6,000 lbs payload = military, not commercial.
Nobody except the manufacturer and the fuel supplier is going to make money out of that.

Folks,
The US did recently announce a high priority manned and armed spaceplane program.
I hope I live long enough to see the next technological jump, after all re-usable rocket stages are now a fact of life.
Tootle pip!!

I wonder if the Russians knew at the time that they supplied the titanium to build the SR-71/A-12.

It sounds very promising to be able to roster crew for 2-sector duty LAX-SYD-LAX, no hotels, no layover, no flight pay for 30 hours etc.

Just the cancer insurance.

Lol, that's the dealbreaker! :rolleyes:

Right - here is a longer explanation on why hypersonic airliners are a no-no:

antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2015/01/why-were-not-going-to-see-sub-.html

Supersonic and hypersonic aerodynamics is old ha.
The real problem is airframe heating and materials to deal with that.

I wouldn't be sitting at the airport waiting, would you?

Fixed it for you.

Interesting link Clickable link to Charlie's diary Based on 2 assumptions Charlie feels hypersonics will not happen:
1. Security will need to be ultra tight because the hypersonic aircraft cannot be caught/intercepted if hijacked. Not sure that is an issue - but one to think about.
2. Hypersonic aircraft will operate so unlike 'conventional' jet aircraft that they will be unable to share airports so will operate from remote 'spaceports' so all travel saving is lost. Reusable Launch Vehicle (RLV) designs are also developing and it is quite possible that by the time of commercial services they will be able to operate from normal airports. After all the requirement for large remote areas is linked to 'debris fields' and accepted failure rates of 1 in 100 operations - which are not really compatible with commercial passenger operations.

There is a whole new field of 'Space Traffic Management' (STM) coming into being looking at the integration of RLVs into normal air traffic. The idea of closing off half of Florida - the current approach - for every commercial launch will not be acceptable commercially by the airlines that get the monetary hit of delays and reroutes. It is the same for all the current planned launch sites. So RLVs must start to fit in with existing traffic. Or they will not be commercially viable. STM is intended to provide this safe integration.

Lots of research in this area if anyone is interested : Embry Riddle Aeronautical University - Space Traffic Management

Never going to happen! Only 6 or 8 city pairs would benifit. R&D costs prohibitive


UP TO SPEED, SLOW DOWN AND LAND? Easier to go around the planet yet that would negate the concept

What will stop hypersonic fighters intercepting them?

I don't think the argument that they can get to an attack location "quicker" really holds water. The aircraft that crashed into the world trade centre didn't give 20 minutes notice of their intention.

True. But noise has a bit to do with it too.

And I'm guessing that anything that sleek is going to need a pretty fair runway length, both getting away and landing.

Also a potential issue with the military - people are going to feel very uncomfortable about something taking off from (say ) N America and heading at hypersonic speed towards Moscow of Beijing - especially if the military have also deployed hypersonic missiles..............

It's easy to spot the difference between a Gulfstream and a Minuteman - not so if they both have the same speed and flight profile

OK, just how many commercial aircraft currently flying have the engines imbedded in the wing? Putting the engines in pods on the wings was a breakthrough (pioneered on the B-47). Quite simply a better solution.
The Comet was close, but just like disc brakes and many other things, while the Brits came up with the basic idea, someone else figured out how to make it work reliably and profitably...

BTW, pretty good article on the subject here:
https://www.popularmechanics.com/fli...ws&date=062918

HH, people have been launching rockets into earth orbit for 60 years, with very little difference between orbital and sub orbital trajectories - yet somehow they know the difference between satellite launches and ballistic missiles...
If the intent was to nuke Moscow or Beijing (or New York or London), why bother with a hypersonic aircraft (still an hour or more) instead of the currently available ICBMs (minutes)?

Issues that need to be overcome:

Sonic boom. I believe some progress has been made in minimising sonic booms, but it’s still a big problem overflying land. Partially why LHR-NY is one of only a few viable routes as it’s water most of the way

Noise. Anyone remember Concorde? Now sub-sonic aircraft are so much quieter than in the Concorde days, I very much doubt anyone would put up with Concorde

Drag is very non-linear. From my university days I remember a graph (but can’t find it now) showing that drag vs speed had a bit of a dip around M2.2, not un-coincidentally around Concorde’s speed. After that it goes up, and fast.

Fuel usage/cost. Concorde was ~4x subsonic. Given we’ve seen oil gyrate from 110 to 25 and back up to 80ish, who would take the risk of producing a white elephant should oil reach maybe 110 again?

There are very few city pairs that warrant it. You can’t overfly land super-sonic and you wouldn’t want to go for much more than 3 hours as Concorde seating was economy class width and pitch. Modern private jets fly fast enough, and you can work on a plane, it’s not dead time. When people in my office flew Concorde it was only because they needed to do meetings the same day in London and NY, not because it was quicker. The time difference and highish latitudes help here. Are there any other city pairs that work??

Every 2-3 years we get a new press release saying its imminent. I don’t think this time it’s different.

Fix all the above and it’ll work

Very interested to hear more up-to-date developments on any of these issues…

They didn't know what we were doing with it.

It's sad that we screwed Canada over with the Avro Arrow. They wanted to use this program to develop their titanium production and machining capabilities. And then we'd have a next door neighbor willing to partner on a few projects. But since the Arrow, their attitude seems to be along the lines of f* off.