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Supersonic & Hypersonic Aviation

Is any country currently working on a supersonic replacement to concorde with any serious intention of developing a SST passenger airliner?

I'm not talking about scram jets and 7x speed of sound stuff becuase that is probably 30 years away so please don't glue this thread on the end of that one.
 
Not that I had heard of.

From what I've read, the Concord turned out to be a bit of a white elephant. Great for a high-profile flagship to your fleet, but not cost-effective for the masses. So I'd be surprized if anybody was planning a follow-up, seeing how the market doesn't seem capable of supporting it.
 
SST will never be the transport for the masses, the 747 and A380 will do that.

I suppose the cost of the project would mean that some government would have to fund it....

...Unless someone wanted to build some new concordes, this would cost less as the research has already been done, you'd just have to build a few.

It just doesn't seem right that it takes 2.5 times as long to fly across the atlantic as it did 30 years ago.
 
It seems based more on carrying more people at about the same speed at the moment :(
 
I think various factors will mean that such things as concorde will not happen again in that form:

1. The need for larger vehicles to help drive the price down.

2. The looming fuel crisis.

I'd imagine we will soon be looking at other less fossil fuel intensive transportation: suborbital vehicles, supersonic trains, space elevators (?), etc. - the fun bit will be during the transition when the current infrastructure is creaking. Will we be able to get the alternatives in place fast enough? We certainly live in interesting times ;)
 
I saw a program on sky called "planes that never flew" and they covered the boeing 2707, the one they spent loads on but scrapped it.

The american government gave the job of designing the plain to boeing despite the fact that they had no supersonic knowledge, when lockheed had already build planes for the military which flew at mach 3.
 
There are a number of such projects, termed SSBJ, for a smaller corporate supersonic aircraft. Google on SSBJK and Jet and you'll find a few.

Supersonic aircraft are not necessarily less fuel-efficient (it's not a big cost in the premium end anyway), as they fly through much thinner air. The big problem is sonic boom, which stops them from flying on the vast majority of routes.

Fortunately, a number of technical solutions are in the wings (mainly thanks to the military, as usual)

However, unless you've got serious money, you're not going to be flying on one.
 
I think there is a potential market for a successor to concorde. I think it was the accident that dented the public confidence in it although i'm convinced the revisions made in 2001 made it safe.

The big problem is sonic boom, which stops them from flying on the vast majority of routes.

Fortunately, a number of technical solutions are in the wings (mainly thanks to the military, as usual)
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I'm not really on the ball with this subject but are you suggestion that they think they can find methods of reducing the effects of the sonic boom so it can happen over land?
 
wel one of the problems with the sonic boom was that it wasnt being generated by an American plane.... i think that maybe there is a market for a supersonic plane, but more like an executive jet (easier to make too).. theres plenty of jet owners who couldnt resist it im sure.
 
sidecar_jon said:
wel one of the problems with the sonic boom was that it wasnt being generated by an American plane....
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So so true, when their supersonic adventure was abandoned before it flew they took their bat home and wouldn't play.

I suppose with the increasing number of people who are super-rich, these SSBJ planes would have enough buyers to make them worth making, but only if you could fly anywhere supersonic.

Why don't they allow sonic booms over naff towns, say for example any plane taking off from heathrow would have to make its sonic boom over Slough.
 
they always alowed sonic booms over Cornwall... we dont count aprently.
 
Chris Baker said:
Why don't they allow sonic booms over naff towns, say for example any plane taking off from heathrow would have to make its sonic boom over Slough.
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Watch out! Some people over here in the states got themselves into trouble by disparaging "fly-over territory"! :(
 
"I'm not really on the ball with this subject but are you suggestion that they think they can find methods of reducing the effects of the sonic boom so it can happen over land?"

Exactly. At present, an SSBJ could not fly over any land, which is why Concorde was limited to the transatlantic and similar routes.

There are a variety of techniques (essentially spin-offs from military programs) for cutting the sonic boom to a level where it would meet current regulations. The only question is when and how cheaply it can be done.

Google "quiet supersonic platform" to see more.
 
Japanese successfully test supersonic airliner

Japanese successfully test supersonic airliner



Japan successfully tested a revolutionary design for a supersonic airliner to replace Concorde, three years after the first attempt ended in a fiery crash in the Australian desert, officials said.

A scale model of an airliner that would carry 300 passengers at twice the speed of sound was launched from the Woomera test site in the outback with the aid of a rocket shortly after dawn, Japan's Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) said.

"It went well, it was successful," JAXA spokeswoman Mayuni Onodera told AFP by telephone from the test site, which was closed to the media.

In the test, the 11.5-metre (38 foot) scale model of the 104-metre airliner separated from the rocket at around 18,000 metres (59,400 feet) and glided at Mach 2 (2,450 kilometres per hour, 1,522 miles per hour) for about 15 minutes.

The multi-million dollar test aircraft landed safely, Onodera said.

In the first attempt at Woomera in July 2002, the rocket carrying the scale model veered wildly out of control a few seconds after takeoff and crashed in flames.

The trial put to the test the aerodynamic design of an aircraft intended to fly twice the distance and seat three times the number of passengers as Concorde, the iconic Anglo-French jet that was retired in 2003.

Designers hope a commercial version of the National Experimental Supersonic Transport (Nexst) -- planned for possible production in 15 to 20 years -- will also be less polluting and less noisy than the Concorde.

It is hoped the prototype aircraft could cut hours off trans-Pacific and around-the-world travel.

Data gained from today's test will be used in joint research by Japan and France towards a next-generation supersonic jet.

Defense contractors and engineering companies from the two countries agreed to cooperate on supersonic research over the next three years, Japan's Trade Ministry said in June.


http://www.physorg.com/news7099.html
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ATK To Continue Development of Air Breathing Hypersonic Prop

ATK To Continue Development of Air Breathing Hypersonic Propulsion For NASA

In flight tests last year, ATK and NASA twice set the world speed record for air-breathing powered flight with the X-43A Scramjet-powered aircraft.
Minneapolis MN (SPX) Oct 19, 2005
Alliant Techsystems has received a five-year, $15 million contract from NASA's Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate. Under terms of the contract, ATK will conduct hypersonic aero-propulsion research, test, and evaluation in specially designed wind-tunnels that replicate the atmospheric conditions aircraft experience if traveling at speeds up to Mach 20.
In flight tests last year, ATK and NASA twice set the world speed record for air-breathing powered flight with the X-43A Scramjet-powered aircraft.

The X-43A demonstrated its unique capability after separating from a rocket booster and, under scramjet power, achieving positive acceleration at the hypersonic speed of nearly Mach 7 - approximately 5,000 miles per hour. In a second flight test, the X-43A achieved cruise conditions at nearly Mach 10 - approximately 7,000 miles per hour.

As a recognized leader in hypersonic flight, ATK is developing next- generation Scramjet vehicles capable of accelerating through a wider Mach range. The tests and data collected from this research contract will be essential to developing hardware and software used in additional hypervelocity flight operations.

http://www.spacedaily.com/news/rocketscience-05zzn.html
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DARPA Team Achieve First Flight Test Of Scramjet

DARPA Team Achieve First Flight Test Of Liquid Hydrocarbon Fueled Scramjet

The Hypersonics Flight Demonstration program (HyFly) will develop and demonstrate advanced technologies for hypersonic flight. Flight-testing will be initiated early in the program and progress from relatively simple and low-risk tests through the demonstration of an increasingly more difficult set of objectives.
Minneapolis MN (SPX) Dec 16, 2005
Alliant Techsystems, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the Office of Naval Research (ONR) successfully ground-launched and flew a hypersonic scramjet-powered vehicle from the Wallops Flight Facility, Wallops Island, VA in a pre-dawn launch on Saturday Dec. 10th.
This was the first- ever freeflight of a scramjet-powered vehicle using conventional liquid hydrocarbon jet fuel. The launch and flight test were part of the Freeflight Atmospheric Scramjet Test Technique (FASTT) program sponsored by DARPA and ONR.

As the system integrator, ATK designed and built the FASTT vehicle. This was the first time the company had complete design authority over the hypersonic scramjet propulsion system and the airframe.

In addition, ATK served as the mission manager for both the launch and the flight of the test vehicle including development of test plans and coordination of all design and mission readiness reviews.


The X-43A Scramjet obtained a top speed of nearly Mach 10 during a November 2004 flight test.

ATK previously built the hydrogen-fueled X-43A Scramjet, the world-record holder for powered flight which obtained a top speed of nearly Mach 10 in a November 2004 flight test.

"The successful FASTT flight test and ATK's record-setting X-43A flight-tests clearly position ATK as a world-leader in the development and test of hypersonic propulsion systems and airframes," said Blake Larson, President ATK Advanced Propulsion and Space Systems.

"One goal of ATK's hypersonic flight program is to develop advanced hypersonic weaponry and this flight test is a significant step in that direction," said Larson.

The FASTT vehicle was approximately 106" long and 11" in diameter. It integrated a Scramjet engine into a missile configuration. After separating from its booster rocket at more than 60,000 feet, the Scramjet engine ignited and propelled the vehicle at approximately 5,300 feet per second - or Mach 5.5.

Using JP-10 fuel, the Scramjet flew for at least 15 seconds while critical engineering data was captured via on-board sensors and tracking radars. The vehicle continued in stable flight mode until it splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean.

The ground-launched flight test demonstrated a viable and cost-effective flight-test method for future hypersonic Scramjet initiatives.

In addition to the FASTT program, ATK's Boost-to-Cruise initiative is developing hypersonic missile technologies capable of sustained flight at Mach 5 and delivering payloads on target more than 600 nautical miles down range.


http://www.spacedaily.com/news/rocketsc ... 5zzzc.html
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Hypersonic scramjet tested over Australia

A supersonic jet engine capable of travelling more than six times as fast as the speed of sound was successfully launched over the outback in South Australia on Saturday.

The supersonic combustion ramjet (scramjet), called HyShot III, was launched by a Terrier-Orion rocket and was in flight for just 10 minutes. It reached an altitude of around 315 kilometres before falling back to Earth. During its descent, the scramjet engine should have ignited and propelled the craft to around Mach 6.5, or 7962 kilometres per hour.

"We know that the launch was almost perfect and the rocket, from what we can tell from the radar...seemed to be on a fairly normal trajectory," said University of Queensland scientist Michael Smart. "[The launch] was quite amazing."

The scramjet crashed back to Earth about 400 kilometres away from the launch pad. Scientists at the University of Queensland will analyse data transmitted by the craft during its descent to determine whether the engine fired as expected.

Perfect flight
The scramjet engine was developed by British company QinetiQ. Researcher Rachel Owen said that the vehicle had followed a "nominal trajectory" and it looked as though everything had gone according to plan. The launch at the Woomera rocket range had originally been scheduled for earlier in the week but was postponed because of poor weather.

Some hope to see scramjets used for commercial flights. In theory, they could be used to travel between Sydney and London in just two hours, a journey that currently takes 20 hours. Other future applications include low-cost satellite launches and long-range military missions.

HyShot programme leader Allan Paull said scramjet-powered passenger jets were still a long way off but that some form of scramjet-powered craft could be developed within a decade.

The University of Queensland and the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency are scheduled to launch another experimental scramjet, called HyShot IV, in the coming weeks.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn8 ... ralia.html
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Reviving a thread from 2005. So biplanes may be the new SSTs. Somehow it brings Snoopy to mind.

Biplane to Break the Sound Barrier: Cheaper, Quieter and Fuel-Efficient Biplanes Could Put Supersonic Travel On the Horizon
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 163811.htm

Conceptual drawing of a supersonic biplane. (Credit: Christine Daniloff/MIT News based on an original drawing courtesy of Obayashi laboratory, Tohoku University)
ScienceDaily (Mar. 19, 2012) — Cheaper, quieter and fuel-efficient biplanes could put supersonic travel on the horizon.

For 27 years, the Concorde provided its passengers with a rare luxury: time saved. For a pricey fare, the sleek supersonic jet ferried its ticketholders from New York to Paris in a mere three-and-a-half hours -- just enough time for a nap and an aperitif. Over the years, expensive tickets, high fuel costs, limited seating and noise disruption from the jet's sonic boom slowed interest and ticket sales. On Nov. 26, 2003, the Concorde -- and commercial supersonic travel -- retired from service.

Since then, a number of groups have been working on designs for the next generation of supersonic jets. Now an MIT researcher has come up with a concept that may solve many of the problems that grounded the Concorde. Qiqi Wang, an assistant professor of aeronautics and astronautics, says the solution, in principle, is simple: Instead of flying with one wing to a side, why not two?

Wang and his colleagues Rui Hu, a postdoc in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, and Antony Jameson, a professor of engineering at Stanford University, have shown through a computer model that a modified biplane can, in fact, produce significantly less drag than a conventional single-wing aircraft at supersonic cruise speeds. The group will publish their results in the Journal of Aircraft.

This decreased drag, according to Wang, means the plane would require less fuel to fly. It also means the plane would produce less of a sonic boom.

"The sonic boom is really the shock waves created by the supersonic airplanes, propagated to the ground," Wang says. "It's like hearing gunfire. It's so annoying that supersonic jets were not allowed to fly over land."

Double the wings, double the fun

With Wang's design, a jet with two wings -- one positioned above the other -- would cancel out the shock waves produced from either wing alone. Wang credits German engineer Adolf Busemann for the original concept. In the 1950s, Busemann came up with a biplane design that essentially eliminates shock waves at supersonic speeds.

Normally, as a conventional jet nears the speed of sound, air starts to compress at the front and back of the jet. As the plane reaches and surpasses the speed of sound, or Mach 1, the sudden increase in air pressure creates two huge shock waves that radiate out at both ends of the plane, producing a sonic boom.

Through calculations, Busemann found that a biplane design could essentially do away with shock waves. Each wing of the design, when seen from the side, is shaped like a flattened triangle, with the top and bottom wings pointing toward each other. The configuration, according to his calculations, cancels out shock waves produced by each wing alone.

However, the design lacks lift: The two wings create a very narrow channel through which only a limited amount of air can flow. When transitioning to supersonic speeds, the channel, Wang says, could essentially "choke," creating incredible drag. While the design could work beautifully at supersonic speeds, it can't overcome the drag to reach those speeds.

Giving lift to a grounded theory

To address the drag issue, Wang, Hu and Jameson designed a computer model to simulate the performance of Busemann's biplane at various speeds. At a given speed, the model determined the optimal wing shape to minimize drag. The researchers then aggregated the results from a dozen different speeds and 700 wing configurations to come up with an optimal shape for each wing.

They found that smoothing out the inner surface of each wing slightly created a wider channel through which air could flow. The researchers also found that by bumping out the top edge of the higher wing, and the bottom edge of the lower wing, the conceptual plane was able to fly at supersonic speeds, with half the drag of conventional supersonic jets such as the Concorde. Wang says this kind of performance could potentially cut the amount of fuel required to fly the plane by more than half.

"If you think about it, when you take off, not only do you have to carry the passengers, but also the fuel, and if you can reduce the fuel burn, you can reduce how much fuel you need to carry, which in turn reduces the size of the structure you need to carry the fuel," Wang says. "It's kind of a chain reaction."

The team's next step is to design a three-dimensional model to account for other factors affecting flight. While the MIT researchers are looking for a single optimal design for supersonic flight, Wang points out that a group in Japan has made progress in designing a Busemann-like biplane with moving parts: The wings would essentially change shape in mid-flight to attain supersonic speeds.

"Now people are having more ideas on how to improve [Busemann's] design," Wang says. "This may lead to a dramatic improvement, and there may be a boom in the field in the coming years."

Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The original article was written by Jennifer Chu.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

Journal Reference:

R. Hu, Q. Wang and A. Jameson. Adjoint based aerodynamic optimization of supersonic biplane airfoils. Journal of Aircraft, 2012 (accepted)
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New Concorde Could Fly London To New York In One Hour

The original Concorde, a flying masterpiece, could zip from London to New York in a breakneck 3 hours and 30 minutes. For many people, it was a dream to experience faster-than-sound travel, and the prospect of cutting the seven to eight hour journey to half the time was enough to make even the most robust traveler giddy with delight. Aircraft manufacturer Airbus has been taking inspiration from this flying dream, and they have now won a patent for the next stage in speedy travel. And this monster goes faster and higher than ever before seen in commercial air travel.

One hour. That's how long London to New York would take in the planned hypersonic plane, called the “Ultra-rapid air vehicle” but dubbed Concorde 2.0. This new passenger aircraft would fly at up to four and a half times the speed of sound, Mach 4.5, compared to up to Mach 2.5 for the original Concorde.

Concorde ran into a couple of problems when it came to sound pollution that Concorde 2.0. hopes to solve. Blasting through the atmosphere faster than the speed of sound is a noisy business – so noisy that flying Concorde over populated areas was extremely disruptive. Often therefore having to fly slower in these areas, it couldn't quite live up to its high-speed potential.

Concorde 2.0 will avoid these problems as it climbs high up into the atmosphere, dissipating its noise energy horizontal to Earth by rotating its tail fins. This way, the sound waves won't reach the ground. Where Concorde flew at around 18 kilometers (60,000 feet), Concorde 2.0. will eclipse that at around 30 kilometers (100,000 feet); nearly twice the altitude.

http://www.iflscience.com/technology/new-concorde-could-fly-london-new-york-55-minutes
 
An awful lot has happened in this arena recently, with many civil entrants to the market, such as Boom Supersonic, as well as the hypersonic testing of various vehicles and the increasing rumours of the 'Son of Blackbird' — the SR-72 UAV.
I am waiting patiently to see the first flights of the NASA X-59 quiet SST testbed.
There was a USAF video that even teased a peak at the supposed aircraft, though many debate as to whether a physical version of it exists or not.

I wonder, would the current major geopolitical situation prompt rushing through development.
If a major power claims they are doing something on the ground do current means allow for a rapid eye on the situation in the same way that an SR-71 overflight would have?

Does the U-2 variant allow for this kind of thing?

I'm wondering what the current reconnaissance capability is for fast, high level flight. Or do current sensors mean that a big old RC-135 can do the job?
 
I find this fascinating.
Top_Gun_Darkstar_mockup_1-678x381.jpg


Since the first teasing of the Darkstar full scale mock-up in the Top Gun II movie, it is now being toured to certain events, with walk arounds and talks.

There are descriptions of how it has been altered to make it more movie friendly. From The Aviationist:
“We lowered it a little bit. It also made it look a little sleeker and faster,” says Jeremy Hindle, the film’s Production Designer. “Through their design team, we learned how to make the plane look angry, mean, insanely fast.” Kosinski even added “it felt like something that could really fly”.

I wonder if this might be some kind of campaign to normalise and acclimatise for something. When the Have Blue and Tacit Blue prototypes were unveiled they were a complete shock, as were the F-117 and B-2 stealth aircraft. I'm wondering if there is going to be a reveal that the administration do not want to be a complete shock and so are telegraphing with this kind of thing.

It strikes me that this is an awful lot of money and involvement from Lockheed Martin. It is more than just a plywood and balsa prop for a movie.

With the work being done by NASA on the X-59 and companies like Boom, what is the purpose giving this oddity such a public profile?


[Shuffles off, tinfoil hat at a jaunty angle]
 
Ascalon said:
With the work being done by NASA on the X-59 and companies like Boom, what is the purpose giving this oddity such a public profile?
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Maybe they're about to roll these planes out for general production and distribution?
Hey, look, Russia - we've got these scary planes...
 
Mythopoeika said:
Maybe they're about to roll these planes out for general production and distribution?
Hey, look, Russia - we've got these scary planes...
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That's a good point, but these things were rumbling on well before the current horror, though not significantly preceding the illegal 2014 annexations.
300px-Scaled_Composites_Model_401.jpg

(Image: Wikipedia)

There are also reports that the Scaled Composites company, with its 401 prototype, is testing directed energy weapons. It has long been speculated that the B-2 was being used as a test bed for plasma-based boundary layer modification. The directed energy stuff could be a a combination of some of those technologies being tested for the upcoming B-21 Raider. The kind of energy generation for either would likely
come from a similar source, and be hefty enough to require a platform like the B-2/B-21.

1920px-B-21_rendering_3.jpg

(Image: Wikipedia)
 
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