V-Flyer

Posted: **06 Mar 2006, 22:39**

TOKYO - Japan and France are jointly researching a new supersonic passenger plane to succeed the retired Concorde, but with up to three times as many seats and the potential to fly from Tokyo to New York in six hours, officials and reports said Wednesday.

Defense contractors and engineering companies from the two countries are expected to split an annual investment of about 200 million yen ($1.84 million) for research over the next three years to build the faster-than-sound plane, Japan’s Trade Ministry said in a statement. The agreement was signed at the Paris Air Show Tuesday...

... Japan has been working since 2002 to develop a 250-seater supersonic jet capable of flying at mach 1.6, but the partnership with France would help raise those ambitions, a Japan Aircraft Development Corporation official said.

Officials hope to have the new jet in operation by 2015, flying up to 2.4 times the speed of sound, the Mainichi said.

Posted: **06 Mar 2006, 22:47**

Paul,
Good catch.

That would be a truly wonderful development; that is, if the jet could be free of the concerns that hobbled the Concorde.

Chuck

Posted: **06 Mar 2006, 23:21**

Bring it on... but at the right price please!

I have been wondering if Virgin Galactic and sub orbital flights may not be the start of real inovation in air travel and reduction in Journey times.

Posted: **06 Mar 2006, 23:38**

I'm as excited as the rest of you, but unless airlines are able to come up with a way to avoid sonic booms over crowded areas it may be unsuccessful.

Posted: **07 Mar 2006, 06:47**

Originally posted by preiffer
Full news article here

TOKYO - Japan and France are jointly researching a new supersonic passenger plane to succeed the retired Concorde, but with up to three times as many seats and the potential to fly from Tokyo to New York in six hours, officials and reports said Wednesday.

Defense contractors and engineering companies from the two countries are expected to split an annual investment of about 200 million yen ($1.84 million) for research over the next three years to build the faster-than-sound plane, JapanÃ•s Trade Ministry said in a statement. The agreement was signed at the Paris Air Show Tuesday...

... Japan has been working since 2002 to develop a 250-seater supersonic jet capable of flying at mach 1.6, but the partnership with France would help raise those ambitions, a Japan Aircraft Development Corporation official said.

Officials hope to have the new jet in operation by 2015, flying up to 2.4 times the speed of sound, the Mainichi said.

Bever was lucky enough to fly Concorde, but your comments don't really surprise me. With Concorde, surely the box was open as far as high speed flight was concerned - how can we possibly go backwards?

Posted: **07 Mar 2006, 09:44**

Having flown Concorde a few times I would have to say I hope they find a way of doing it! Quite how they would prevent the sonic boom I have no idea, but then I am no scientist!! I miss being able to get to New York before I left!!

All I would say is that there will never be another Concorde, not only because of the financial world we live in, or very real environmental reasons, but I doubt they will come up with a design as elegant as Concorde was, and as it has already been done, it wont be quite the technological marvel it was when Concorde was first flown, afterall it amazing to think how advance she was for her time!!

Still if they do come up with something, lets hope Virgin get a few! How many miles would you need for a trip, I dread to think!!

Good luck to them!

Posted: **07 Mar 2006, 10:33**

There is no way to prevent sonic boom if you exceed the speed of sound and you are in the earth's atmosphere, which as Nick mentions above will limit its use overland. Tokyo to New York. Hmm, Partially over water if you went across the Pacific, but then you would have to go subsonic over the US.

I'm just wondering if there is a plan to fly it supersonic over land but with little or no inhabitants.

Or Maybe fly supersonic across the pacific heading for panama canal region slow down for the land crossing and then arc up to New York. A lot of extra distance but at Mach 2.4 I think this is still going to be quicker.

And I guess the french will simply want it for Paris to the US East Coast as per Concorde.

Paul

Posted: **07 Mar 2006, 10:45**

Would be great if it actually happens, pity that there appears to be no British involvement at this time.

Posted: **07 Mar 2006, 11:03**

Originally posted by Bazz
Would be great if it actually happens, pity that there appears to be no British involvement at this time.

But that may actually mean it does happen, due to the lack of British involvement

Wembley, Millennium Dome....

Thanks,
Richard

Posted: **07 Mar 2006, 11:52**

Originally posted by RichardMannion
Originally posted by Bazz
Would be great if it actually happens, pity that there appears to be no British involvement at this time.

But that may actually mean it does happen, due to the lack of British involvement Wembley, Millennium Dome....

Thanks,
Richard

But we _are_ involved in this:

http://www.cambridge-mit.org/cgi-bin/de ... 4&SSID=234

which looks very interesting and is commercially more interesting methinks.

Chris

Posted: **07 Mar 2006, 12:26**

Originally posted by RichardMannion
Originally posted by Bazz
Would be great if it actually happens, pity that there appears to be no British involvement at this time.

But that may actually mean it does happen, due to the lack of British involvement Wembley, Millennium Dome....

Thanks,
Richard

Cynic [V]

Posted: **07 Mar 2006, 15:04**

Originally posted by RichardMannion
Originally posted by Bazz
Would be great if it actually happens, pity that there appears to be no British involvement at this time.

But that may actually mean it does happen, due to the lack of British involvement Wembley, Millennium Dome....

Thanks,
Richard

Took the words from my mouth Richard - give 'em back! [:0]

Posted: **08 Mar 2006, 04:58**

Originally posted by michaeljtodd
Having flown Concorde a few times I would have to say I hope they find a way of doing it! Quite how they would prevent the sonic boom I have no idea, but then I am no scientist!! I miss being able to get to New York before I left!!

I agree. I was lucky enough to fly Concorde four times, although I could never see why you would want to fly it East because the timings never worked for a working day. Flying West was a different story of course.

In a lot of ways I prefer the BA FC service, as you have more room and better attention as well as the chance for a kip: on two occasions going East I declined the 'upgrade'. But even on the last time I flew Concorde on my 39th birthday nearly 2 years ago, despite it being uncustomarily full, and the service was crap as everyone was taking their last chance, I still loved it. Perhaps that was more to do with the bottle and a half of 1988 Taittinger Comtes de Champagne I quaffed before boarding ;-)

My personal opinion (and I'm up for a tackle) is that there was a lot of sour grapes about Concorde from the other side of the Atlantic that I don't think would be there had the US followed through with their own lost investments in SST. The US gov investment as I understand it was equivalent to the UK's investment but at least Concorde flew and took passengers. Now I'm starting to sound patriotic. Can you do that without offending anyone these days [:?]?

Let's hope the new SST keeps the environment lobby happy, although somehow I doubt it.

Cheers, Howard

Posted: **09 Mar 2006, 03:43**

I regret that I never flew concorde, had it been retired a couple of years later i probably would have managed it.

As for the SST replacement, I surely belive it will happen. Humans always move forward and the loss of supersonic transport was a step back, these step backs never last for long.
How they solve the usual Supersonic problems though, I'll leave to people who know a lot more about it that me.

Dean

V-Flyer

Concorde Replacement by 2015?

Concorde Replacement by 2015?