Re:Drop the Supersonic Aircraft Ban
by _ph_ on Monday June 13, 2016 @11:12AM
(#11894484)
The Concorde had never been optimized for fuel consumption. Even for a jet of its time, it was quite wasteful of fuel. I once was told by someone who had some insight into Boing, that they had a much more efficient supersonic airliner in development in the competition to the Concorde, when the project was cancelled. So yes, supersonic airplanes would use more fuel than subsonic ones, but how much we can't know until someone builds a modern supersonic aircraft.
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| on HN ]
> but how much we can't know until someone builds a modern supersonic aircraft.
You really think modern aircraft manufacturers are surprised by the fuel consumption (or any other performance characteristic) of their aircraft prior to them actually being built?
Oh, by the time they start to assemble physical parts they of course know exactly the performance figures, but that is pretty close to the end of the design process. Only after the design process you know these and I don't know how much of that is being done now.
That's true but there's enough history of supersonic aircraft design that it's not really much of a mystery what the general numbers are going to look like given speed, range, capacity, etc. targets. Sure, the designers won't know at a detailed level until they actually design the aircraft to some degree. But it's pretty much a certainty that they have (at a minimum) a back of the envelope idea of how things will look.