Faster on land but slower in the air

How the hell do you guys know so much about planes?!

How the hell do you guys know so much about planes?!

We all fly for a living.

 

And I was just going to chime in here and you guys stole all my thunder. I really think you guys hit the nail on the head with pretty much everything.

 

Its come down to efficiency not speed.

Slightly off topic.

 

On a recent trip to Singapore the 777 I was in flew from Detriot to Tokyo by going up near Alaska then coming down near the coast of Russia to Japan. With the insane ETOPS of the 777 why could the plane not fly over Hawaii to Tokyo? Why would the longer (distance and time) be the preferred choice?

I don't agree with the statement that better fuel efficiency will equal slower flight speeds.

 

Stolen from Wikipedia:

 

The 747 models cruising speeds (at 35,000 ft (11,000 m) altitude) :

747-100B/-200/-300: Mach 0.84 (555 mph, 893 km/h, 481 knots )

747-400/-400ER: Mach 0.85 (567 mph, 913 km/h, 493 kn) ER: Mach 0.855 (570 mph, 918 km/h, 495 kn)

747-800I: Mach 0.855 (570 mph, 918 km/h, 495 kn)

 

These speeds have gone up. Granted a lot of variables have changed...use of composites, wing and fuselage design, engines, etc. But slower doesn't always mean less money spent. At a certain point the duration of the flight taking longer and longer costs more.

 

I would wager that sometime in the not so far future airplane speeds will begin to increase. Because that is the next hurdle in efficiency. Right now everyone is nitpicking away at percentages to get the most efficiency out of a current design (just look at all the 737 models: MAX, NG, etc). The next step is increasing speed so the aircraft can fly more, therefore turn more legs, therefore make the parent company more money.

 

 

How the hell do you guys know so much about planes?!

 

I personally would pay $$$ if I can fly across the Pacific in half the current travel time.

How many people do you suppose there are like you willing to pay enough to make it work for the airlines? Would there be enough people to do five flights a week(or whatever it would take)? Whats a first class ticket cost now for your trip? 10-20k? Most of the tickets on that airplane arent first class tickets though either. Maybe a smaller plane like 20-50 passengers would be better for a supersonic airliner. Would it make sense for someone like you to pay 50-75k for a trip to be there in 3 hours as opposed to 8? Maybe I am way off base here but I just dont think there are enough people willing to spend that kind of money to be at the mercy of the airlines. 75k would be close to trans Pacific private jet charter territory(I think).

 

 

How many people do you suppose there are like you willing to pay enough to make it work for the airlines? Would there be enough people to do five flights a week(or whatever it would take)? Whats a first class ticket cost now for your trip? 10-20k? Most of the tickets on that airplane arent first class tickets though either. Maybe a smaller plane like 20-50 passengers would be better for a supersonic airliner. Would it make sense for someone like you to pay 50-75k for a trip to be there in 3 hours as opposed to 8? Maybe I am way off base here but I just dont think there are enough people willing to spend that kind of money to be at the mercy of the airlines. 75k would be close to trans Pacific private jet charter territory(I think).

 

 

Generally speaking, you are likely correct which explains the current dilemma; but there are plenty of other variables to consider and everyone is different. For instance, by getting there faster/sooner, you can have more productive time at the destination and that would shorten the length of stay. Lodging & meal are costs; those are wide variables of course but they are nevertheless costs. Pardon the pun but it too boils down to efficiency. It also depends on the situation that justifies the travel. At certain scenarios, in order to seal a contract worth millions or to rectify a costly problem a.s.a.p.; 50-75k would be peanuts.

Read this article in Popular Science. Take it with a grain of salt considering only about one in ten features like this ever materialize into anything. Seemed relevant. Still no fix for the boom. Three hundred miles per hour slower than the Concorde was upon it's introduction thirty eight years ago. Fifty $250,000 deposits on a plane that won't be delivered until 2021 is promising...I guess.

Since there is lot of talk about concorde, here's couple of photos I took of one in static display on NYC.

 

 

 

 

 

Great thread. I have nothing to add but I enjoy reading everything. Keep it coming

 

 

+1

The retirement of the Concorde with no replacement was the first step backwards in aviation history (ditto with the Space Shuttle). But that all comes down to economics. There just aren't enough people willing to pay a lot of money to cut their commute time in half on those limited routes.

 

Do you mean the retirement of the Space Shuttle was a step backwards or the shuttle itself was a step backwards? My understanding was that the Space Shuttle originally was intended to lower the cost of launching things into space, being reusable instead of constantly using disposable rockets, but instead ran over budget and proved to do the opposite, that it is actually cheaper to just use disposable rockets. If so, is it really a step backwards to retire the Space Shuttle? On the other hand, I'd say retiring the space shuttle without putting into place a replacement of some type to launch things into space is a huge step backwards.

We hardly build ships anymore in the United States either (outside of a few anchor points in military shipbuilding) in what used to be a massive industry. Shipbuilding and its skills have largely evacuated to points beyond. We make a lot of really disappointing cars too. Aerospace is America's last great strong hold (under attack every day).

 

We do manufacture a lot of sophisticated componentry, electronics, medical devices, industrial machinery, etc...is made overseas.

 

When people are upset about the cost of a bloated defense project, troubled new airplane, or poor man's space project, what never comes out is how if we just drop this stuff and save our money, we're only screwing ourselves in the worst way possible because we didn't get to be where we are today because one generation of genius' just woke up one day and decided to make awesome stuff. There is a well-known quote that goes something like, "there are fewer countries in the world capable of making a jet engine than can make nuclear weapons" and that says it all.

 

Yep, but unfortunately, there have to be real reasons to pursue such R&D or it doesn't get done. A great mass of the R&D done during the post-WWII 20th century was due to the Cold War and the Space Race for example. There'd be no Internet, PCs, satellites, etc...if not for those.

 

We do manufacture a lot of sophisticated componentry, electronics, medical devices, industrial machinery, etc...is made overseas.

 

Whoops, meant those things are made domestically, those last three words were a mistake.

 

Slightly off topic.

 

On a recent trip to Singapore the 777 I was in flew from Detriot to Tokyo by going up near Alaska then coming down near the coast of Russia to Japan. With the insane ETOPS of the 777 why could the plane not fly over Hawaii to Tokyo? Why would the longer (distance and time) be the preferred choice?

 

 

The route the plane takes is the shorter (distance and time) route. While a straight line on a flat map looks like the shortest route, a flat map isn't an accurate representation of the spherical Earth. The shortest path between two points on a sphere is called a great circle route. Here's the path your flight took, viewed from a different angle. When you see it on a globe, it's obvious that flying over Hawaii would be a much longer flight.

 

Do you mean the retirement of the Space Shuttle was a step backwards or the shuttle itself was a step backwards? My understanding was that the Space Shuttle originally was intended to lower the cost of launching things into space, being reusable instead of constantly using disposable rockets, but instead ran over budget and proved to do the opposite, that it is actually cheaper to just use disposable rockets. If so, is it really a step backwards to retire the Space Shuttle? On the other hand, I'd say retiring the space shuttle without putting into place a replacement of some type to launch things into space is a huge step backwards.

 

I meant that the retirement of the Space Shuttle, like the Concorde, without replacements are steps backward.