Japanese Concorde

I saw this article while browsing CNN this morning.

Does Japan feels the need for an extremely fast passenger aircraft since they are so far from the western world?

Here is the picture of the artists conception that was shown in the article




So do you think Japan will actually build a new Concorde like aircraft in the years ahead?



[edit on 23-8-2005 by warpboost]

I absolutely think Japan can and will design a Mach II passenger air craft. As the article points out, they are already working on it. What really caught my eye though was that the plane will be capable of flying from LA to Tokyo in four hours. WOW!! I have flown from LA to Hong Kong and that was one wopper of a flight - 16 hours!! It would be great if a seat on such a plane would be affordable for us common folk...

No.

The cost of fuel is high and will only get higher as more and more countries scramble for a finite and diminishing amount of oil.

And right now, oil is the only thing that works to fuel airplanes.

Having made about ten trips between Japan and the United States, I can certainly attest to the problems of a 11- to 12-hour one-way flight, even in business class. But paying three to five times more for an additional four hours of productivity means that my time is worth an additional fifteen hundred dollars an hour.

And it's not, of course!

And that's a best-case (business) flying. Who, outside of Donald Trump, is going to spend an extre four or five thousand dollars so be able to get another six hours of vacation time?

It's not that the engineering won't work -- it will. I have spent six months working at Fuji Heavy Industries Aerospace Division in Utsunomiya, and those guys are as sharp as anyone else on Earth.

But it's that the economics won't work; that's the problem.

As near as I can figure out, there are only two competing approaches to long-distance passenger flight that seem to have a chance: The first is the whalemobile like the A380 -- designed and built by the Servants of Satan -- to cram six hundred people into an aircraft which will fly from hum to hub and rely on smaller airplanes to take them from the hub to the spoke airports.

The second approach (chosen by the Good Guys) is to have a super-efficient plastic airplane like the 787 Dreamliner carry three hundred people over any 11,000 mile or longer flight, sacrificing the sardine approach for the capability to land at either hub or spoke airports.

Which one of these approaches will win out will, to some extent, impact my pension when I retire in a couple of years from the Great Aircraft Company of Truth, Honor, and the American Way.

But, outside of using these test flight data for fallout knowledge like materials, efficient engines, etc., I don't think we're going to see another SST planned for a long, long time. It just doesn't make economic sense.

[edit on 23-8-2005 by Off_The_Street]

Servents of Satan is a bit hard. Ive got a friend working on the A380

I know, and I have friends who fly them. And they are superb engineers and marketers.

But then again, I work for The Boeing Company.....

Originally posted by Off_The_Street
I know, and I have friends who fly them. And they are superb engineers and marketers.

But then again, I work for The Boeing Company.....

Hey OTS! As does someone you know's wife.

I'm pulling for Boeing. Their approach makes mucho more sense than the other. And I don't have any friends that I know of working on it...

On the other hand, friends is friens, but bidness is bidness....

Here's to our collective retirements.

Originally posted by Off_The_Street
No.

T

Having made about ten trips between Japan and the United States, I can certainly attest to the problems of a 11- to 12-hour one-way flight, even in business class. But paying three to five times more for an additional four hours of productivity means that my time is worth an additional fifteen hundred dollars an hour.

And it's not, of course!

And that's a best-case (business) flying. Who, outside of Donald Trump, is going to spend an extre four or five thousand dollars so be able to get another six hours of vacation time?

I can undertsand your point, but people flew on the Concorde which was very expensive.

I bet some executives and other corporate people that travel to Japan would take this aircraft instead of their normal private jet which probably costs even more to run per hour than a seat on this will. You will also get the crowd of people with $$ who will take it just for the fun of it or to say they did.
Think of all the wealthy sports figures, entertainers, musicians, and movie stars that travel to Japan and would be willing to spend the money to get back and forth faster.

The last time I checked there is something like 450,000 households in the US with a net worth of 10 million or more so those people would be prospective customers, and many other people with much less net worth. If just offer a single flight per day I think they could make it work economically.

- ok i'm gonna have to agree with Off_the_Street, Theres no way this will be economical, What the hell do they need a rocket for???

If this thing can supercruise, that will be a big help...but I just dont understand why they would need a rocket.

BTW, heres a couple threads on this topic from a couple months back.

France & Japan go Supersonic
Concorde Replacment

[edit on 23-8-2005 by Murcielago]

the big rocket worrys me...

Why because it's too buzz bombish looking?

Warpboost says:

I can undertsand your point, but people flew on the Concorde which was very expensive.

True. And it lost money on every single flight. Remember, despite the high prices for the flight, the two carriers still subsidized the passsengers to an extent!

The UK and France wanted the Concorde as a rallying point for national Euro-pride (which isn't necessarily a bad idea). But it got to the point where the cost of flying that thing was so high that they finally realized it simply wasn't worth the "prestige".

And I don't think the Japanese will make that same mistake.

Sigung says:

Hey OTS! As does someone you know's wife.

Right. Another senile old guy (just two years younger than I) from St. Louis!

[edit on 23-8-2005 by Off_The_Street]

Originally posted by Off_The_Street
No.

The second approach (chosen by the Good Guys) is to have a super-efficient plastic airplane like the 787 Dreamliner carry three hundred people over any 11,000 mile or longer flight, sacrificing the sardine approach for the capability to land at either hub or spoke airports.

Which one of these approaches will win out will, to some extent, impact my pension when I retire in a couple of years from the Great Aircraft Company of Truth, Honor, and the American Way.

[edit on 23-8-2005 by Off_The_Street]

Is there something in the TOS about furthering one's agendas????

Well let's just remember people, composites and other light weight materials are nice until you hit something on the ground, which apparently isn't uncommon.

Basically what I'm trying to say is that plastic looks nice on paper, but just don't forget to factor in maintenence costs. Believe me, aircraft require a lot of maintencence, flying or not.

Originally posted by cyberdude78
Well let's just remember people, composites and other light weight materials are nice until you hit something on the ground, which apparently isn't uncommon.

Basically what I'm trying to say is that plastic looks nice on paper, but just don't forget to factor in maintenence costs. Believe me, aircraft require a lot of maintencence, flying or not.

Composites last longer, with less maintainence, and are stronger. Hence the reason things like Aircraft and Ships and supercars are made from them.

and what ground things?

OTS
You're absolutely right as far as the economics are involved, or at least it appears that way to an outsider. I have no affiliation with the airline industry, or the mechanics who design and construct these fancified metal air-whales. I'm a simple observer, and this is what I've observed:

1. Rocketing into the upper aptmosphere in plastic tubes strapped with rockets is Wile E. Coyote #, and everybody knows it. In other words, it's something that no animal would do instinctually. Man does this stuff routinely to prove (IMO) that we still have the gift of free will.

2. As you said, airplanes don't run on love alone. (I'm paraphrasing here.) You need petroleum products to keep the things defying gravity, and you need even more petroleum products to make the stupid things. Petroleum products need to be collected and refined from the source. The source is a loose collective of totally screwed up nations, with a few notable exceptions. Demand is increasing, supply is decreasing, and bad things keep inexplicably happening to any place remotely connected to oil, again, with a few notable exceptions.

3. Because of corporate leeches, permissive regulators, and the gangster-like enforcement of the primary materials vendors' monopolies, the entire industry is floating through semi-death for the same reason Elton John and his ilk keep getting loans, the creditors can't financially afford to cut them off and send the deadbeats into bankruptcy. The airline industry is a zombie, kept alive after death by the dark magic of the credit witch doctors. Zombies eat brains. Who the hell in their right mind trusts a brain eating zombie?

The second approach (chosen by the Good Guys) is to have a super-efficient plastic airplane like the 787 Dreamliner carry three hundred people over any 11,000 mile or longer flight, sacrificing the sardine approach for the capability to land at either hub or spoke airports.

Which one of these approaches will win out will, to some extent, impact my pension when I retire in a couple of years from the Great Aircraft Company of Truth, Honor, and the American Way.

So, truth, honor, and the American way = plastic airplane?

This is actually a perfect analogy, though I'm sure we differ as to why.

Murcielago
Am I mistaken in thinking that the only reason composites like carbon fiber are overall better is because they lack rivets that require constant maintenance? Don't get me wrong, the idea of gallavanting around the stratosphere in a metal bucket doesn't suit me any better, but I think the rivets are the maintenance headache, not the metal.

As far as weight, that's a distinct advantage, but at what cost? WE don't know, as far as I know. There aren't any carbon fiber passenger jets with proven track-records, so we don't know if they spontaneously implode on takeoff.

Or am I mistaken?

[edit on 24-8-2005 by WyrdeOne]

It will need to have a sonicboom thats reduced 80% in order to aviod being a flop like the Concorde.

IMHO, i dont think we'll ever see a SST ever again.

I think the next leap will see ballistic hypersonic craft, and even then, not in our lifetime.

Concorde economics never worked in the cheper oil days, so theres 0% chance it will work
now 40 years on with prices as high as they are. The technology is here for a Mach 3 or
even as high as Mach 4 craft, but thats about it AFAIK...

Wouldnt the resurrection of the Boeing SST 2707 or Lockheed L-2000 be fun, as the ability
to work titanium and years of computer modelled aerodynamics would help no end.

www.theregister.co.uk...



That missile under the aircraft is what will get the model up to Mach 2. Dont rule out supersonic flight becuse as technology develops it will become cheaper to run.

Originally posted by NWguy83
It will need to have a sonicboom thats reduced 80% in order to aviod being a flop like the Concorde.

I think the whole recent sonic boom reduction thingy is an effort to deliberately mislead people into accepting supersonic flights over their homes and/or funding such research. While an 80% reduction would most certainly reduce the chances of your windows being blown out, the human ear works on a logarithmic scale and a 5 fold decrease in the amplitude corresponds with only 7 dB noise reduction from God knows how many decibels. I'm simply not buying it that sonic boom reduction technology will somehow allow it to fly over land. They can try, but I doubt the public will accept it.

[edit on 24-8-2005 by Simon666]