Japanese and French to go Supersonic (Welcome back Concorde)

[N380UA]

CNN) -- Japanese and French companies have signed an agreement to develop a supersonic aircraft to succeed the disused Concorde jetliner, according to Japanese media reports.

The three-year agreement to study a next-generation supersonic jet was signed at the Paris Air Show, Kyodo news agency reported, citing a statement released by Japan's trade ministry.

The Society of Japanese Aerospace Companies and the French Aerospace Industries Association will lead the initiative, it said.

Under the deal, the various parties will conduct research into composite materials, technology for reducing engine noise and other difficulties unique to supersonic flight.

According to the Nihon Keizai newspaper, a number of companies and agencies will work with the two industry bodies.

They include the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, the Engineering Research Association for Supersonic Transport Propulsion System -- consisting of Ishikawajima-Harima Heavy Industries, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and Kawasaki Heavy Industries, -- the French Aeronautics and Space Research Center, and French aircraft engine manufacturer Snecma.

The Concorde, the world's first supersonic jet, entered service in 1976. It went through a 16-month hiatus after a crash in July 2000, and finally stopped operating in October 2003 due to heavy maintenance costs.

Two airlines, British Airways and Air France, used the aircraft on trans-Atlantic services.

With a cruising speed of 1350 miles an hour it was able to transport passengers from London to New York in less than three hours, compared to an eight-hour flight for subsonic airliners.

But the Concorde suffered a setback when an Air France plane caught fire in July 2000 shortly after takeoff over France. It crashed, killing 113 people, including four on the ground. The aircraft was taken out of service until November 2001.

[Few Cloudy]

It will be called Yo-To-.

[Jack's a dull boy]

No -

Yo - Toe

(to keep the French happy).

[Sleeve Wing]

So, once again, we are screwed by the French and the Japanese will get all the millions of pounds worth of R&D data for sweet FA.
Where did we go wrong ??

:yuk: :} :mad:

[Genghis the Engineer]

A continued refusal on the part of "governing man" in the UK to look beyond the short term balance sheet.

Same reason we have no involvement with any manned space programme, are decades late with a high speed channel tunnel rail link, the HS125 is now being built in Wichita, the French have all real control over airbus...

G

[Eboy]

According to the June 15 Wall Street Journal,

"Companies from the two countries will invest ¥100 million ($914,000) annually in research over the next three years to build a passenger plane capable of flying faster than the speed of sound, the ministry said in a statement Tuesday."

How can the companies do this by spending so little?

[Genghis the Engineer]

Because it's basically a design project, very little new research is going to be needed - we already know HOW to build an SST, even most of the information about how to build a reasonably quiet one is in the public domain.

G

[Conan The Barber]

So, once again, we are screwed by the French and the Japanese will get all the millions of pounds worth of R&D data for sweet FA.

Eh, please explain how you are being screwed by the French.

Is it because they don't sit around like a pair of old ladies moaning about how great they once were, and blames their current state on those who just got on with it.

Anyway, the Brits would just cancel the program half way through. :rolleyes:

[mocoman]

BBC link to the same story

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4094810.stm

:\

[atakacs]

Because it's basically a design project, very little new research is going to be needed - we already know HOW to build an SST, even most of the information about how to build a reasonably quiet one is in the public domain.

That's a bold statement, to say the least.

Was chatting with a SNECMA engineer about this very subject and his view was that current propulsion technology was not capable of producing an engine for an SST that could meet current noise and emissions standard, and that he would not envision any such thing before at least 20 more year...

FWIW

[Andy_S]

Is it because they don't sit around like a pair of old ladies moaning about how great they once were, and blames their current state on those who just got on with it.

I thought that was EXACTLY what the French did.....:ugh:

[Genghis the Engineer]

Okay, maybe I was a little optimistic on noise and emissions.

Of-course, that's just SNECMA ;)

G

[Johnm]

Sleeve wing wrote>>Where did we go wrong ??

We let the bloody Treasury run things, that's where!

[unmanned transport]

The French and Japs might be a winning team with this new craft.

We all know that the Brits were a flop when it came to producing and marketing airliners in the past.

[Genghis the Engineer]

We all know that the Brits were a flop when it came to producing and marketing airliners in the past.

... I don't know, they sold the HS125 to Raytheon quite effectively :*


Interesting snippet from this weeks "Professional Engineering". NASA has apparently funded two SST engine studies by Rolls Royce, who reckon that their engineering database on engines for SST is worth about US$2bn, that being their estimate of how much it would cost to repeat all the work and learn the same lessons.

The two studies have been of a high-bypass supersonic engine, and a smaller mixed geometry engine - respectively in co-operation with Gulfstream and Lockheed Martin.

The next stage may apparently be a DARPA funded demonstrator, particularly to allow them to develop ways of minimising environmental effects.

G

[N380UA]

Wouldn’t the next Gen. SST have a „dual use power plant“– conventional for take off, below Fl100 and for landing and for cruse at higher alt. use ram or scramjets? Obviously they would have to be variable geometry but high bypass? I would imagine that the force on the blade, notwithstanding the fact the intake is subsonic, would be big?

[unmanned transport]

Rolls Royce have got NOTHING to offer to American technology.

[FakePilot]

Seems to me when the British create or invent something 9 times out of 10 it's such a flop that the world is snickering for years to come. But the 10th item is so amazing everyone buys it and it becomes lengendary, changing the world in the process. So I'd say they're about even. :)

[Genghis the Engineer]

Rolls Royce have got NOTHING to offer to American technology.
That'll be why NASA are spending American tax dollars involving RR in SST design studies then, and for that matter why Boeing is using a RR Trent 1000 in the 7E7 Dreamliner as the lead engine, RR is a 40% partner in developing the F136 engine for F-35...

The US leads the world in most things aerospace, and has every reason to be proud of that. But that sort of petty statement, disregarding that the rest of the world actually is somewhat bigger than the US on it's own, and regularly does it's own thing quite well, is part of the reason that the rest of the world so regularly chooses to treat the USA with contempt.

G

[jet_fumes_junkie]

2 companies announced supersonic business jets in development last year. one of them, aerion, skirts the noise and heat-buildup issues by m.99 overland and 1.6 over water. seems that my taxes that went into nasa's sonic boom research (was it a big-nosed f-5?) haven't born much fruit as yet. rumors had it that boeing's shelved sonic cruiser was to make the leap when new engine technology permitted in the future. yet another thing we won't get to see anytime soon thanks to lcc's:oh: (and yes, by that i mean the forces of supply and demand:D )

[Chimbu chuckles]

Ghengis...the Brits sold the Yanks a pup when it sold the Hs125...even a 20 yr old Falcon 200 is a much better aeroplane in almost every respect than a brand new Hawker 800XP....and yes I know from experience.

How can it be though that the same country that builds such wonderful aeropanes (Falcons) builds Airbusses too:confused: :} :E :hmm: :ok: :ouch:

[Genghis the Engineer]

Somebody clearly disagrees with you, or Raytheon wouldn't be selling so many Hawkers.

I'm no expert on either type, and don't know why - but there's clearly a reason since nobody spends that money without being quite clear that it's the right buy.

G

[poor southerner]

G

You could say the same about the Rover 25 I suppose.

Anyway. When they say Fench, who do they mean. EADS, Airbus or Dassualt (the later having studied a sst business jet recently)

[steamchicken]

Can someone remind me what the really good reason for disposing of BAE's offering in the only fast-growing, profitable and reasonably uncontroversial sector of the industry was?

[Genghis the Engineer]

Was it about the time that the then CE of BAe was publically pronouncing that building whole aeroplanes was a daft idea, we should allow foreigners to do that, and simply be profitable subcontractors?

G

[Dave Gittins]

The Rover 25 (and all the other Rovers) make Ghengis's point admirably. They were such rubbish that nobody (or hardly anybody) did buy them - or would only buy them at a price that wasn't profitable for the manufacturer and his hangers on - thus Rover went bust.

The only way Rover's are being sold off now is at about half list price.

Are you trying to tell us that Hawker's are in the some position ???

[Genghis the Engineer]

I met a flying instructor recently who had only just qualified. I asked him why he'd made the career change?

"Oh, my old company was clearly going nowhere, so I got out when I could"

"Who were they?"

"I was a design engineer with Rover Group".



In the meantime, does anybody want to buy my Wife's Rover 25, going cheap?

G

[Chimbu chuckles]

G The Hs125 was a pup. Compared to a Falcon it had onerous maintenance schedules, poor cockpit ergonomics, poor payload range, small cabin, no external baggage. poor BFL peformance, slower.

The maintenance issues were in the main addressed in the 800 and the 800XP is not a bad little aeroplane by any measure...just not as good as a Falcon 200, a design 20 yrs older, in any areas EXCEPT the engines on the 800XP are much cheaper to maintain.

The engines on the Falcon 200 are great...quiet, fuel miserly, powerfull...and complicated therefore expensive to maintain.

Why did Ratheon buy the rights to the Hawker? I suppose it was the best they could get for their money and a quick fix to fill a hole in their design books...without clean sheeting a new Bizjet. Dassault was never going to sell them the rights to the Falcon 20/200 or 50 after all....where else could they get a Bizjet design cheaply?

If you compare the Falcon 200, or better still the Falcon 20F-5 (which put the same engine as the 800XP onto a 20/200 airframe thereby fixing the aircraft's only maintenance shortcoming at the expence of a little performance) with contemporay Hs125s the difference is startling. The Hs125-700 was a piece of ****e.

Ratheon bought a pup and turned it into a pedigree....but it still took an extra 20+ years of airframe development to get an aeroplane that wasn't as good as an aeroplane Dassault designed in the 60s, the Falcon 20, and had refined to it's ultimate form in the 70s, the Falcon 200.

The Brits do many things very well..they have had some world beating ideas...jet engines, angled decks, steam catapults etc. The have designed some of the prettiest aeroplanes, the Spitfire, Mossy, Hunter...and some great aeroplanes like the Lancaster and with French input the Concorde was a truly marvelous aeroplane...though hardly an economic success story.

What Britian does not do or has not done since the mid 40s, is design world beating aeroplanes...if it did it would still have an aerospace industry of it's own....the Hs125 was a bad choice as an example of losing a good aeroplane to a foriegn manufacturer.:ok: ;)

[poor southerner]

The Rover 25 note was more akin to a so-so product, clearly out of date, not making a profit. But always found buyers despite this.

As an aside comment. I'm pleased president Blair didn't lean to the old labour ways and pump millions of tax revenue into proping up this dinasour. Just to keep a load of brummies in work. From my view doing this with failing large companies is un-fair. I like the majority of British industry am a small business with less than 10 staff. Would they give me £1m to increase my profits, staff and tax revenues or £ 500m to rover so it can live for another year, deffer its p.a.y.e and vat and just leave a bigger hole in the end.
Sorry off-topic rant over.:sad:

[Genghis the Engineer]

I must admit that I couldn't work out whether Mrs.G's Rover 200 (later renamed 25) was a bad car, or it just suffered from her Son's tendency to keep crashing it just after he learned to drive (3 times if I recall). Certainly I agree that it was right not to try and keep Rover group alive - we are a healthy net producer and exporter of cars, and likely to remain so. The fact that these cars have badges like "Nissan" and "Honda" is surely irrelevant - if they were designed and built here, by Brits, and usually most of the parts subcontracting is in the UK as well, who cares where the small percentage of profit goes or what the badge is.


Back on topic, IMHO the UK does still have a worldbeating aircraft industry, we're just not very good at doing whole airliners. Even he US Navy bought Hawks - as has half the planet, the Airbus wing factory at Hawarden is a truly brilliant (and highly profitable) bit of engineering. The Lynx is pretty much the "NATO standard" helicopter, there's probably not a country in the world that you'll find an Islander, and so on. The yanks wouldn't be in bed with us on JSF if we weren't the real Harrier / VTOL experts, Rolls Royce are still regularly the preferred engine for many American airliner buyers. We have no monopoly, but we're still the 3rd biggest aerospace industry in the world.

Which isn't to say that I don't disagree strongly with the board of BAE in particular being hellbent on ensuring that they never have anything to do with whole aircraft manufacture and testing - it's a process that gives you a degree of control and oversight of the design process like no other. I'm quite certain that many senior engineers I've met who work for BAE share this view.


So, we aint done yet, but really do need to shoot a few management accountants and let the Engineers design and build decent new aeroplanes - and keep doing so to ensure that we maintain the national skills base, which is rapidly degrading.

G

[barryt]

And let's not forget the episode when Rolls Royce decided to run a "test" one day, and so took one of the automotive engines (a Rolls Royce motor), and run it for 500 HOURS continually at maximum RPM, with nothing coming apart. They took a multitude of different American V8s, and as far as I recall, couldn't get ANY of them to go beyond a few hours...

[italianjon]

I agree with G on the previous page. I work for an aerospace sub-contractor at the moment.

I think there will be an apparent shift of Aerospace (and automotive) industry away from the UK. It will be just that though, apparent.

When the visible part of a company, the manufacture aspect, moves it does appear to be the whole company which has moved, as the other departments are quiet to the outside world.

We are leaving all design, engineering, quality, procurement, sales etc in the uk, with the manufacture abroad to attract lower labour rates.

It is not just in Aerospace, a good friend of mine works in board games... same thing!

I think for manufacture to remain in the UK, much automation has to be employed. Which is why I think Honda and the like have remaind firmly in Blighty.

As far as I can tell from a few friends who work for Rover suppliers, Rover was very human labour orientated, and so therefore manufacture costs were high.

[N380UA]

As I have posted earlier, the Japanese and the French have further upped the ante in reestablishing an SST.

SST Test Flight (http://edition.cnn.com/2005/TECH/space/08/23/japan.supersonic.ap/index.html)