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And designed by the man, Jack Northrop, himself!!!
Probably to use against Nazi Germany.
But of course Britain didn't fall.
It would be quite an interesting timeline
right on, you do know a little about the history of these planes. the XB35, which was in competition with the XB36 by the way, was built to a requirement that the war department put out for a long range heavy bomber that could fly 10,000 miles without refueling, and carry a substantial bomb load, i forget what the spec was, but i imagine it would have been similar to what the B29 could carry.
the XB35 actually flew before the end of the war, and the XB36 flew shortly after the war ended.
Fuel costs, schmuel costs. Fuel has not been cheaper in decades. But that isn't the point. Not everything has to be about profit. Sports cars aren't profitable, but sedans and SUV's absolutely are. You think Honda doesn't use profit from the Civic and Accord platforms to justify the Acura NSX? Profit from the bread and butter air routes using the conventional airliners absolutely could be funneled into an SST luxury liner that would be super high visibility and they could charge $7K round trip and if not be outright profitable, it would definitely bring attention to the airline that had the balls to put something like it in the air. That would trickle down for sure. But there isn't any need. The public of today accepts cancelled flights, re-routed flights, checked bag fees, shrinking over-head bins, confiscated baby formula and contact lens solution... I am certain that in our lifetimes clothes will be banned on domestic and international air travel. You will surrender your clothing during the TSA cavity search at the same time you surrender any carry-on items. You will then be issued disposable paper smocks, pink for women, blue for men and purple for undeclareds. Seating in the cabin would then be segregated by gender for the duration of the flight.
Fuel costs, schmuel costs. Fuel has not been cheaper in decades. But that isn't the point. Not everything has to be about profit. Sports cars aren't profitable, but sedans and SUV's absolutely are. You think Honda doesn't use profit from the Civic and Accord platforms to justify the Acura NSX? Profit from the bread and butter air routes using the conventional airliners absolutely could be funneled into an SST luxury liner that would be super high visibility and they could charge $7K round trip and if not be outright profitable, it would definitely bring attention to the airline that had the balls to put something like it in the air. That would trickle down for sure. But there isn't any need. The public of today accepts cancelled flights, re-routed flights, checked bag fees, shrinking over-head bins, confiscated baby formula and contact lens solution... I am certain that in our lifetimes clothes will be banned on domestic and international air travel. You will surrender your clothing during the TSA cavity search at the same time you surrender any carry-on items. You will then be issued disposable paper smocks, pink for women, blue for men and purple for undeclareds. Seating in the cabin would then be segregated by gender for the duration of the flight.
its not the price of the fuel we are talking about, its the quantity of fuel used. to go supersonic you need to use a lot more fuel than flying near supersonic. its like driving a sedan that gets 30mpg, and then deciding to switch to a high performance sedan that gets 20 mpg but goes faster. the cost of the fuel is the same, but you are using MORE of it than before to go a bit faster.
Fuel costs, schmuel costs. Fuel has not been cheaper in decades. But that isn't the point. Not everything has to be about profit. Sports cars aren't profitable, but sedans and SUV's absolutely are. You think Honda doesn't use profit from the Civic and Accord platforms to justify the Acura NSX? Profit from the bread and butter air routes using the conventional airliners absolutely could be funneled into an SST luxury liner that would be super high visibility and they could charge $7K round trip and if not be outright profitable, it would definitely bring attention to the airline that had the balls to put something like it in the air. That would trickle down for sure. But there isn't any need........
First off, fuel is cheap now, but that will not remain. An clean-sheet airliner takes around 7-10 years from the drawing board to EIS. This includes revisions in the planning stages, prototyping, testing, certification, etc. You have no idea if cheap fuel is here to stay or in 10 years if it will be over $100/barrel again.
Also, in 2003, the price of a round-trip ticket on the Concorde was around $12,000. A business class ticket on a conventional airliner today is between $3,000-5,000, on average. How many employees can command a $2-3,000/hr rate to justify the double-to-triple the cost of a normal business class seat. You can even find First class for $4-6,000.
Having a super-sonic airliner would not bring anything to the airline. Passengers aren't loyal anymore. It's all about price. Thus RyanAir, Spirit, Air Asia, etc.
As mentioned above, most going LON-NYC are better with the LCY-JFK service on the A318. You clear customs in SNN and can walk out stateside just like any other domestic flight
Quote:
Originally Posted by rbohm
its not the price of the fuel we are talking about, its the quantity of fuel used. to go supersonic you need to use a lot more fuel than flying near supersonic. its like driving a sedan that gets 30mpg, and then deciding to switch to a high performance sedan that gets 20 mpg but goes faster. the cost of the fuel is the same, but you are using MORE of it than before to go a bit faster.
+1 - and the more fuel you use, the more you need to carry, thus increasing weight and decreasing range.
+1 - and the more fuel you use, the more you need to carry, thus increasing weight and decreasing range.
As I mentioned earlier, it is a vicious circle. Aircraft design is a study in compromise, and while there are occasional technical breakthroughs, one can't have everything. In general aviation singles, for example, you have the big, comfortable cabin of the Beech Sierra and Rockwell 112. 130 KTAS max cruise. Or a smaller cabin, more speed... Piper Arrow or Cessna Cardinal RG (145 KTAS cruise). Or speed but a tight, cramped, even uncomfortable cabin... Mooney 201, 170+ KTAS. Just a quick comparison that shows a fairly substantial difference (31%) in speed between 5 200 hp retractable 4-place singles from the late 1970s.
When I was doing the preliminary performance estimates for my senior class aircraft design project for my aero engineering degree, my team discovered that you can't have it all. Speed comes at a cost, roominess comes at a cost, range costs a lot... the Concorde fuel load was ~40,000 lbs more than the aircraft weighed empty. Want more fuel, so you can go farther? Got to add weight to the airframe and volume of fuel, the former adds induced drag, the latter adds form drag. So you need more thrust which consumes more fuel if you want to go the same speed, or maybe you can reduce the cabin space and the paying customers/cargo. And maybe you need to add to the wing area to counter that added weight, for acceptable takeoff and landing performance, which adds wetted surface area and increases drag, which needs more thrust to overcome it. But that extra thrust means you can't go as far, and so you need more gas... see where this is going?
It was done before. Or was the Concorde a fake, like the Apollo spacecraft... Bumblebees...
Perhaps the analysis of the Concorde is what is preventing major aircraft manufacturers from pursuing a supersonic transport.
Think about it, Concorde cost around £1.2 Billion to develop in the 60's (based on UK CPI from 1969 that's the equivalent of £14,254,765,524) it sold 20 airframes at £22M per frame, thats £660M return (again based on UK CPI its the equivalent of £7,840,121,038).
So the overall in today's money it was a loss of £6,414,644,486, six billion pounds, or
$9,235,708,911.
That's a pretty hefty chunk of change, hell I'd be more than happy with just 1% of it (I'm not greedy).
We can't let these MBA maniacs to halt progress in aviation
What are you even saying?
My guess is that you're very young and have no idea of how the real world functions. Businesses exist for one sole purpose: to make a profit. The owners (or shareholders) expect them to do so, and if the company does not make a profit, they will eventually close down or be sold off.
No airline will purchase a brand new aircraft that is very expensive to operate, can be used on only a handful of routes, and cannot charge fares enough to compensate for the huge increase in operating costs.
No manufacturer will produce an aircraft if there are no buyers.
What you're asking is similar to the topics last year about fully electric airliners or sea-planes for commercial aviation. The technology is not there, nor will be there in the immediate future. Will it be there 30 or 50 years from now? Maybe. But it does not exist not for it to be a profitable venture for either the manufacturer or the airline.
There has been significant progress in aviation. Perhaps you haven't flown on the A350 nor 787. Those are huge technological changes and huge boosts in efficiency over prior aircraft.
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