Concorde replacement?

[FordGT90Concept]

Race to be first with 'son of supersonic'

Two designs were proposed and both are vastly superior to the original supersonic Concorde passenger jet.

 

[1freedude]

I wanna work for Hyper Mach! My wife turned me on...to this plane...

 

[micropage7]

fastest airplane just offers prestige and sensation that only paid with bunch of money

 

[assaulter_99]

Well in these times of economical hardships nearly everywhere, one wonders if these "toys" still have their place, especially the way the first one panned out. The first one was a great plane though! Bit on the noisy side outside, but a sleek looking plane!

 

[Zyon]

Wow, 11 hour journeys cut to 2.5 hours from Paris to Tokyo, if they manage to make the tickets economical then you can go somewhere on the other side of Earth just for a lunch break :O

Only question is how hard will it be to pilot something that fast.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

Most likely computers do it all except take off and landing.

 

[assaulter_99]

Yeah if tail-less stuff like the B2 and the SR71 can be tamed, a civilian jet will be easier to do! Will be a challenge to land these designs though, since stalling speeds due to the models you've displayed must surely be high due to the design/placement of the wings. Landings must surely be done at very high speeds. Tbh these designs must be on their infancy though, so design changes along the way will surely be done.

 

[AsRock]

Race to be first with 'son of supersonic'

Two designs were proposed and both are vastly superior to the original supersonic Concorde passenger jet.

It's about frigging time don't ya think ?.. And one of the main issue's is running it at a profit.

Was it not the french who helped to kill off the Concorde as that crap was left on the runway ?.

 

[Widjaja]

The concorde was such an impressive jet.
A shame it was no longer in use.

 

[RejZoR]

If they really pull it off with those specs an intercontinental flight will take no longer than a slightly longer trip with a car. Crazy!

 

[Red_Machine]

The current passenger jets are old and slow no matter how recently they were designed. If ALL jets in the world were replaced with one of these designs, I imagine the price would come down. As long as it remains niche, it will be massively expensive.

 

[W1zzard]

i seriously doubt the economics will work out.

maybe $10b development cost + $1b per plane @ 20 passengers per trip, someone do the math

 

[RejZoR]

But you also have to remember that maintenance of Concorde jet was incredibly expensive. Materials wear down much faster and with constantly increasing passenger capacities, you just can't cut corners unless you want to have 500 ppl on your conciseness.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

I think there would have to be a revolution in propulsion as well as aerodynamics in order for them to be economically viable. This is probably why they gave the year 2050 as a target. I don't know what they plan to happen in the next 40 years but I think their estimates are probably correct.

The Concorde was only successful because of the customers it attracted. Seats cost tens of thousands of dollars if not hundreds of thousands of dollars. There was no faster way for a civilian to cross the Atlanic and likely, nothing short of Air Force one approaches its luxary. They could pay it off pretty quick but, truth be told, their clientel were vanishing so the aircraft did as well. Corporations own (or lease) private jets to get their executives around so they can't justify spending so much for seats on a Concorde. I'm sure these two designers are banking on the return of those high-class customers. If they aren't, then their focus is economics: can they make the per-seat cost cheap enough to compete with traditional commercial airlines to the point the commercial airlines want to buy them.

 

[Deleted member 3]

Flying via space is the future.

 

[gumpty]

Why does anyone REALLY need to get somewhere so fast?

Time is money right? Well just make broadband communications fast and seamless in conventional airliners and those people can work from their seat on the conventional long-haul flights. Somewhat negates the 'lost-time' argument.

 

[RejZoR]

I think there would have to be a revolution in propulsion as well as aerodynamics in order for them to be economically viable. This is probably why they gave the year 2050 as a target. I don't know what they plan to happen in the next 40 years but I think their estimates are probably correct.

The Concorde was only successful because of the customers it attracted. Seats cost tens of thousands of dollars if not hundreds of thousands of dollars. There was no faster way for a civilian to cross the Atlanic and likely, nothing short of Air Force one approaches its luxary. They could pay it off pretty quick but, truth be told, their clientel were vanishing so the aircraft did as well. Corporations own (or lease) private jets to get their executives around so they can't justify spending so much for seats on a Concorde. I'm sure these two designers are banking on the return of those high-class customers. If they aren't, then their focus is economics: can they make the per-seat cost cheap enough to compete with traditional commercial airlines to the point the commercial airlines want to buy them.

The cost was not that high per seat on a Concorde really. A friend of mine flew to New York with it years ago. And even though they were abit better financially positioned, they aren't exactly rich, especially not in numbers where they'd pay 100k for a flight on Concorde for 1 person. I reckon it was slightly more expensive than classic flight but certainly not in the 5 or 6 digit numbers...

 

[qubit]

I'm unable to read the article while at work, but the idea sounds great. I really miss Concorde, so a replacement is very welcome.

 

[WhiteLotus]

Why does anyone REALLY need to get somewhere so fast?

Time is money right? Well just make broadband communications fast and seamless in conventional airliners and those people can work from their seat on the conventional long-haul flights. Somewhat negates the 'lost-time' argument.

I've often wondered this. Same goes for the country officials that fly to other countries for conventions...why not just use a webcam?

 

[Deleted member 3]

I've often wondered this. Same goes for the country officials that fly to other countries for conventions...why not just use a webcam?

100 people connected to eachother via webcam. Not going to work. If you look at those officials being bored when they are physically present, imagine how much interestthey will show when staring at a small screen.

 

[WhiteLotus]

but then they can just make a video, play that then fuck off and play solitaire or what ever they want to do. And maybe they might even get some work done quicker because it'll be mind numbingly boring for them.

 

[CJCerny]

I guess no one was paying attention in physics class. The main reason that passenger jets haven't increased in speed is because we haven't figured out any way to beat the sonic boom problem. Creating sonic booms over populated areas is a real bad idea. Concorde was only allowed to do so over open water. It was not allowed to break the sound barrier over land. Until we figure out the sonic boom thing, hypersonic travel will never catch on except between coastal cities.

 

[Bo$$]

pretty hot presenter...
didn't really see too many futuristic jets there

 

[twilyth]

I guess no one was paying attention in physics class. The main reason that passenger jets haven't increased in speed is because we haven't figured out any way to beat the sonic boom problem. Creating sonic booms over populated areas is a real bad idea. Concorde was only allowed to do so over open water. It was not allowed to break the sound barrier over land. Until we figure out the sonic boom thing, hypersonic travel will never catch on except between coastal cities.

Thank you. I was thinking about writing something like that, but couldn't get motivated.

There's also the issue of fuel. Even when it was cheap by comparison, Concorde still never made much money IIRC. I could be wrong, but I think if you included development costs, it operated at a loss until they had to shut them down.

Check this out

Why is Concorde being retired?

It is all down to cost: the Airlines are not making back the money spent on the safety modifications and other upgrades. With some other big costs coming up (tens of millions, before any life extension programme), BA need to write off £84M now, rather than £150M in 3 or 4 years. Air France will write off a large sum of money too.

Airbus, the supporting Manufacturer, will also not support the aircraft after October 2003.

With the premium first class market as it is post 9/11, there is not even any hope of paying back the modification cost to start with, leave alone the further investment required to keep the aircraft in the air. Day-to-day the aircraft still breaks even, but it could no longer pay back any big expenditure items, so its days were numbered. It is a sad time, but the inevitable really only came forward 3 years.

The only way it becomes profitable is with volume and scale and that, as boss pointed out, means being able to fly more than a handful of routes which are exclusively over water.

 

[Red_Machine]

The only way it becomes profitable is with volume and scale and that, as boss pointed out, means being able to fly more than a handful of routes which are exclusively over water.

That's what I said. As long as it remains niche, it will never come down in price. If they had decided to mass-produce Concordes and replace most, if not all, trans-Atlantic and trans-Pacific conventional airliners with them then it would have worked out as a lot cheaper. More of them around = more customers, more customers = cheaper ticket prices.

These things need to be produced on a scale that will effectively flood the industry with them, less choice for customers/airlines means that they'd have used Concorde more often.