Airbus to collaborate with Aerion on supersonic jet

[HamiltonWest]

http://www.stuff.co.nz/travel/news/6143601...rsonic-jet.html

[Ian Warren]

Over the years we have seen these sorts, even Gulfstream was working on a supersonic type in the mid 1990s early 2000 but nothing come off that, guess we will have to wait and see in ten years time.

[Splitpin]

Im amazed it hasn't been done before now . The engineering know how is in place (Concorde) along side military developments ..... lets do it , exciting stuff.

[JoeM]

The tech is there, the concepts are well in place, but it all comes down to money money money! The sound barrier simply just isn't cheap to break, or remain broken.

Apart from good design, huge reserves of power are essential to break and hold a speed above the Local Speed of Sound. Now that requires an increase in Fuel Flow, which transcends to a need to increase range with larger tanks (despite the fact we're travelling quicker, the engines are required to increase work at a disproportionate rate to speed increase), which again will translate into an increase in wallet size before anything along these lines can be sustainable. For a corporate, oil tycoon type customer then indeed it might work! But as we've seen these kinds of designs just don't last in the commercial environment.

Another limiting factor is us, the public! Even at High Altitudes, the crack of a sonic boom is enough to temporarily deafen you. As this Mach 1.0 speed changes with varying temperatures, there isn't really a sure way we can block areas of land out as "sonic boom zones" in highly congested areas - leaving only the ocean available to transition to supersonic range speeds over. This means over areas like the Continental United States, Europe, etc. it just is not feasible to have outrageously loud splitting noises occurring however many times per hour. See what I mean by "loud" here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbPh2llw0-M (turn your volume down)! Now, whilst they do say in the article that it WILL be optimum with both range and efficiency at M0.95 where supersonic flight is not allowed, I don't think airlines will fool for that one - it's just not viable to buy an aircraft set out to fly supersonic and then go fly it subsonic everywhere.

It is a cool idea though, and if there are ways around these problems (money, politics most likely) then there will likely be success, albeit small with this aircraft. However commercially viable? I think, probably not

Cheers

[Ian Warren]

Think you nailed it Joe, like how they put the number on the books 600 i recall but .. there is lotta stuff not thought out , frankly just another hype and really the best example was the Concorde .. final years it was used as a Yuppy transport for the rich ... never clicked as a commercial viable deal _ Grumman backed off on there project for the same reason .. ten years time they may develop a low noise low fuel consumption engine but I would doubt it , maybe 20 years .