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My understanding is the the Concorde wasn't profitable to fly (too large!) You can fly subsonic over land and go supersonic over oceans. That would make a trip
by wrsh07 3y ago
My understanding is the the Concorde wasn't profitable to fly (too large!)
You can fly subsonic over land and go supersonic over oceans. That would make a trip to Japan much faster! And won't impact humans living underneath the flight path (since it won't go supersonic until it's over the ocean)
Flights these days often aren't even traveling close to the speed of sound, so there's room to design a plane more efficient at that speed as well.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago> can fly subsonic over land and go supersonic over oceans A supersonic airframe is typically inefficient at subsonic speeds.
- AnimalMuppet 3y ago1. If you're flying supersonically, you probably aren't worried about efficiency anyway. 2. If you're flying NYC-London or LAX-Tokyo, the portion you spend over land isn't a big contributor to the overall efficiency.
- wrsh07 3y agoI think boom is aware of this and is planning to make their planes efficient at 90% speed of sound
- ghaff 3y ago>That would make a trip to Japan much faster! Assuming it has the range. Trans-Atlantic is IMO not that interesting. You can already get to London from the East Coast same day. The continent is mostly a red-eye but that's OK in lie-flat business class. Even comfortable trans-Pacific is a slog but that takes a lot of range.
- piperswe 3y agoIt seems like the plan is for flights from the East Coast to Asia (specifically Tokyo) to refuel at SFO before continuing across the Pacific.