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Ohhhhhh..... purdy. Me want!

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One Earth, One Sky - IYA 2009
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Boring.

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‘To those who regard “crime fiction” as some sacred icon which must follow a rigid formula, I will always be the man who writes 18-syllable haiku.’Trying to make sense of computers, The Error Log.

Looks a bit like the F-104 starfighter. In related news, Richard T. Whitcomb died Oct 15 as reported in the Obit section of the OCT 19, 2009 edition of AV week (p 22) His wasp-waisted designs, supercritical airfoils and drag-reducing winglets made their way into all types of aviation. I often wonder, if stealth had not been invented, what todays aircraft would look like had only aerodynamics been a factor. With this bizjet, we have some idea.

Sounds really cool!

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I'm with Henrik. Meh. The form seems utilitarian enough but the styling looks like it was recycled out of the 70s.

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Brett
Peters Creek, Alaska
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What is wrong with the 70's?

.....hmmm.....

On second thought, dont answer that.

I'll sit up and take notice when they pass the 1960's era Mach 3.0. Cooled nickel-titanium skins will enable velocities up to Mach 5, and beyond Mach 2, the increased per-mile efficiencies of the engines gets funky: The faster it went, the less gas was used by the SR-71 over a given distance, because the efficiency/velocity curve is steeper than the drag/velocity curve.

5) Watergate.
4) Alderaan being destroyed.
3) Gwen Stacy's death.
2) The end of Apollo.
1) The hair.

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I don't care which rocket you use, whichever one you pick, I'll like it, I swear.
"If you think the LHC will create black holes, you might as well believe Hobbits are at the bottom of your garden."- Dr. Mike Inglis
Rovers forever! - ToSeek

The low sweep, low aspect ratio wings are definitely different from most high speed designs being considered right now. I'm kind of puzzled by the laminar flow claim - it seems that it would be quite difficult to achieve fully laminar flow at supersonic speed.

I have to doubt the claim that it will match current business jets in efficiency at subsonic speeds though. They won't be able to use the higher bypass turbofans used by normal business jets, and the low aspect ratio significantly increases induced drag. If profile drag is exceptionally low, this could still be viable, but I don't see any obvious reasons why this design would beat normal business jets in that regard. Liftoff and landing speeds are likely to be quite high as well, since that wing profile won't have the relatively high C_{L max} and stall resistance that a highly swept delta provides.

It's certainly an interesting design though, and I'd be quite curious to know more details.

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Laminar flow demonstration.

Laminar flow occurs are low Reynolds numbers, which measure the ratio of inertial forces to viscous forces. Since the Reynolds number is proportional to the velocity of the flow, laminar flow occurs at low Reynolds numbers, where viscous forces dominate, while turbulent flow occurs at high Reynolds numbers.

Turbulence arises because the flow at rearward points can affect the flow at more forward points. In supersonic aerodynamics, this doesn't happen!

So, technically, supersonic flow is always laminar flow, which renders their claim a bit of marketing hype.

Me, too, as the design goals of supersonic wings and high sub-sonic wings are opposed in several areas. It'll be either an inefficient supersonic flyer or an inefficient subsonic flyer. It will never be efficient at both.

I'm pretty sure you can have supersonic turbulent flow, and I believe that in most cases, supersonic flow is turbulent. I haven't studied supersonic flows in detail yet though, so I'm not sure.

Believe me though, I know about reynolds numbers. Since they increase with velocity, I would assume that supersonic flows would typically happen at high reynolds numbers with the corresponding turbulence. I'll have to ask my aerodynamics professor to be sure though - I have Aero next Tuesday, so I'll try to remember.

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It is interesting, but I'm thinking along more economic lines: would the (undoubtedly much) increased cost of this jet really be worth flying somewhere 40% sooner?

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A "No" answer to that is what killed the Concordes, so anybody trying for civilian supersonic cruising since they shut down must already be carefully examining that issue before going too far along in the process. And there comes a point at which they must have decided that the answer is "Yes", or they wouldn't still be proceeding.

The wing shape is odd. It's like the way wings are usually designed for flight at lower speeds, sticking straight out instead of swept back. It's like they're trying to maximize lift to shorten the length of launch runway they need because of an engine design that sacrifices acceleration at low speeds in order to get good sustained cruising at high ones. Since we're pretty much past the days of "artists' conceptions" of new gadgets because images are easier to produce from the computer drafting files, I take it that this really is the plane's shape, not an error, but that does make me wonder if they plan to have it swing its wings or change their profile in flight...

Remember, it's not an airplane yet, it's a pitcher of an airplane. Such pitchers are stable in virtually any flight mode.

It would be curious to see the effect on a large corporation, in the current climate, purchasing an $80 million private jet to get the CEO there a couple of hours faster.

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If you follow AVWEB, you know that there have been and still exist good
solid biz jets that go wanting for orders. And these have certification and proven track records. Trying to raise funds for new ventures and pipe dreams
is increasingly difficult.
So just how many new and revolutionary designs for super high velocity
aircraft ( with the attendant requirement for pilots capable of handling such craft) will come down the pike and find fruition in a tough market made tougher by wary investors and dwindling orders for existing designs?
Best regards,
Dan

If you are an executive at, oh say, an American automobile manufacturer or a large financial company likely to go before Congress rattling the tin cup, don't even think of leasing one, much less buying one!

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The bar has been lowered for the promotion of ATM ideas; the bar for the acceptance of ATM ideas must remain high.

The problem with that theory is that the wings are still a low-aspect ratio, relatively short wing. For maximizing lift, this is a pretty terrible design. Wings such as those on the Concorde would be better - the larger surface area of the combined with the extra lift from the leading-edge vortex would allow a swept delta to take off at significantly lower speed and generate much more lift than a stubby, unswept design. In addition, the high wing loading and small aspect ratio would tend to maximize the formation of trailing vortices, which causes large amounts of induced drag.

From everything I can see, this airplane would have relatively low efficiency in subsonic cruise, it would have a high stall speed (and therefore a high takeoff and landing speed), and it would have a relatively low maximum coefficient of lift and angle of attack. I really don't see the advantage to this design over a swept delta.

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There's a prince who recently bought either Airbus' latest Really Big Plane^TM or Boeing's Really Big Plane^TM and is spending some $300 million to have it turned into a "flying palace." The guys who own Google have their own private 747 (or 777, I forget which) that they use for business trips. Heck, Sir Richard Branson, Elon Musk, and Jeff Bezos have their own space programs! This isn't about getting there 40% faster, its about who has the biggest, um, "wallet" (if you know what I mean). Sooner or later, some mega-wealthy guy is going to decide that he has to have a Really, Really, Really Fast Plane^TM, because its vital that he can have lunch in Paris and still catch the evening show on Broadway the same day.

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I can just see them trying to land at a less than 8000 foot runway.

Give me your mailing address, and I'll be sure to have all of my friends and acquaintances who used to design, build, or repair business jets, but who were recently laid off from Cessna, Hawker Beechcraft, or Bombardier Learjet send you "thank you" notes for your sensible and well-reasoned opinion.

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“There’s nothing that spells progress in large, friendly letters like trying to combine two totally incompatible technologies.” – David Szondy, Tales of Future Past.

You might want to mail those names to Congress who ripped into folks using private planes. A funny side note: The most fuel efficent form of transport is a full bus. The least, a nearly empty bus!

Don't worry, our representatives in Congress already took care of that problem.

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“There’s nothing that spells progress in large, friendly letters like trying to combine two totally incompatible technologies.” – David Szondy, Tales of Future Past.

The problem with that theory is that the wings are still a low-aspect ratio, relatively short wing. For maximizing lift, this is a pretty terrible design. Wings such as those on the Concorde would be better - the larger surface area of the combined with the extra lift from the leading-edge vortex would allow a swept delta to take off at significantly lower speed and generate much more lift than a stubby, unswept design. In addition, the high wing loading and small aspect ratio would tend to maximize the formation of trailing vortices, which causes large amounts of induced drag.

From everything I can see, this airplane would have relatively low efficiency in subsonic cruise, it would have a high stall speed (and therefore a high takeoff and landing speed), and it would have a relatively low maximum coefficient of lift and angle of attack. I really don't see the advantage to this design over a swept delta.

The planform is very similar to the Lockheed F-104 Starfighter. That plane had a very low aspect ratio but set several world records for climb and top speed due to a lot of thrust on a relatively light and simple airframe. It had a high takeoff and landing speed but engineering tradeoffs (e.g., higher complexity high lift devices) could mitigate that somewhat. Induced drag is relatively insignificant compared to parasitic drag at high speed. The biggest area where it hurts is on takeoff and climb performance.

Whether the plane can be built, certified and manufactured remains to be seen. Whether anyone would buy one also remains to be seen. I suspect there are some wealthy people in the Middle East who might be interested in owning what would be the world's fastest operational passenger plane. Paying for the fuel isn't a problem for them, either. It seems the actual market for such a plane is limited, though.

Induced drag is relatively insignificant compared to wave and parasite drag at the designed supersonic cruising speed, and honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if that were fairly efficient at supersonic speeds. Induced drag will significantly hurt its subsonic cruising performance though - an area where it claims near parity with current designs. That's the main reason for my skepticism - if it were designed as a purely supersonic aircraft, I wouldn't be nearly as surprised by the concept shape.

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No kidding - that was one of the most mindless knee-jerk reactions involving large numbers of the public I've seen in a long time.

Folks were really scared, weren't they?

With B-58 Hustler engines bolted onto the fuselage.

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Meet the OOONG TOE.

It actually is an F104 that's been photoshopped to make it longer and skinnier.

All the rage these days.

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The F-104 wing worked at supersonic speeds because it was very thin. I expect this concept is going for the same thing. Thinness also helps with laminar flow. They probably aren't carrying any fuel in the wing.

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Ah... there's the trick, carrying fuel, carrying people, carrying luggage
and flight performance that a pilot can handle and that an airport can
accomodate such a thing.
Get an aerostar !