Lockheed moves towards QueSST PDR

a reply to: Zaphod58

Lets not forget the Boom consortium concept either. That looks to be quite promising as well.

a reply to: thebozeian

It does, as does Aerion and such. I just don't think that the head start Lockheed has here can be surmounted. That sword-profiled nose on the QueSST wind tunnel model was all I needed to see.

This isn't some testbed, but is more likely a "coming out party" of sorts for a family of technologies that have been brewing for at least a few decades now.

a reply to: Barnalby

Interestingly, IIRC the Boom aircraft isn't a quiet SST. I know one of the ones being worked on is just a regular SST.

a reply to: Zaphod58

I feel like the battle will amount to "Boom vs Burn", and I'd be shocked if there isn't a fuel consumption penalty for those low-boom designs.

Since the beachhead for these technologies will likely be the private jet industry, I'd imagine there's going to be some sticker shock when even the billionaires and corporations see the fuel burn numbers involved in even a small SSBJ, and especially so if the quiet tech makes one 10-15% less efficient.

So there will likely be a place for both, and I'd imagine that the quiet SSBJ's might break open the market and possibly even loosen regulations about booms and overflights in certain countries.

Once that happens, you'll probably see the market split between quiet designs like Lockheed's which will make sense if you plan to fly over the USA or other 1st world nations, and more conventional designs like Boom's which will make more sense economically if your flights are mostly over water or nations that don't care as much about the occasional sonic boom.

So if I'm a US-based hedge fund manager who needs to fly between banking centers like New York, Chicago, Dallas, San Francisco, and Seattle, an oil development company owner who needs to be able to fly between Houston and my fracking operations in PA and the Dakotas, or a Hollywood executive who can't stand LA and wants to be able to get out to my properties in Jackson Hole, Texas, and Maine ASAP every weekend I have free, then the super-quiet Lockheed bird will be the one for me.

Meanwhile, if I'm in China, India, Singapore, or the Middle East, and I either fly to Europe over 3rd world countries that don't care about booms, or to the coastal USA over water, then a cheaper, more fuel efficient "loud" SSBJ like Boom's plane would suit me perfectly.

The business aircraft market is already incredibly diverse compared to the commercial airliner market, with at least a half dozen major manufacturers and countless more smaller ones, all with complete stables of aircraft that cover a wide range of different niches. I'd imagine that the business aircraft market will be no different when it comes to SSBJ's.

a reply to: Barnalby

I have the feeling that we're going to be surprised by the burn numbers the quiet birds throw out. The biggest part of the noise reduction is shaping, and to quiet that, you're going to tend to see more aerodynamic shapes, such as that longer, thinner fuselage and funky nose that has been tossed out in some concepts.

But I suspect you're right, and that the Boom concept will see better sales for longer, over water flights, just because, being more traditional there isn't any advanced, possibly semi exotic tech or the extra R&D costs to recoup. If you don't need the quiet, what's the point in paying more for it.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Yeah, the Boom design should absolutely kill it in transatlantic service and the in the Asian market if it ever flies. I'd bet that with some clever routings, even Emirates/Etihad/Qatar could make it work and stay supersonic over most of their route.

Ironically, the Lockheed design might be in trouble outside of the business jet market, if only because the place where quiet booming tech helps the most is the world of US domestic western european travel, where low cost is king and the market is dominated by folks like JetBlue, Southwest, Ryanair, and EasyJet. A Lockheed quiet SST will be made or broken by whether the gulf carriers can make supersonic routings work with a cheaper design like Boom's. All that funky shaping will, at the very least, be more expensive to fabricate than a simpler design like boom's birds.

I do chuckle though when that funky nose on the Lockheed just happens to be chined. Those edge-aligned wing/tail edges, too.

a reply to: Barnalby

I think it's in Skunk Works' contract that they have to do that on any design they put out that uses them. Heh.

I can see the Gulf going absolutely nuts over an SSBJ if it's even in the ballpark of a BBJ type aircraft for operating costs. The only thing is that with the Boom, some of their routings would end up taking about as much time as a regular bizjet.

All the efforts made in making supersonic civil flight a profitable reality are welcome. Boom´s approach makes sense as a business class airliner for intercontinental routes meanwhile NASA and the regulators figure out the acceptable sonic boom limits for over land flight.

That´s why the Boom´s aircraft has the range and the capacity to carry the same people who now buy business class tickets in a wide body. Although it is not designed to be a quiet boom aircraft, it is a mach 2.2 beauty that is expected to be about 85 dB , which is about 100 times less that Concorde´s 104 dB, or conversely about 10 times more than a real qsst at NASA´s goal of 75 dB. If that is or not enough to let it go supersonic over land is something the Lockheed ( or another manufacturer) bird will have to test.

For the reasons given above by Barnalby and the fact that there is more wet surface in the planet that land mass is expected that the first planes to exhibit true quiet boom specs will be ssbj about 12-16 pax to be affordable, with the range required for transcontinental USA at least, but not more than about 5000 nm. and about 1.5 mach.

Of course, all of this is wishful thinking from my part but i really expect this time the numbers and the physics get aligned with the money.

Supersonic business jets are a very niche market. Quiet boom may overcome the environmental damage (booms) but it doesn't improve fuel and maintenance costs to a rate that makes it economic.

It's got to be an affordable Concord and Airbus quiet boom is ahead of NASA, Boeing and LM.

a reply to: Forensick

They're ahead of Boom and maybe NASA for sure, but let's just say that Lockheed has a near-insurmountable lead when it comes to that particular family of technologies.

It comes down to who wants the revenue more, though. For Lockheed, civil applications of this stuff seem like they're mostly for sh!ts and giggles than anything to do with their bottom line.

Airbus, meanwhile, might get there first simply because they want the revenue and prestige more.

a reply to: Barnalby

That's what a lot of this boils down to. It's like the fight to be launch customer. The first one there gets their name and bragging rights attached.

Even if they solve the boom problem, I don't ever see an SST being economical for anyone but business travelers and the rich that can afford to spend the money.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Oh totally. I've said here before that whether Airbus pushes an SSBJ will have everything to do with how much pushback they stand to get from the A380 carriers who right now make obscene amounts of money charging $10k+ per seat for ultra-luxury 1st class passengers.

Considering that these airlines (Singapore, Qatar, Etihad, Emirates, etc) are all major A350 buyers, I doubt Airbus would want to risk cutting off their ultra-luxury revenue stream, which a quiet-booming SSBJ WILL do on all of the gulf routes, unless they had a way to help the airlines capitalize on the new airframes.

Which leaves Airbus in a bit of a catch-22 sort of situation. They can build a ~50 seat all-business class quiet SST, let's call it the "big Aerion", which they'll probably be able to sell a few dozen of to the big airlines, but it will be far too large/expensive for sale as a business jet to anyone but the Saudi Royal Family and hyper-billionaires like Larry Ellison, Paul Allen, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, or the Walton family. Their other option would be to build a smaller, cheaper SSBJ, that would probably end up about the same size as a Citation X in terms of passenger capacity and cost about half of what the "Big Aerion" would. The problem is that this aircraft, if it came in at under $100 million a pop, would sell like wildfire to anyone with the money for a Bombardier, Gulfstream, or Falcon, and might well spawn a new slew of ultra high-end fractional ownership/netjets outfits catering to people who would be more than happy to spend $10-15,000 a ticket for a two hour transatlantic trip or a three hour trip from Dubai to London or Paris, which would in turn utterly gut ticket sales for first class seats among the major carriers that currently all fly A380s and are purchasing A350s like they're going out of style. That sort of thing could lead to major order cancellations right as the 777-X and stretched 787 are coming into their own.

Meanwhile, someone like Boom, if they get the money to do it, could sneak in and be the first in if someone with deep pockets like Ellison, Allen, or Bezos takes a liking to it and gives them the funding to make their relatively conservative design work.

a reply to: Barnalby
Excuse me , correct me if i´m wrong, but i think the only grasp Airbus has in sst design (nowadays, Concorde doesn't count) is through its partnership with Aerion, whose plane is not designed to quiet sonic booms. If they are interested of course they have the capacity, the same for Boeing, but with the ban over land they won´t start nothing except to be ready technically when it (hopefully) lifts.
Besides, a two hour transatlantic trip means 2.7 mach which is out of the question (unless you are Hypermach´s CEO).
Concerning Boom design, calling it conservative is a bit of a stretch looking at what is flying today, i like it more to term it classic.
Your Big Aerion=Boom airliner 2.2 mach
Your smaller ssbj=Aerion AS2, Spike S512. Both 1.5-1.6 mach.

I´m a little tired of Lockheed to be "soo advanced" mantra (the thing is they are) meanwhile they put nothing on the market now because oh, wait, what the heck is that glow...

a reply to: BASSPLYR

Almost as if the speed of sound changes in plasma or something

a reply to: mbkennel

In this application the sound speed in a plasma is considerably larger than in air

We're pretty close to a standard business jet becoming an SST. Bombardier just did their high speed tests with the Global 7000. The planned cruising speed is Mach 0.925, but during the high speed tests they hit 0.995.

a reply to: mbkennel

Dude your a physicist. What happens to the sound after it leaves the plasma?

Cough "SABRE" cough...Or Gulfstreams X54s Sonic Whisper?Lots of interesting stuff happening..
www.theregister.co.uk...

a reply to: Zaphod58

Same with Gulfstreams P45 project which turned into the G650 widebody

a reply to: Blackfinger

I'm sure Bombardier will break it down to three more decimal places to beat the 650.