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Boeing’s Sonic Cruiser began its life almost a decade ago. At the end, its superawesome supersonic design was replaced by the 787 Dreamliner’s superboring superquiet and superefficient blueprint, which started construction in 2007. Many thought the project was cancelled, but apparently a secret team of Boeing engineers is still working on it.
According to Stephen Trimble, the new Sonic Cruiser appeared in a patent published on April 19. It has a lot of changes: the engines are not embedded in the wings—a la Concorde—but placed over the wings, which also have vertical stabilizers. The engine would also have variable geometry chevrons, like the F-35. I would really like to see a 3D rendering of this new version (the one above is the old one).
Of course, this doesn’t mean that Boeing is going to build the Sonic Cruiser anytime soon. But it’s nice to know that someone is working in making it possible one day. [Flight Blogger]
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Not this again… The Sonic Cruiser was a stupid idea for a commercial airliner 10 years ago and its still a stupid idea today. Every supersonic plane aims to get through the transonic region as quickly as possible due to the excess drag but Boeing wants its plane to sit in it for its entire cruise.
Yes, I’m sure it’s possible to mitigate all the problems but to what end? An 7 hour flight instead of an 8 hour one but with a big jump in fuel bills (and ticket prices).
The only possible use I could see for the design is as a high speed military transport and since the patent mentions reducing infrared emissions…
Yeah it seems designing a plane to fly at Mach 0.98 is kind of pointless when most airliners cruise at Mach 0.85. The tradeoffs involved; higher fuel consumption, inefficient cabin layout etc seem too much to justify it.
If they could make it Mach 1.7+ then maybe it’d be worth it.
Even given the economic and environmental concerns around Commercial Supersonic Aviation, I do find it utterly depressing that Concorde was completing the journey from London to New York in less than 3hrs and that we’ve regressed to it taking more than double that.
My Grandparents witnessed World Wars first hand, My parent’s generation went to the moon. Although my generation has achieved much (particularly with regards to what could be seen as relative World Peace (when compared to most of the 20th Century) and the technological sphere/Personal/Mobile Computing), I can’t help but feel that there’s been nothing to truly capture our imaginations like a Supersonic Jet or truly inspirational Space Program…
It’s too bad that supersonic air travel isn’t more practical. The flight from Frankfurt to Chicago to visit my family really sucks.