Air Travel

Chabsy

Chabsy

Chabsy

Associate
Joined
18 Oct 2002
Posts
1,070
Location
London
1903 Orville and Wilbur Wright first sustained powered flight
1910 Bleriot crosses the channel
1927 Lindburgh crosses the atlantic
1933 First round the world flight
1947 Chuck Yeager breaks the speed of sound
1949 Fist commercial jet first flies
1950 Atlantic crossed in 10 hours 1 minute
1969 Concorde make first flight
1970 Boeing 747 comes into service
1976 Concorde starts service with BA

In the 73 years from 1903 to 1976 the advances in air travel have been remarkable.

What I am pondering was what has been going on for the last 32 years, if we had continued in the same vain we would have been crossing the Atlantic in 90 minutes

My point well, I haven't really got 1, except maybe to say where have the all innovators and risk takers gone.
 
Innovation has been diverted to the military ;)

The stuff we get now is about 20yrs old.

guy I knew was working in IT for the MoD 20 years ago, the stuff they had then defies belief.
 
nothing, we've stepped back since concorde.

other than the big ol' airbus A*** or whatever, which is fugly anyway.
 
Innovation has been in making air travel cheaper and greener. I believe that the new Boeing Dreamliner can theoretically fly from London to Sydney without refuelling, though prevailing winds mean it can't actually do this ;)

Agree that it's a shame that we're not all flying supersonic jets now but Concorde was a bit of a let down really - only allowed to fly supersonic over water anyway.
 
Ben M said:
nothing, we've stepped back since concorde.

other than the big ol' airbus A*** or whatever, which is fugly anyway.
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Walk around a concorde then a 320/777 or latest business jet and you will realise the steps forward that have been made. The concorde doesnt compare to the advancements that have been made across all areas of an aircraft both Structurally, mechanically and electrically.

They haven't been standing still at all, just speed was no longer the goal.

The concorde is a piece of **** in comparison. Sure it's pretty and fast and we helped make it but other than that it doesn't compare to later aircraft.
 
dannyjo22 said:
Walk around a concorde then a 320/777 or latest business jet and you will realise the steps forward that have been made. The concorde doesnt compare to the advancements that have been made across all areas of an aircraft both Structurally, mechanically and electrically.

They haven't been standing still at all, just speed was no longer the goal.

The concorde is a piece of **** in comparison. Sure it's pretty and fast and we helped make it but other than that it doesn't compare to later aircraft.
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But i want to fly fast, i dont to be stuck on a plane traveling to the west coast of America for 12 hours or 18 hours to western Australia even with flat bed, sauna, massage, laptop power supply or whatever
 
Chabsy said:
What I am pondering was what has been going on for the last 32 years, if we had continued in the same vain we would have been crossing the Atlantic in 90 minutes
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Thing is that's not what air travel has turned out to be. It's about cheapnes not quickest.

You should include the new super huge airbus in the list.

Most modern advantages like usual have been in military. namely. Things like ram jets and stealth.

Ram jets probably could do england to america in 90mins. Not sure what there top speed is, but it's stupidly fast.
 
Chabsy said:
But i want to fly fast, i dont to be stuck on a plane traveling to the west coast of America for 12 hours or 18 hours to western Australia even with flat bed, sauna, massage, laptop power supply or whatever
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Well unlucky, either earn yourself a billion so you can buy a highend Private jet or don't fly. Those days are gone and they are not coming back. Everything is about carbon footprint and until they can make it economical it wont return. Its all about efficiency and thats a far harder target than just making a plane fast.

It wouldnt even be hard for them to design and build something faster than concorde with better range but building an aircraft to cross the oceans on 3/4's of the fuel is the next target and thats way harder.

The goals have changed.

You can't even buy a kitkat without someone trying to tell you how big the carbon footprint is for that kitkat.
 
dannyjo22 said:
It wouldnt even be hard for them to design and build something faster than concorde with better range but building an aircraft to cross the oceans on 3/4's of the fuel is the next target and thats way harder.
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I think it's lockerhead martin. who are designing and developing a new concord. Should be interesting, if they ever finish it. Probably be shelved though.

Ben M said:
point is that nothing goes as fast as Concorde did, other than military craft afaik.
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There's a new private supersonic jet. which can also go supersonic over land due to it's design as the sonic bang is dissipated.
 
Efficiency has improved. Modern aircraft such as 777s, 747-400s, a340s etc are vastly more efficient on a number of levels than the likes of the 707. This is through more efficient engines, fly by wire systems etc. This has led to a vast decrease in the cost of flying, in turn making flying more available to most people.

Sure, whilst Concorde was technologically great, it was an old aircraft that catered to a niche group of people. Many people significantly overestimate Concorde's legacy to the aviation world. People aren't interested in going to places quickly, instead they'd prefer to get there as cheaply as possible. To achieve this you need a light, fuel efficient aircraft like a 787, not a supersized fighter jet.

Had the aviation industry followed Concorde we'd still be in a society where flying (especially long haul) was the preserve of the rich. That isn't progress. Instead, I'd argue today's modern, efficient aircraft to show real progress, driving down the cost of flights and making flying available to all.
 
AcidHell2 said:
I think it's lockerhead martin. who are designing and developing a new concord. Should be interesting, if they ever finish it. Probably be shelved though..
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No doubt it will be shelved, no one could afford to operate it anymore. Lockheed can do it because they are propped up by the government, even then I wouldn't want to get on it. Thrown together by cheap mexican labour.

I've seen mainframe bolts without nuts fitted then oversealed come out of lockheed. Rows of fasteners missing through pressure skins etc. Live wires kicking around panels they 'forgot' to connect up.

If it made the trip in 3 seconds and was free I still wouldn't wanna get on it :D
 
The other thing I found out recently. is something like 80 of the noise. Comes from the airframe vibrating and not the engines themselves. New generation aircaft are much quiter whilst being bigger and more powerful.
 
Just to set the record straight, Concorde was a fantastic piece of engineering for its day, and well ahead of its time in terms of engineering, but you do have to bear in mind it was conceived over 40 years ago so 'well ahead' then looks old now - even though we no longer have supersonic passenger jets (private toys for the super-rich excepted) and no prospect of getting them.

Fact is, taking into account the huge Government subsidies that went into getting Concorde flying, it was never really profitable, and until the end where there was a slight chance that mugs like me who dreamed about 'one day' could afford (or rather borrow the money to afford) a flight it was pretty much an exclusive club occupied by super-rich businessmen and 'superstars'. With the Air France Concorde disaster and the prevalence of teleconferencing, both the desire and the need have diminished.

As others have said by various means, these days its far more about getting as many passengers wherever they want to go in the most economical way possible - and the likes of Concorde most definitely were not economical. With the price of oil hitting $100 a barrel, who can really blame anyone for that. As much as some may still like the sound of it, getting to your destination before you left is no longer sound business sense unless you're talking about a military fast jet. Its not that the advances haven't happened, its that they have mostly gone in a completely different direction.
 
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Chabsy said:
But i want to fly fast, i dont to be stuck on a plane traveling to the west coast of America for 12 hours or 18 hours to western Australia even with flat bed, sauna, massage, laptop power supply or whatever
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But that's the thing. In all likelihood you wouldn't be. Even 'regular' first class was substantially cheaper than Concorde. In addition to this, even if there were a new generation of long range supersonic airliners the chances are they would only be used on certain routes, as seen with Concorde.

These days airlines are all about economics. The government subsidies/ownership seen in the 1970s no longer exists. As such, an airline will only acquire aircraft that can make them money. The likelihood is that even the most efficient modern supersonic aircraft is going to be such a niche market that it'll lose airlines money.
 
And what people forget is we could easily build a new supersonic passenger jet that would far surpass the concord. it's just not needed.
 
Berserker said:
Just to set the record straight, Concorde was a fantastic piece of engineering for its day, and well ahead of its time in terms of engineering, but you do have to bear in mind it was conceived over 40 years ago so 'well ahead' then looks old now - even though we no longer have supersonic passenger jets (private toys for the super-rich excepted) and no prospect of getting them.

Fact is, taking into account the huge Government subsidies that went into getting Concorde flying, it was never really profitable, and until the end where there was a slight chance that mugs like me who dreamed about 'one day' could afford (or rather borrow the money to afford) a flight it was pretty much an exclusive club. With the Air France Concorde disaster and the prevalence of teleconferencing, both the desire and the need has diminished.

As others have said by various means, these days its far more about getting as many passengers wherever they want to go in the most economical way possible - and the likes of Concorde most definitely were not economical. With the price of oil hitting $100 a barrel, who can really blame anyone for that. As much as some may still like the sound of it, getting to your destination before you left is no longer sound business sense unless you're talking about a military fast jet. Its not that the advances haven't happened, its that they have gone in a completely different direction.
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Yes teleconferencing has certainly hit the premium end of the market, these are the people who would happily pay 2 or 3 times the first class fare just to be there in half the time.

The problem with Concorde was it was such a blunt instrument, conceived in the day when if you wanted to go faster you just stuck a bigger engine in something, look at cars for example back in the 60s if you wanted 300 BHP you'd need a big V8 now you can have 300 BHP form something half the size with 3 or 4 time the efficiency.

If you use that kind of thinking you could easily design a plane to take 300 and fly at mach 1.5
 
Although the speed hasn't increased, the safety and comfort has increased considerably, flying is almost a pleasurable thing to do now (though I hate airports almost to the point of needing sedation) however I thankfully manage to sleep through most flights.

Furthermore the technology and manufacturing has probably become easier and cheaper too. Theoretically making the life of the staff that little bit easier. Also it's become cheaper and more accessible to more people - whether this is a good thing or not is another debate altogether...
 
Easily get to Mach 1.5 in a big jet? No, you couldn't. That's the thing. People think supersonic air travel is easy. It isn't. Who'd have thought that Concorde actually stretched by up to a foot while in flight. They had to come up with new materials to cope with the effects of supersonic flight on the airframe. Yes, the engines were big and powerful, but they needed to be - I suspect most of the power was needed to get Concorde in the air and up to cruising altitude and speed.

The Russians tried copying Concorde. OK, so they did it by espionage and we were on to them and supplied false information, but they still failed dismally and gave up.
 
Berserker said:
Easily get to Mach 1.5 in a big jet? No, you couldn't.
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yes you could with modern engines, things like ram jets. modern materials huge advances in aerodynamics and controls. You could make something much better than the concord. But the money just isn't there.
 
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