4 ms·
Good thing the oceans don’t care. The most viable routes are mostly oceanic. LA-Singapore could be done mostly supersonic and then slowed down once closer.
by kylehotchkiss 2y ago
Good thing the oceans don’t care. The most viable routes are mostly oceanic. LA-Singapore could be done mostly supersonic and then slowed down once closer.
- ctippett 2y agoNot that I disagree with you, but I'd argue the most viable route would be one the Concorde already served: New York to London over the North Atlantic.
- dmix 2y agoMarket enviornments change though. There's probably a lot more people with disposable income in the higher end and plane travel has exploded since then. But gov controls and red tape on this sort of thing probably tripled, especially around environment/airport development+nimby politics/aircraft regulations, so it's probably 50/50 vs the 1970s-80s.
- kylehotchkiss 2y agoI eagerly awaiting saving 500,000 Amex points and having a chance to fly supersonic.
- onion2k 2y agoThat's less true now than it was in the 1980s.
- zarzavat 2y agoConcorde got a pass because it was British and even then it was controversial. Boom will still have to meet all noise pollution rules now and in the future. Noise rules are designed for normal passenger aircraft, they will not get any exceptions. I don't doubt that they can make something much quieter than Concorde but can they make it as quiet as subsonic aircraft?
- Gare 2y agoSure, but Concorde was hella loud even in subsonic regime.
- fortran77 2y agoI grew up in Cedarhurst, NY, 3 miles from Kennedy Airport. The Concorde at subsonic speeds was very loud. It was a loud, window-rattling rumble. But the worst of all were the 707s. They _screamed_. If I was outside when one went over Runway 31R/13L, I'd have to cover my ears.
- mrlonglong 2y agoYes, back in the 80s I could hear aeroplanes fly over. Nowadays they're far too quiet to hear.
- KolmogorovComp 2y agoIn the meantime we got 9/11, and all the security procedures that goes with it. It is nowadays much slower to fly than before, and that time is mostly incompressible, making the benefits of supersonic flight less incentive.
- happyopossum 2y agoI fly a fair amount, and I haven't been in a situation where I had to arrive at the airport 90 minutes before a flight in years - typically 1 hour is plenty of time, and if I weren't optimizing for low-stress, could get away with 45 minutes most days for domestic flights. 90 minutes out of 17.5 hours of travel ( 16 hour flight from SFO to Singapore) represents a small amount of 'incompressible' time - cutting that 16 hour flight down to 8 or 10 would make a HUGE difference, especially given timezone/IDL issues.
- rkagerer 2y agoAir Canada just announced today it's inreasing check-in cutoff time to 1hr - roughly meaning if you don't get to the counter at least 1hr early you're out of luck. Not sure if it impacts those who travel without luggage and check-in online. I contrast this to when I used to be able to (long ago) roll up to the airport a mere 20mins before takeoff time.
- ghaff 2y ago>I used to be able to (long ago) roll up to the airport a mere 20mins before takeoff time. I worked for a guy once when I was working in downtown Boston for a bit and the times I traveled with him he would absolutely drive me crazy by not wanting to grab a cab to the airport until well under an hour before flight time. Today, I usually breeze through security in a few minutes with TSA Pre for early morning flights. I still arrive about 2 hours in advance because I find it more relaxing and my limo company pretty much wants that much slack anyway. (I rarely check luggage.)
- 0x457 2y ago> Not sure if it impacts those who travel without luggage and check-in online. If you checked in online and have no luggage, you just need to make in time before your boarding gate closes.
- bryanlarsen 2y agoSupersonic uses a lot more fuel. It's highly unlikely LA - Singapore can be done on a single tank. Adding a stop for refueling negates much of the time benefit.