• Why You Never Got to Fly The American Concorde: The American SST Story
    11 replies, posted
[media]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y91Zr480Tn4[/media]
Supersonic transports are great in theory. Until you realize that supersonic transports involve, with necessity, sonic booms. Honestly, it was an idea damned to die from inception. Sonic booms are loud and annoying as fuck, not to mention the very real damage they can do, both to property as the Oklahoma City test in this video demonstrated, but also to peoples' hearing. While New York to London in 3 hours would be amazing, it's just not very practical with supersonic transport. And that makes me sad. :frown:
That thing looks god damn slick though
If booms being intolerable are the principal issue, why not just reserve them for use in transatlantic/pacific flights? They're what I'd want faster air travel for in the first place, given their length and not having any stops along the way.
[QUOTE=Duck M.;53183057]If booms being intolerable are the principal issue, why not just reserve them for use in transatlantic/pacific flights? They're what I'd want faster air travel for in the first place, given their length and not having any stops along the way.[/QUOTE] [QUOTE=Gmod4ever;53183017]Supersonic transports are great in theory. Until you realize that supersonic transports involve, with necessity, sonic booms. Honestly, it was an idea damned to die from inception. Sonic booms are loud and annoying as fuck, not to mention the very real damage they can do, both to property as the Oklahoma City test in this video demonstrated, but also to peoples' hearing. While New York to London in 3 hours would be amazing, it's just not very practical with supersonic transport. And that makes me sad. :frown:[/QUOTE] the problem with supersonic transport was not inherent to sonic booms, nor even the far greater engineering issues involved with supersonic flight (surface heating, expansion, lift for takeoff vs drag in flight, thrust needed, fuel consumption, internal space, small windows, etc.). the problem with supersonic flight was that it came at the wrong time. the main audience for expensive supersonic flights were business travelers who needed to save that time. passenger economics and falling business demand are what killed the concorde. wendover productions has a good video on the topic: [media]https://youtu.be/n1QEj09Pe6k[/media]
[QUOTE=Duck M.;53183057]If booms being intolerable are the principal issue, why not just reserve them for use in transatlantic/pacific flights? They're what I'd want faster air travel for in the first place, given their length and not having any stops along the way.[/QUOTE] That was a solution investigated in the aftermath of the US banning supersonic flights over the continent. However, as Zombii and the Wendover video he linked (which I have seen previously) explain, the problem with that solution is that it just wasn't economically viable enough. Without those intracontinental flights, the intercontinental / transatlantic flights didn't have enough passenger demand to justify the cost of maintaining supersonic planes. Which is why I believe that the sonic booms are what damned supersonic transport to die - without the viability of intracontinental flights (be it over the US or over Europe), the intercontinental demand would never have been enough to make supersonic transport sustainable. It [b]needs[/b] the ability to fly over continents to be viable, and with the issues posed by sonic booms, that was never going to happen.
That's unfortunate. I really wish there were a better solution for transoceanic flight. I'm fine with intracontinental stuff, but intercontinental travel is just the worst
[QUOTE=Gmod4ever;53183017] While New York to London in 3 hours would be amazing, it's just not very practical with supersonic transport. [/QUOTE] New York to London over the ocean, where sonic booms don't matter.
[QUOTE=download;53183155]New York to London over the ocean, where sonic booms don't matter.[/QUOTE] Boy I wish we still had Bad Reading. Maybe if you actually read the thread, instead of trying to get in a sick zinger, you'd realize that both Zombii and I (and Wendover, with his video we both cited) addressed this.
How much is the time saved really worth? I've been through the Concorde and Tu-144 at Sinsheim. I wouldn't want to travel on the damn things, they have absolutely no creature comfort. As famous as they are, they have the most bland spartan interiors and I cannot imagine there was any room for much in the way of service. You would have been playing astronomically more for all the comfort of a Bombardier Dash-8. It seems like a really narrow target audience of business travelers who need to be on the other side of the ocean [U]now[/U] who don't care for keeping up appearances as business travelers usually do.
Regardless of it's flaws, the absence of its usage still manages to create a nagging feeling of disappointment. There was always something outrageously cool about the concept and it is indeed a massive bummer that it didn't work out.
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