Re: News: American Airlines Announces Agreement to Purchase Boom Supersonic Overture Aircraft, Places Deposit on 20 Over
Posted: 27 Sep 2022, 14:49
So a couple things -
There were several SST programs run in the US. All of them were stupidly expensive, stupidly optimistic, and the one that might have worked on a reasonable budget was the XB-70 conversion, but it ran into all the problems with delamination of the aluminum honeycomb skin and such. But it was the end of government support of funding that killed the SST, not environmental issues or lack of orders. In fact, the Boeing 2707 had significantly more orders (115 vice 75). A lot of economists and historians argue that the failure of Concorde and Supersonic transport was actually more due to the loss of serious competition than any of the changes in environmental or regulatory climate, arguing that it was the loss of competition and thus significant reduction in potential orders (because of the increased risk) *allowed* for the changes in those climates that resulted in the further limitation of Concorde to just 14 aircraft.
As for the mockup, it's at the Museum of Flight in Seattle undergoing restoration for display after being in private hands for quite a long time.
As for Boom - I think the difference this time is two-fold. One, they're using "quiet boom" technology, making it much less noisy at supersonic speeds, potentially to the point that it will remove all restrictions against overland operation because its impact at the surface will be no more than what it is of any other airplane overlying. The second part about fuel is kinda a mute point. Concorde used Afterburner to attain its takeoff and cruise capabilities. This severely hurt its overall fuel efficiency, per seat-mile or per hour. Per seat-mile/100km Concorde was ~16.7L/100km. That's about the same as most long-range business jets, so not horrible, but also about double that of other 100-150 seat long-range aircraft. But so much of that was tied up in the use of afterburner during takeoff and somewhat during acceleration. Since Overture is building its design around not using afterburner and having a modern high-efficiency turbofan with FADEC and new composite structures which will solve a lot of the weight issues, I don't see that as being a factor anymore. The technology is actually mature now. With Concorde it was beyond bleeding edge, and that was what hurt it more than anything. It was the first. And the first always suffers.
There were several SST programs run in the US. All of them were stupidly expensive, stupidly optimistic, and the one that might have worked on a reasonable budget was the XB-70 conversion, but it ran into all the problems with delamination of the aluminum honeycomb skin and such. But it was the end of government support of funding that killed the SST, not environmental issues or lack of orders. In fact, the Boeing 2707 had significantly more orders (115 vice 75). A lot of economists and historians argue that the failure of Concorde and Supersonic transport was actually more due to the loss of serious competition than any of the changes in environmental or regulatory climate, arguing that it was the loss of competition and thus significant reduction in potential orders (because of the increased risk) *allowed* for the changes in those climates that resulted in the further limitation of Concorde to just 14 aircraft.
As for the mockup, it's at the Museum of Flight in Seattle undergoing restoration for display after being in private hands for quite a long time.
As for Boom - I think the difference this time is two-fold. One, they're using "quiet boom" technology, making it much less noisy at supersonic speeds, potentially to the point that it will remove all restrictions against overland operation because its impact at the surface will be no more than what it is of any other airplane overlying. The second part about fuel is kinda a mute point. Concorde used Afterburner to attain its takeoff and cruise capabilities. This severely hurt its overall fuel efficiency, per seat-mile or per hour. Per seat-mile/100km Concorde was ~16.7L/100km. That's about the same as most long-range business jets, so not horrible, but also about double that of other 100-150 seat long-range aircraft. But so much of that was tied up in the use of afterburner during takeoff and somewhat during acceleration. Since Overture is building its design around not using afterburner and having a modern high-efficiency turbofan with FADEC and new composite structures which will solve a lot of the weight issues, I don't see that as being a factor anymore. The technology is actually mature now. With Concorde it was beyond bleeding edge, and that was what hurt it more than anything. It was the first. And the first always suffers.