lets play aircraft designer.
Posted: 06 Nov 2006, 11:17
hey I have thought about posting this for a long time but did feel up to the long bout of typing.
the question I ask you all is if you were a aircraft designer, what niche in the market needs filled and what kind of plane would you design to fill it.
maybe if somebody like one of the proposals they would make a Flight simulator version of it...
Ok, to start this off I have two niches that I think are out there to exploit, the first is a transonic aircraft that has a ~7000 NM range and is about the size of a 777-200. there are a lot of national airlines that have routes that could use this, maybe a pacific one that would fly from there home country to a place like Chicago or something. This plane would have two cruse modes, on for overland that is sub sonic, (maybe M.85) and a over water super sonic cruse of about 1.7 - 1.6 M. this is fast enough to save a lot of time over convetioal aircraft but hopefully not too fast so that it needs a specalized design like the concord with all its issues,
it would have modern turbofans that would not need afterburners to take off for noise issues and maybe not afterburners at all if the engines can be powerful enough, (maybe four of the 100K lbs thrust engines from the 777, propelling a plane that size or smaller) they may not need after burners at all. here is a corporate jet that is being design that would fill exactly the same niche but for the business sector
http://www.aerioncorp.com/
they hit it right on the nose that the main thing with making the design work is the modern understanding of airflow, that was what the sonic cruiser from Boeing was gona do, I think the failing of that design was that is was not ambitious enough (it was not supersonic)
I will post my idea the other niche that needs filled in my opinion (a short range, High capacity airliner. they use 747s now which in my opinion are far from ideal even if they are special models) in a bit..
the question I ask you all is if you were a aircraft designer, what niche in the market needs filled and what kind of plane would you design to fill it.
maybe if somebody like one of the proposals they would make a Flight simulator version of it...
Ok, to start this off I have two niches that I think are out there to exploit, the first is a transonic aircraft that has a ~7000 NM range and is about the size of a 777-200. there are a lot of national airlines that have routes that could use this, maybe a pacific one that would fly from there home country to a place like Chicago or something. This plane would have two cruse modes, on for overland that is sub sonic, (maybe M.85) and a over water super sonic cruse of about 1.7 - 1.6 M. this is fast enough to save a lot of time over convetioal aircraft but hopefully not too fast so that it needs a specalized design like the concord with all its issues,
it would have modern turbofans that would not need afterburners to take off for noise issues and maybe not afterburners at all if the engines can be powerful enough, (maybe four of the 100K lbs thrust engines from the 777, propelling a plane that size or smaller) they may not need after burners at all. here is a corporate jet that is being design that would fill exactly the same niche but for the business sector
http://www.aerioncorp.com/
they hit it right on the nose that the main thing with making the design work is the modern understanding of airflow, that was what the sonic cruiser from Boeing was gona do, I think the failing of that design was that is was not ambitious enough (it was not supersonic)
I will post my idea the other niche that needs filled in my opinion (a short range, High capacity airliner. they use 747s now which in my opinion are far from ideal even if they are special models) in a bit..