Boeing recently unveiled its supersonic passenger jet with a maximum speed of Mach 5 and a cruising altitude of 95,000 feet. It only takes two hours to fly across the Atlantic Ocean, once again sparking expectations for supersonic travel!!
According to the introduction, this unnamed commercial supersonic aircraft is slightly smaller than the Boeing 737, about 27,000 meters in altitude, 3.5 times the speed of Concorde, and can reach a maximum speed of Mach 5. This means that the aircraft takes only 2 hours to cross the Atlantic, while the Pacific is only 3 hours away.
What is a supersonic airliner?
Delta consonant supersonic airliner
Supersonic airliner is a kind of civil airliner that can fly at supersonic speed. Historically, only two kinds of supersonic airliners have been mass-produced and put into commercial operation, namely, the Coordination Aircraft developed jointly by Britain and France, and the Soviet Union's Coordination Aircraft, all appeared in the late 1960s.
Why is the supersonic airliner not being popularized?
First, high maintenance and operation costs, low profitability. The fuel consumption rate is too high, the carrying capacity is small, the economy is poor, and the unit passenger cost is high. Daily maintenance is expensive, no airline is willing to lose money to make a noise, with very expensive costs to transport very few passengers. On the contrary, if you run an airline, you'll also like the big size of the A380, which carries a lot of people and charges a lot of money, but doesn't consume a lot of fuel.
Second, noise pollution is serious. It is impossible to pass today's noise test. Because of the high level of sonic boom, Concord is restricted from supersonic flight over the mainland. Noise can be said to be a key factor in the failure of Concord business.
Third, the voyage is short. It is also due to the high fuel consumption and a certain amount of fuel that the Concord's voyage is very short. This means that supersonic aircraft will lose many longer routes.
Fourth, security. After all, there are hundreds of lives on the plane, and supersonic aircraft are more likely to have accidents than ordinary ones. And supersonic airliners fly at higher altitudes, exposing passengers to twice as much cosmic radiation as ordinary aircraft, increasing the risk of skin cancer.
超音速客机为什么没有被普及？
△Concorde supersonic airliner
Therefore, supersonic passenger aircraft has been troubled by cost-effectiveness, environmental damage and other factors since its inception, and has not been widely used. The Soviet Concorde left the stage of commercial operations after its last passenger flight in June 1978, while the Concorde made its last commercial flight on 26 November 2003. With the formal retirement of Concorde, there has been no commercial supersonic airliner in the world since then.
