Out of interest with any successor to concorde, what lift/drag ratio is now technically possible, and likewise from more advanced powerplants that could be available now what lb/hr/lbf numbers could be achieved?
One other question if I may - how much of a compromise was concorde's wing with respect to the balance of supersonic vs sub-sonic efficiency? What I'm trying to ask is if the wing could be a variable geometry with no weight cost (impossible I know) how much more efficient could the supersonic wing have become - or was the compromise very much on the sub-sonic performance and not much to gain in terms of supersonic efficiency?
I'll try!
The last time I had anything to do with it people were talking about L/Ds around 10.5 in cruise (up from 7.5).
There are technical issues why one cannot use high bypass engines for supersonic cruise, so the thermodynamic cycle would be much the same as the Olympus. That being so the only real gain would come from higher TETs today so the benefits would be limited - two or three percent sfc perhaps?
[Yes I know the USAF are flying supersonic cruise aircraft, but look at how much bypass their engines actually have and the supersonic cruise Mach Numbers]
Obviously the MOST IMPORTANT condition was supersonic cruise, so this dominated the compromise. OTOH, the reserve fuel was largely driven by subsonic performance, so one couldn't give too much away. It might surprise people, but the 0.93M specific range is much the same as the 2.0M value.
As for variable geometry wings (1970s style), the best I can offer is that Boeing started with a variable geometry design (with which they won the design competition), but as the design process progressed the amount of wing that varied got less and less until the Boeing aircraft looked very much like the Lockheed design that lost the original competition.
What do you think?
CiveL