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by Commander Tansin A. Darcos 07/15/2018, 10:54pm PDT |
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Wired Magazine has an article about Boeing's proposal to create a new Hypersonic plane for both military and civilian use. It's proposed to fly up to Mach 5 (3836.5 mph/6174 kph), which allows for less high-tech materials than higher speeds.
I really wonder if anyone has looked at this "flying Edsel" to realize that there really isn't enough demand in extremely-fast flight in the civilian market to make a plane like this economically viable. The two airlines who flew the Concord only made a profit on it, because the two governments that developed it subsidized production cots and the airlines charged outrageous fares. It was a white elephant that was expensive to buy, expensive to fly, expensive to maintain and a nightmare to operate, given that one of the major accidents it had that killed everyone aboard was caused by a tire exploding from a piece of metal lying on the runway after falling off a preceding airliner on the same runway.
There are a lot of problems with this sort of aircraft. It's supposed to fly at 95,000 feet; I'm not sure if this eliminates the "sonic boom" problem, or the reason the Concorde had to fly above the speed of sound only over the ocean, because when flying above the speed of sound over (populated) land, sonic booms occur which are heard on the ground, and are extremely loud.
If Boeing decides to do this, I'd say shorting its stock is probably a good idea.
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