'Son-of-Concorde' plans unveiled ( France and Japan

[wakeme2008]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4094810.stm

'Son-of-Concorde' plans unveiled
Japan and France are to work together to develop a successor to the retired supersonic jet aircraft Concorde.

Companies from the countries will split an investment of $1.84m-a-year for research over the next three years, Japan's trade ministry said.

The agreement to develop the new passenger plane was signed at the Paris Air Show, Japan added.

The new plane will have 300 seats and cut the flight time between New York and Tokyo to six hours, reports said.


...more at link.....

[muriel_volestrangler]

1. "$1.84m-a-year"?

That's got to be a misprint by the BBC. It's peanuts for a technical project.

[MadHound]

2. Sorry, but another supersonic plane is not what the world needs

First off, as the Concorde proved, it will be incredibly expensive to run, and thus ticket prices will be beyond the vast majority of peoples' reach, thus it will be a money losing proposition.

Secondly, there will be few land masses it can fly over at supersonic speeds, and even fewer airports that will accept it. These were a couple of reasons why the Concorde never really caught on, and why a new supersonic plane won't catch on.

Third, these things consume an inordinate amount of fuel, and create an inordinate amount of pollution. Not a good move in the age of Peak Oil and Global Climate Change. Rather, why don't these folks work on creating a plane that is much more fuel efficient and much less polluting.

Sorry, but this is just another rich man's playtoy, one that once again the rest of the planet gets to pay for.

[wakeme2008]

3. While some of what you say is true...

It will be interesting to see what the two countries can come up with. Plus they are looking at a 300 pax plane. Maybe they can do what the high military industrial complex in the US could not do..

[MadHound]

4. Somehow I doubt that the additional passenger space will pay for itself.

The Concorde was rarely, if ever, flyiing with a full load of passengers, and it was designed for way less than 300 passengers. I just think that this is going to be another unesseccary, overpriced, overpolluting playtoy for the rich. One that we'll be paying for with increased air and sound pollution, and less oil.

What I would like to see is research on a more fuel efficient, less polluting plane, possibly a hybrid, or one that runs on alternative fuel. That is what is needed in our airfleet, not another subsidized toy for the rich.

[architect359]

5. Some true points

...and I agree - but these comments are based on the Concorde that we knew and past travel agreements. Hopefully, the lessons have been learned and will be used in this next generation. Perhaps, these fast planes will be used for trans-pacific or trans-atlantic flights only. For all we know, the engines could be more fuel efficient and less polluting - ok, ok, that's really wishful thinking on my part. I am however very curious to see what the new specs will be. If it turns out to be the old same-old-same-old stuff, than that's very disappointing and it'll go nowhere.

I think that there definitely will be a need for faster travel between some of the longer distanced countries. Whether or not it's done with a supersonic plane or some other type, I think that need is there - I mean, consider that some of these long flights are 18 hours long!

[amazona]

6. the size of the funding suggests this is not a serious attempt

Probably just a make-work job for the relatives of some politicians.

[Dogmudgeon]

7. A few random notes and thoughts

1. The money in question -- $1.84m -- may not be in "our" millions, but in milliards, which is what billions used to be called. (Or I may be wrong. Or the figure may pertain to just a subset of the R&D. Or something else.)

2. There are plenty of uses for fast aircraft that aren't "rich men's toys". For instance, a medical epidemiology team might be able to use it to deliver vaccine to control disease outbreaks that much quicker. And if a rich man wants to pay dearly for a seat on an SST, what is so bad about that?

3. Why not jump over the SST level of technology and go for the bigger prize, a suborbital space plane, which used to be called the HST, for HyperSonic Transport. It would allow antipodal (maximum distance) travel to be accomplished in less than two hours of flight time. There are also, theoretically, economies that can not be realized with SSTs.

The Concorde was not the best-planned aircraft in the world -- nor was the old Soviet Tupolev-144 -- but they had their uses.

--p!

[muriel_volestrangler]

8. I had my doubts about the amount, but it seems to be right

This is now in a lot of reports as "200 million yen ($1.84 million)", eg http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/apbiz_story.asp?category=1310&slug=Japan%20France%20Supersonic%20Jet

And I can't work out what meaningful research would be done for that.