Wouldn’t it be nice if you could board a plane in Sydney at breakfast and arrive in London, England, in time to have lunch at a pub on the same day? It’s possible, thanks to a new supersonic jet concept from NASA.
The concept, first aired by The Sunday Times, will be shown off at the upcoming Farnborough Air Show in the UK and will hopefully usher in a new era of super-fast travel.
How fast is fast?
It’s being reported that the aircraft will be able to travel over 4000km/h. That’s 3000km/h faster than the fastest passenger plane available today, the new Gulfstream jet. Yes please! [Sunday Times]
Update: corrected speed numbers in the last paragraph.
Umm ...... 747's already cruise at 1100kph ish.
Maybe you meant 1000mph, but that's only 500kph faster than current jets, nowhere near good enough for 10000 miles in four hours ...
Errr where'd you pull that from?
Wikipedia:
"The 747-400, the most common passenger version in service, is among the fastest airliners in service with a high-subsonic cruise speed of Mach 0.85–0.855 (up to 570 mph, 920 km/h)."
Wow, soon the wait to get through Customs will take longer than the actual trip!
it already does mate ;-)
The last paragraph makes no sense whatsoever. Please double-check your numbers.
you're so right...
1. Sydney-London over 16000 km. On 1000km/h it'll take about 16 hours! To travel 4 hours it should fly with 4000 km/h. Wherever 4 hours came from it might be 4p.m. )))
2. Gulfstream jet cruise speed is about 900 km/h OR 600 m/h. So maybe it should be 1000 m/h for this jet then the difference is actually 400. But still miles per hour.
3. Sidney(west Canada) - London (east Canada) ~3200 km (or 2000 miles). With max speed 1000 m/h trip will take about 3 hours + 1 hour for boarding and we got 4 hours. Ta-Da!
Double-double-double-double check you numbers and sources.
and btw cruise speed of airbus A 320 is about 800 km/h...
i don't want to google A380 speed but I think it should be almost (or even more then) 1000km/h
Technically when you have breakfast in Sydney and leave on the 7am flight, it is only 10pm the day before in London. Assuming the plane takes 16 hours, it will arrive in London at 2pm, which is still lunch time, even if it is slightly later.
Correct!
From the Gulfstream G550 Wikipedia page:
Maximum speed: 0.885 Mach
Cruise speed: 488 knots (562 mph, 0.85 Mach, 904 km/h).
So this jet would only be around 10-15% faster. And probably far more expensive, considering the Gulfstream model above has been in production for almost ten years already.
Concorde cruised at over 2100 km/h.
Those numbers are wrong even if they are mph. 10500 miles at 1000 mph = 10.5 hours.
The jet on the story actualy goes 4000km/h, not 1000. 1000 isnt even the speed of sound.
You know what's sad about this? There's a proposal on the table to rehash of the world's most beautiful and inspiring pieces of engineering and human achievement, and the only thing that the Giz commenters care about is the maths.
It's about as idiotic as complaining about the height that 'The Starry Night' is hung at, as if getting it centred at the perfect mean height of 18-35 year olds is more important than actually appreciating the object itself.
You know what else is sad? The fact that I read your BS comment from beginning to end.
The article isn't slightly wrong. It's way out. One of the purposes of Giz is to pass on and collate interesting articles for us to read. If they can't even get the numbers remotely right then it's hard to trust what else we're reading that happens to make sense. There's a time for big picture whimsical thoughts. There's also a time for accurate jouralism.
Also pretty hopless that they still haven't fixed it.
Thanks, fixed.
We wouldn't want to have bad "jouralism"
Don't cry , son. One day you will grow up and be big and strong.
There are glaringly obvious number errors which ruin the snippet of a story. Please forgive people commenting on that. The most amazing thing about this project is in the numbers.
Your analogy is bad. You should feel bad.
+1
-1
The most amazing thing about the article is the concept, not the numbers.
They should called it Concorde 2: Fly Harder.
basically a slower concord..... :S
if it goes 1000 KM/H and the distance London - Sydney is 17.000 KM (depending how you fly etc). then it will still be 17 hour. With a time distance of 11 hours currently. If I leave at Breakfast 8am Sydney time, fly 17 hour - 10 hour time difference, I will be there at 15:00 (3pm).. will be a late lunch then ?
I think your numbers are wrong... reading the same article on news.com.au the airplane will travel 4000 km/h a lot faster then 1000 km/h
http://www.news.com.au/travel/world/concorde-successor-supersonic-jet-promises-london-to-sydney-in-four-hours/story-e6frfqai-1226407757573
wouldn't 4 hours after breakfast in sydney be night time in london time?
Yes, since London is 10 hours behind Sydney (ignoring any daylight savings times) so you could eat Breakfast, leave Sydney, and arrive in London in time for... a 6 hour wait before breakfast again...
Would've been cooler to eat dinner in Sydney and arrive in London in time for lunch ;)
OMG! This will be so incredible, so amazing, so brilliant.....
....if it hadn't been done 35 years ago.....
THIS is the time of Concorde. It was simply too far ahead of its' time in the 80's.
concorde first flew in 1969
Shame it'll only cost a fortune...
to fly with them...
(sorry some how clicked before I finished)
Ahh, yah. It's about 17,000km to London from Melbourne. (Closer from other parts of Australia obviously.) That sounds like 17 hours based on 1,000 km/h. Most passenger jets get near this. I suspect this concept plane travels at about 4,500km/h to achieve 4 hours of travel time.
Also, isn't the speed of sound 333 metres per second? = 1200 km/h?
Depends on altitude. @sea level its about 1250 or so. at higher altitude its slower.
Physics aside for a second. IF that speed is achievable, wouldn't this thing needed to be
made out of some sort of material that is light enough, but also doesn't break at those speeds?
I can only imagine what would happen if the pilot took the thing off of the computer accidentally
mid flight. Or if he tilts controller up too far. Weeeeeeeee!!! Were off into space
sorry did you just say physics aside can we talk about mass, material composition, forces exerted, and trajectory.
+1
I've been in a 777 that flew a bit over 1000km/h (based on board flight info system)
Wikipeda: While commercial jets take eight hours to fly from New York to Paris, the average supersonic flight time on the transatlantic routes was just under 3.5 hours. Concorde had a maximum cruise altitude of 18,300 metres (60,039 ft) and an average cruise speed of Mach 2.02, about 1155 knots (2140 km/h or 1334 mph), more than twice the speed of conventional aircraft.
So IF the thing can fly non-stop, it may be traveling time goes down to 8 hours for Sidney Australia to London.
The Concorde could only do Mach 1.7, higher speed was only permitted for 20 minutes because the plane (nose) got to hot....
Lets wait and see and wait who is able to pay the airfare. I guess for you and me everything stays as it is.
Pretty sure the design to achieve 4 hours flight time isn't expected until after 2030. The last paragraph must be stating their current speeds.
Can't remember where I read this but I'm pretty sure one of the reasons they stopped using the Concorde was because of the sonic boom that was produced when it reached those flight speeds. The new designs have actually improved on this and should only generate a "pop" sound (according to what I read...).
That and the fact that it was poorly designed causing the fuel tanks to be exposed to debis on the runway and causing a masive explosion killing all on board.
That only happened once in the entire time they were operational. It wasn't the reason they were discontinued anyway, just an excuse - they'd already proved to be hugely uneconomical and new ones hadn't been built for years before the crash, the cost of repairs and parts were just increasing... Basically they were dead planes flying.
to say that Concorde was badly designed is just ridiculous. Plus your summary of the accident is completely wrong.
The only reason Concorde is no longer flying is because Airbus refused to continue servicing them.
Debris caused by an American DC-10 falling apart on take-off and not cleaning up it's mess..
why does this differ tot he concorde lines?
They reached Mach 2 iirc?
do these fly further?
They fly at more than twice the speed.
For those interested in a little more information, and the correct estimated speed (4000+ km/h) , take a look at http://www.theage.com.au/travel/blogs/travellers-check/son-of-concorde-london-to-sydney-in-four-hours-gets-closer-20120625-20xdm.html
What it really means that a wedding I've been invited to in England next year won't be super quick to get to. Back to the imagining board.
Firstly to people doing the speed and distance for the flight time. There all wrong the earth rotates and on long haul flights that does make a difference. Hence also why when flying the shortest route is a curve not straight lines. Secondly didn't the concord fall out of favour because of the noise of the sonic boom? It would limit where and when it can fly
"...the earth rotates and on long haul flights that does make a difference..." Stupidest thing I've ever heard. The atmosphere rotates with the earth. We fly relative to the earth's rotation. This would only be true if planes flew in space.
Your second statement is also wrong. That was just one of the reasons they didn't have more investors before they even started flying. The concorde stopped flying essentially because it was not financially viable. No it wasn't the crash either, but this was used as one of the excuses.
Summary: Your entire comment was rubbish.
How does a supersonic plane not make a sonic boom?
They now have prototype supersonic jets that use a turbofan system for takeoff which will ensure it is no more noisy than a regular plane when taking off. They have also developed a method for dissipating the sound of the sonic boom so that it is only a popping noise.
plane will fly over 4000kmh and wont be ready until at least 2020 2030 anyway so by that time it could be even faster
From memory Concorde couldnt fly supersonic over populated areas due to the sonic boom so the speed to London (in this case) would be variable.
"It’s possible" Fragile grasp of tenses there. "It will be possible" or more accurately "It may be possible".
Concorde only crashed because they started getting cheap and started using cheaper threshold.
Threshold = tyres
Not true. A piece of metal came off another plane and was on the runway. They were using regular tyres that were being used at the time and it exploded. Only after this they developed special tyres which were impervious to exploding. They also re-inforced the fuel tanks so they weren't able to be damaged so easily from debris. It was a freak accident. Concorde was actually extremely safe with zero incidents before this.
To all those saying Concordes were retired due to servicing and parts costs have no idea! After the Concorde disaster they did a complete interior fitout
To all those saying Concordes were retired due to servicing and parts costs have no idea! After the Concorde disaster they did a complete interior fitout to revamp the brand which cost millions of euros and not long after that 9/11 happened. They couldn't get bums on seats immediately and the cost of fit out and low passenger numbers made it uneconomical to fly. I even believe 1 of the last flights only had 4 passengers on it. I would also like to say the heading implies it is a done deal and these are going to fly the route? Great journalism? Let's hope if it does happen they're are not serviced by qantas!
Richard Branson was willing to buy the BA fleet for around 5 million pounds per aircraft, but Airbus refused to continue servicing them ... possibly due to an agreement with Air France which forced BA to retire their fleet in the first place. He wanted to reinvent the brand because, you are right, no-one was flying Concorde anyway at the end.