from Virginia to Florida lets you take your car on an overnight journey. I'm not saying that all air travel should be replaced, but a lot of it can with good enough rail and interconnections. Just because Elon wants to eliminate Amtrak in the US just as private companies are starting to re-enter the business, isn't a brilliant plan. I love not having to waste half a day getting to an airport early so I can stand in queues, get groped and have my bags tossed. On long train trips, I arrive about an hour before it leaves if I'm checking bags or 1/2 hr if I'm not. More dedicated passenger tracks would help to alleviate delays. When the HSR in California gets completely cancelled, it will leave behind a bunch of construction that gets rid of level crossings and has nice straight sections of new track for the existing service to take advantage of.
Notice that the Chinese 'rival' is described as having a capacity of 24 to 48 passengers.
That's less an airliner than a (very) large business jet.
It may also be more sensible than Boom's 80 - seat design, if it can fly near full multiple times a day - if speed to the destination matters, having to wait until the evening supersonic flight may mean you take the cheaper lunchtime Airbus, but if there is a supersonic flight at mid-day as well as the evening and time matters that much, you pay the extra and get the faster flight.
"but if there is a supersonic flight at mid-day as well as the evening and time matters that much, you pay the extra and get the faster flight."
That's the big sell. They'll still cram you into a torture device of a seat, but for less time. Plenty of the premium market is business and it's shrunk over the last decade. Things such as needing a "wet" signature on documents has been taken over by the acceptance of digital signatures. Lots of meetings can be handled remotely with electronic white boards, video and documents being exchanged via computer. It can still be more efficient to have people in the same room, but only for those things where it's worthwhile. If a first class ticket from the west coast of the US to Tokyo is $11k, a supersonic flight which would need to stop in Hawaii to refuel would be at least twice that and would lose some advantage due to the stop. That's less than the ~$50k it might be for a business jet that could make the hop, but once as a certain cost/seat, even doubling the price makes less of a difference to the passenger(s). The added cost can be justified if the ultimate destination isn't Tokyo and the origin isn't LAX as business jets can fly in and out of many more smaller airports.
I get to "enjoy" business trips to more distant and dynamic places than little old Europe. I'd certainly welcome getting there and back in a lot less time, though there is a risk work would defray the gains by sending me more often. The bastards.
Unfortunately a lot of things are just much easier to do in person than over a teams call. That's unlikely to ever change.
Anyone forced to fly for work will certainly welcome fewer hours sat in a fart tube with some short arse reclining their seat on your knees the whole journey.
For shorter flights across the US perhaps supersonic has some merit.
For longer flights, the strategy is to fly overnight as much as time zone overlaps allow and to have a lie-flat bed and sleep the flight away. Then there is zero time lost.
For example, sleep 8-10 hours on a subsonic flight instead of sleeping in a hotel or anywhere then getting up to fly for 3-4 hours on a supersonic.
It would be less expensive all round to equip more of the airline fleet seats with lie-flat or cabin beds if such a market for wealthy people exists.
Of course, flying at mach 2 and 60,000 is a more exciting experience the first time.
"the strategy is to fly overnight as much as time zone overlaps allow and to have a lie-flat bed and sleep the flight away. Then there is zero time lost."
This is why I enjoy overnight trains on holidays. They might go slower, but it's all done while I'm asleep so I don't care. It's better than spending half the day on a short flight while I'm awake doing all of the "not flying" faff that there is with airplanes these days.
I suspect that seats in a supersonic craft will be akin to what short haul economy seats are like. No lie-flat beds or even much reclining.
There's not a huge experience difference flying supersonic other than the noise being different.
For a Concorde flight the sensation of take off was *very* different from any other airliner.
Actually going past Mach 1 and cruising at Mach 2 was completely without fuss sensation wise, but the aircraft cabin had displays to show when it was happening and this was exciting (for me anyway).
And of course another 20,000 feet of altitude above the highest subsonic aircraft. So, in my experience, definitely more exciting.
>” I suspect there is only a minority of first class passengers (those that can afford this) that need to rapidly go from A to B”
There is a very small group that actually have a reason to get rapidly from A to B, there is a much larger group would “need” to get from A to B rapidly because they can and can afford to do so.
If you look at the Concorde schedule, it is obvious , for the London-New York flights they had selected their market and if your needs did not fit the schedule, tough, standard flights were probably just as quick (door-to-door) as waiting for the next Concorde.
"standard flights were probably just as quick (door-to-door) as waiting for the next Concorde."
While I agree in principle, I'd have thought passengers would schedule around the flight times and not just be sat around doing nothing "waiting" for the later but faster flight. Even it just means an extra hour or two in bed, or having a relaxing lazy breakfast, or, more likely for the sort of workaholics that used Concord, more time to work before setting off.
"I'd have thought passengers would schedule around the flight times and not just be sat around doing nothing "waiting" for the later but faster flight."
If you can plan, flying supersonic was a novelty more than anything else. It's those times when getting someplace quick at the last minute would be very important. For that to work, there needs to be plenty of flights on a given day. There's something to be said for moving in the desired direction even if going a bit slower. If you've counted on a supersonic flight and it's cancelled, you are still the entire distance away from your destination. If you are taking connecting flights, which is often the case, if your next flight is cancelled, you are still closer and might be able to make other arrangements. There's a travel series I'm watching on YouTube right now from the Arctic to Africa where they didn't book travel in advance and are going by train. They've had cancelled/delayed trains and needed to take a dog leg to get between two cities where the direct line was having issues. The trick is they are always moving.
Of course, it would make more sense to fly on this sort of trip, but the exercise makes for a good adventure. I'm looking forward to an accounting once they buried their toes in Saharan sand. If they flew, they wouldn't have gone to the Lego headquarters and the model train museum (Miniatur Wunderland) in Hamburg. OMG, those places are worth every minute spent there and now on my bucket list (I should live so long).
Going that fast means consuming a lot of fuel. Should we be allowing that so that a few rich people can shave an hour or two off a trip ?
Oh, silly me, these are the same rich people that take many flights not giving a toss of how much pollution they cause.
Boom are having to build their own engines. You need supercruise - the ability to fly supersonic without afterburners - and other green/economy measures to make the engines viable. No engine maker was prepared to take a flyer (sic) on a brand new product line.
So here are Boom developing both a revolutionary airframe and revolutionary engine from nothing, flying in a higher-drag and more highly constrained regime than ever, at only around 50% faster than today but the exact same time in the stack and on the ground at either end, and expecting a small (by today's standards) 80-seat feeder-liner class type to pay its way on the long haul.
I wish them luck but, sorry, I ain't investing.
at only around 50% faster than today but the exact same time in the stack and on the ground at either end
Amdahl's Law isn't just for IT!
The design of these planes doesn't lend themselves to carrying very many passengers, so it makes little sense for commercial flights - the time you save from NYC to London flying at Mach 1.7 is minimal versus the total amount of time required to get to the airport, pass through security, wait for boarding, complete boarding, pull out from the gate and reach #1 position for takeoff, land after flight and taxi to the gate, deboard, wait for baggage, and leave the airport. It made a lot more sense during Concorde's heyday in the 1970s when there was a lot less time wasted in all that other stuff. It would have to be a flight that's normally 8+ or better yet 12+ hours to even begin to make sense for commercial travel considering how little time as a percentage of overall door to door travel time it would save.
But if you're a billionaire taking off and landing at a private airport you can pull up to your plane (or land a helicopter next to it) and immediately leave so the time savings as a percentage of total trip time is more meaningful. Plus it will become a symbol of wealth/power to own your own supersonic private jet, even if almost all your travel is within the US.
Ironically stuff like Starlink providing good internet connections decrease the need/demand for quick flights even among the uber wealthy. You can conduct business in the air in a way that just wasn't possible in the 1970s. So why would a company pay for supersonic business travel, when you can attend video calls, connect to the corporate VPN to read/send emails with big PP attachments and so forth? As a perk for the CEO, sure he'll want supersonic business travel, but outside of a handful of top employees no one is gonna see their company paying for them to fly on this.
If I was flying from Chicago to Tokyo, nominally a 13 hour flight, and I could pay double to fly it in half the time I might be tempted. But it would be nowhere near double - it would probably be more likely 10x the cost. No way that's ever worth it unless your net worth is well into the 8 digits.
"pay double to fly it in half the time I might be tempted"
I recently decided I was going skip a tourist type trip that I was thinking of taking. I looked at the 28.5 hours to get from point A to B and decided I didn't want to sit in an airplane that long. That was the cheap seat. When I saw your statement I thought "OK, so what's it cost to get there the fastest way possible?" It can be done 2.5 hours faster, at 7.8 times the cost, don't think I want to do that either. FWIW the return trip is a hour quicker for both.
I think 'like Musk' is spreading the blame, 'for Musk' would be more accurate. He will no doubt ignore inconvenient rules for the benefit of profit as he has done with every regulator he has found inconvenient through the smoke screen of 'government efficiency' which has cost more than it saved and has benefitted a select few or one.
> "pay double to fly it in half the time I might be tempted"
Depends on your starting point. Given most people travel economy, the question becomes would you pay for upper class and get some creature comforts including device power socket and less constrained WiFi, or would you go for speed?
>” taking off and landing at a private airport”
This is probably possible in the US, enabling the slot competition to be sidestepped, although I wonder how many private airfields will have a sufficiently long runway.
This is probably possible in the US, enabling the slot competition to be sidestepped, although I wonder how many private airfields will have a sufficiently long runway.
Although it isn't readily findable on their site at the moment, various (slightly dated) sources list a balanced field length of 8,500ft-10,000ft, which is 2500m-3050m in real money. So a significant airport. There won't be many private airfields able to support it.
Boom claim to have identified 600 worldwide routes. Which actually isn't very many when you think about that as a full mesh.
People do keep talking about the Overture as a billionaire plaything and that's sort of fair, but we should remember it's a 60metre aircraft seating 80. It's twice the length of a Gulfstream G600 (which seats ~20 and has a BFL of 1900m).
Some billionaires do have large jets (Trump's 737, various Emirati jets), but Overture is really large enough to be luxury-airline class. Although quite why airlines would want to undercut their own (highly profitable) subsonic First Class business is an open question.
"My local (non commercial) airport has two runways the longest of which is 5000 ft (1500m) and it lands big Gulfstreams all the time. You sure they require 1900m?"
The requirements are different for commercial passenger service. Take-off distances can vary quite a bit with weather conditions so a Gulfstream might leave 'light' and stop along the way if they are full of passengers, but often aren't. Most airlines try to plan routes and frequency to have full aircraft. They can't cancel the flight or ask 25% of the passengers to take another flight because it's very hot outside.
You sure they require 1900m?
I was quoting quite a specific metric, because it's readily available and a good rule of thumb:
a balanced field takeoff is a condition where the takeoff distance required (TODR) with one engine inoperative and the accelerate-stop distance are equal for the aircraft weight, engine thrust, aircraft configuration and runway condition. For a given aircraft weight, engine thrust, aircraft configuration, and runway condition, the shortest runway length that complies with safety regulations is the balanced field length.
I had 1900m in my head, and on closer inspection that's right for the G650ER and G700. Other models range between 1500-1700m, and could go shorter in a light configuration/half-fuelled. So from your 1500m airfield, it could be a subset of Gulfstreams, or light-loaded ERs which aren't going far or have to refuel (in the same way BA's London City-USA business route takes off light from London and refuels in Shannon).
So Overture could likely go a bit shorter than 3000m if you short-fuel it for a regional hop and have a light load (which is hardly worth doing - they likely won't get high enough to engage boomless cruise before they get back on their approach descent).
And that last point is why these probably won't be that popular as billionaire playtoys - it's going to be a really expensive way of making regional hops for the sake of going really fast on (relatively occasional) longer runs. Which the Emiratis won't care about, but a lot of businesses will. It won't really replace big Gulfstreams. I suppose some of the charter companies like Netjets/Flexjet/Vistajet might have a couple which would then be assigned for medium/long-haul charters with smaller jets for regional/European hops.
Depends on your starting point. Given most people travel economy, the question becomes would you pay for upper class and get some creature comforts including device power socket and less constrained WiFi, or would you go for speed?
The seats in the Boom planes would be nicer than economy but no way they'd be nicer than first class in modern long haul aircraft. There isn't gonna be enough room on Boom for that. Just look at Concorde. Today its seating would be closer to discount airline cattle class than modern first class lie flat seats in your own private cabin.
So assuming it cost the same as a first class ticket on a premium airline the question becomes would you rather spend 14 hours in a private cabin able to lie flat and sleep then take a real shower before you arrive at your destination rested and refreshed, or spend 7 or 8 hours in the equivalent of business class with no shower and probably no sleep (at least I sure can't sleep sitting up)
Now sure an airline who bought a Boom could sacrifice total capacity to build a "first class" cabin with that type of seating (even though it is less necessary for a shorter flight) but that would mean a big pricing premium over their regular seating so it would be at least double the cost of first class on the slower aircraft. And then you're back to the same comparison of paying double for half the travel time.
And as an aside, what sort of rinky dink discount airline are you flying that their normal seating doesn't include power sockets and decent wifi? I thought that was pretty much par for the course, though you do see the odd older plane that hasn't been upgraded yet I guess (to be honest I'd rather they concentrate on making sure the exit doors don't fly off or on landing successfully when the air traffic controllers computer systems go down than making sure my plane has a place to plug in my charger)
"The seats in the Boom planes would be nicer than economy"
I'm not so sure about that. One would hope, but the operator is going to be looking to maximize profits so they might start with a fair amount of spacing and add rows until bookings drop off due to complaints and then back it off a row at a time until they hit an optimum.
"And as an aside, what sort of rinky dink discount airline are you flying that their normal seating doesn't include power sockets and decent wifi? I thought that was pretty much par for the course"
I don't fly anymore, but if I did, neither of those things are that important to me. I've got a pretty good power bank that will run my iPod for days and don't need to be online 24/7. When I do long train trips, I'll check email a couple of times per day when there's cell service, but sometimes I won't bother until evening/morning.
"Given most people travel economy, the question becomes would you pay for upper class and get some creature comforts including device power socket and less constrained WiFi, or would you go for speed?"
Concorde wasn't able to make the really long trips and Boom may not either.
Airports have to be certified for passenger operations which means there won't be a way to fly in/out of private/municipal airports to avoid congestion. Since many people aren't interested in doing things at the destination airport, there needs to be connections from there that wouldn't be available.
Let's just correct that sentence, shall we:
"Supersonic flight without an audible sonic boom AT OR NEAR GROUND LEVEL..." (and let's assume, badly, that most occupied structures are low enough to count as "ground level").
So from what altitude up *are* we intending to fill the sky with sonic booms? From what I understand, the height of the "cutoff altitude" can be pretty much anything you feel like: NASA test flights have played with moving their cutoff up and down, monitored by mics to check how well they succeeded in keeping the noise on the ground down - or the noise up if they put the cutoff a bit too low. The Boom Supersonic flights are intending to real-time calculate where their current cutoff altitude is and tweak the flight parameters to keep it above - well, above some height I've not yet found (anyone?). Maybe it'll be "useful" to drop that cutoff down to fifth-floor level when nipping over all those big, empty spaces where the houses go more sideways than upwards? Just so long as nobody hears anything, it'll fit the requirements.
Which is all fine and dandy for the voters, but you may have noticed that man-made craft are not the only things in the sky. There are these strange things called "birds" (if you believe they are real) and insects up there - surprisingly high up there (though most of the flying mammals have the good sense to hang around down near the rest of their kin).
Filling the sky with commercial levels of supersonic flight (as we never really give a damn what the environmental effects are of our military activities) may not be smashing our windows every hour, but what is it going to do to birds and insects?
Just like to remind you that our food supplies largely rely on the free pollination services of a wide variety of insects, leaving aside suggestions that we should be eating the things. And everyone over a certain age remembers that in the 1970s, not only did we have to get used to a new currency, but we had to wash insects off the front of our cars at least once a week. No, youngsters, we haven't made insect-proof cars, we've just killed them. Killing (or otherwise disrupting them) more of the insects is not going to work in our favour.
Let's go a bit further. New York to Seattle. Head out north over the sea to Quebec, blast west at mach 2. Head south over BC. This will satisfy the requirement: " no sonic boom reaches the ground in the United States"
Also, blast out from Miami, staying well south of Corpus Christi should get you to San Diego without troubling anyone that matters.
Megafactory, gigafactory, terafactory, superduperfragilistifactory
Plenty of big airplanes have, over the decades, been built, assembled, maintained and stored in, sheds. Big sheds, but still just sheds. Or hangars, if you are posh. Possibly a Vehicle Assembly Building for the very special flying machines. Other bits were just made down at Works. For pity's sake, Titanic and the Great Eastern were just made down t'yard (sorry, can't do the proper accents whilst typing).
Now suddenly we need to have hyperfactories, pantswettinglybigfactories, mydickisthislongfactories.
Good grief.
Allow me to address the elephant in the room: the biggest problem with supersonic passenger liners is not sonic boom; it is economics: Concorde was a spectacular commercial failure. The billionaire's market and the demand for super-fast travel on a limited number of routes simply lacks the volume to sustain scheduled supersonic passenger flights profitably.
So I can't see this taking off commercially.
"Concorde was a spectacular commercial failure" - not on the scale of the Tu-144 which made a grand total of
55 passenger flights and nowhere near the Boeing 2707 which consumed a billion dollars without even getting to
prototype stage. Meanwhile BA were able to operate the thing at a profit, once they'd realised that the passengers
neither knew nor cared how much the tickets cost.
I don't know why the article describes the Tupolev as "small" - it was larger then Concorde.
https://www.airdatanews.com/boeing-2707-the-passenger-supersonic-that-cost-usdollar1-billion-and-was-nothing-more-than-a-mockup/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupolev_Tu-144
"https://www.airdatanews.com/boeing-2707-the-passenger-supersonic-that-cost-usdollar1-billion-and-was-nothing-more-than-a-mockup/"
I didn't see a note about what year that $1bn was figured in. At that time, much of the work would have been done by loads of draftsman working on a football pitch sized location and other engineers doing math on slip sticks. Somewhere I have some documentaries on the initial supersonic passenger race and Boeing was right to drop out which was different than how it was presented in the above article. I expect the US government would be interested if there was a military application and might have invested research funds the same way as they are wasting money today on point to point rocket cargo plans that were discarded ages ago for the same issues that obtain today.
To mean it seems like supersonic travel is a way to bail somebody out of their poor foresight and lack of planning. It's expensive, dangerous, polluting and hard to wrap a business plan around that is based on reality. The assumptions that have to be made for there to be profit are balanced on a cliff's edge. On errant gust of wind and over she goes into the abyss (and government bailout).
"Concorde was a spectacular commercial failure."
As I pointed out earlier, not being able to cover the really long flights there are now in one go is a problem. If you could halve the time of what's now a 15 hour flight, people would pay for that. The trouble is that Concorde didn't have the range and stopping to refuel severely impacted the time if there were suitable airports along the way. SanFran to Seoul non-stop in first class is 12.5 hours with a cost of $14k. I would expect it to cost more for supersonic if it could be done. If it meant a 6 hour travel time with the same fiddling around at the airport (should really be better than that), execs might think it worthwhile as going via a private jet is going to be in the $60k range for the flight. (12hrs x $5,000/hr)
> The FAA held tests of what sonic booms would do to Americans and their environment.
Given that the government of the good ol’ US of A have regularly and knowingly subjected their citizens to polluted water and air without a single qualm, it seems astonishing that they would be so concerned about a little noise pollution.
At least, until you realise that the real reason for banning supersonic flight was the reality that America were no longer the leaders in aviation. And rather than try to compete, they threw in the towel and banned the competition.
"America was the first nation to break the sound barrier back in 1947 with the purpose built Bell X-1"
Strictly, that should read "the first nation to break the sound barrier in level flight", since there is sufficient anecdotal evidence that some WWII fighters achieved supersonic speed in dives (and some even survived the experience).
However, the first supersonic level flight should have been the British Miles M52, the first flight of which was to have been in summer 1946, until the project was canceled in February 1946.
The pilot was to have been Eric 'Winkle' Brown - if he was a USAian, rather than a Brit, there would be statues of him and airports named after him and at least three Hollywood films about him.
I strongly suspect that he would be prime contender for the title greatest ever airman - I once had the privilege and pleasure of hear him give a talk - and, having by the time the M52 was being developed, flown just about every UK, US, Soviet and German (yes - captured) aeroplane from the wartime period, 'Winkle' was quite certain that the M52 would fly just right.
Unlike the Bell X-1, which had to be carried aloft, flew on rocket power, then landed as an unpowered glider, the M52 was a jet, that would have taken of, flown, then landed, just like a 'normal' aeroplane.
A lost opportunity for Britain's aviation industry - which just so happened to enable the newly independent USAF (no longer USAAF) to achieve a nice high-profile achievement.
My memory is that Concorde was banned until the space shuttle started overflying the US at Mach 12, at which point 'doesn't matter any more'.
My guess would be that Elon da Genius (according to Bill Maher) is behind this measure for reasons having to do with Space X returning to earth quite quickly.
Tangentially, I remember the Revell kit of the Boeing SST. It has five sets of undercarriage, *two* hinges in its droop snoot, and was swing-winged. Even as a kid I thought it looked like a lot of unnecessary bits'n'bobs for something already achieved by Concorde's design teams.
In an alternate universe, this thing flew, and so did Mustard, a promising lifting body design of the kind sorta featured in the movie 'Marooned'.
"Even as a kid I thought it looked like a lot of unnecessary bits'n'bobs for something already achieved by Concorde's design teams."
There just wasn't any experience at that point to guide design decisions. I expect they were trying really hard to get something that's efficient as possible during as much of the flight profile as possible to conserve fuel. Too much? maybe. They were doing this in an age where slide rules were the most common tool and computers were only used later in the design and subject to scheduling backlogs. Lots of variable to map. Number of passengers vs cost vs distance vs ticket price vs all sorts of other stuff.
There was the design experience of everyone else doing the trick and succeeding, I think, even with slide rules, which were a pretty fast and accurate way to do the initial calculations, certainly as accurate as a pocket calculator if you knew what you were doing (the common Wikipedia-derived knowledge on the subject now withstanding).
And the proof of the pudding is that Boeing's effort never left the concept model stage.
I think what they were doing was trying to one-up the European and Russian efforts in the usual-for-the-time American way. It would have been a propaganda coup, but in the end it was cheaper to just ban Concorde from landing at NY or LA.
"I think what they were doing was trying to one-up the European and Russian efforts in the usual-for-the-time American way."
If there were already 2 other players looking to get into the field and the profit numbers were already pretty shaky, Boeing decided to not bet the company on the project.
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