AHC: Successful Supersonic Airliners

Dear Archibald,

Auto-pilots are standard for airliners and business jets that fly in the stratosphere ....... for decades now. Auto-pilots are standard because the difference between stall and sonic buffeting is tiny. No human has the attention span to fly that precisely for more than a few minutes. Fly-by-wire systems have standard in all Airbuses and "teen" series fighters for decades now.

NASA and Boom Corporation propaganda brags about how much they have been able to reduce the severity of sonic booms by adjusting area rule. The F-5 based test bed had an adjustable boom extending ahead of the nose. It also had a bulge under the forward fuselage to adjust area rule (try to picture a Pelican with a fresh load of fish in his throat). Boom Corp. is trying to reduce or blur the two distinct booms emitted by current SS airplanes.

I predict that adjustable booms will only be a short-term solution. They will probably develop "blown" changes to airframe curvature to refine area rules. They may even blow air out the front end to "adjust" the curvature ... similar to existing Soviet high-speed torpedoes.
several companies are already flying drone prototypes that have "blown" steering similar to the "blown" landing flaps that been produced since the 1950s.
 
What about building them from titanium, which gets stronger under pressure? Would it be just horrifically expensive?

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Titanium was ridiculously expensive during the Cold War because most reserves were in the Soviet Union. One of the few 'capitalist' sources of tintanium was South Africa. South African apartheid politics forced the USA to play awkward political games .... pretending to condemn apartheid while quietly buy rare metals from South African mining companies. While the US Army assisted the South African Army in upgrading their long-range artillery (to kill communists in Angola) they were forced to drop that project when journalists revealed the role of Canadian-born engineer Gerald Bull. Bull was eventually assassinated (by Israelis????). We will never hear the whole truth of USA-South African relations during the Cod War.
 
What was needed to make the SST economical in the 1960s and today is a fuel efficient engine.
If you can achieve that the SST will become viable for trans oceanic flights, with out it the 747 still dominates internal flights.
 

Archibald

Banned
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Titanium was ridiculously expensive during the Cold War because most reserves were in the Soviet Union. One of the few 'capitalist' sources of tintanium was South Africa. South African apartheid politics forced the USA to play awkward political games .... pretending to condemn apartheid while quietly buy rare metals from South African mining companies. While the US Army assisted the South African Army in upgrading their long-range artillery (to kill communists in Angola) they were forced to drop that project when journalists revealed the role of Canadian-born engineer Gerald Bull. Bull was eventually assassinated (by Israelis????). We will never hear the whole truth of USA-South African relations during the Cod War.

Lockheed engineers famously build the SR-71 from soviet titanium, thanks to the CIA. https://www.airspacemag.com/history-of-flight/the-titanium-gambit-3804526/
 
Exactly.
If there's a hundred of them in service before oil prices jump, they're likely to stay in service. With only 2 airlines iOTL, running essentially the same kind of service, there was little innovation in marketing and service. If several other airlines jump in, someone might find a formula/market that can survive the rise in oil prices that will eventually happen.

If the oil price rise is more gradual, that might help, too.

If there are more sold, the idea of putting a Concorde B into service becomes more practical, and that opens up a lot more Pacific routes.

OTL, there's now a handful of companies planning on making supersonic business jets, for instance. Repurposing a Concorde from a 100 passenger all first class machine to an executive shuttle with, say 40 spaces, might be a plausible market for London/NYC and/or London/DC, even if nowhere else.

Flying over land's going to be a distinct problem.
BA already run a daily A319 all First / Business flight (34 seats / beds) London City to JFK return so there is a market.
 

Puzzle

Donor
Titanium was ridiculously expensive during the Cold War
Titanium is still ridiculously expensive. It's fifteen times more expensive than steel at least, and it's weaker than some of the high grade stuff.

I wonder if Japan never came into World War II there could be a commercial market for transpacific dashes. Assuming their infrastructure didn't get bombed out and shredded and a lot of their people didn't die they'd presumably be richer and able to sponsor a vanity project that might actually be useful for them.
 

Archibald

Banned
I wonder if Japan never came into World War II there could be a commercial market for transpacific dashes. Assuming their infrastructure didn't get bombed out and shredded and a lot of their people didn't die they'd presumably be richer and able to sponsor a vanity project that might actually be useful for them.

This is exactly what i intend to do in my space ATL. After the space shuttle gets cancelled in October 1971, Nixon brings back the SST as a "vanity project".

this is a kind of ATL "cracked.com" clickbait thing

10 reasons that explain why the Boeing-Lockheed SST was build
  • John Magruder activism

  • Ataka proposal of March 1971

  • Lockheed bribery of Japanese officials by CEO Karl Kotchian

  • President Nixon humiliation when French President Pompidou flew a Concorde to the Azores summit in December 1971

  • President Ford dream of a SST Air Force One.

  • Cancellation of the Space Shuttle.

  • Cancellation of Lifting bodies, NF-104A, X-15 and XB-70 flight test programs (1969-71)

  • Research on SST, SSTO, and TSTO titanium airframes

  • Concorde breakthrough on the trans-atlantic airway
  • Soviet embracing large titanium airframes and manufacturing – notably the Sukhoi T-4 and the Alfa submarines. The Tu-144 also made large scale use of titanium.
 
First I do not think the SST could become mainstream air travel in real terms, it was likely always a niche player. Recalling that the SST was best slated to take the First Class or high-end business traveler with wide-bodies taking the other business, tourist and otherwise economy traveler, the SST could certainly have commanded more flights with more aircraft on more routes. In my draft ATL I have a stronger Anglo-French aerospace industry and the American-German cooperation evolving similarly. For mine I have the Concorde proceeding alongside the American/German alternate and also the Russian effort. For me Condorde would likely serve the London and Paris to NYC, Washington DC, and other trans-Atlantic routes. The American SST fills the San Francisco or LA to points in Asia trans-Pacific. It also would serve Berlin or Hamburg or Frankfurt to NYC, DC, etc., avoiding overflights of France and UK it too need just that much more range. Thus my American SST should be slightly bigger with better range. As it settles in the American SST becomes a better competitor since its size gives it a better passenger count, and if it also achieves a higher speed to sort of match Concorde on its "shorter" routes (London-NYC versus Frankfurt-NYC) then it will drive the trans-Atlantic routes to a true divide between the daily fast hub-to-hub and slower highway of jumbos carrying cargo and everyone on a budget. I kept PanAm alive and it is more aligned with Lufthansa who dominates the continental routes, forming a sort of "feeder" to both Luft Hansa and PanAm trans-Atlantic here, the Pacific is more PanAm with Luft Hansa connecting it at either end. I saw this as a logical conceptually evolution from the Airship (and later aircraft) versus passenger liner paradigm. It also gives me excuse to look towards something like the Orion III as the next logical pursuit of the American/German aerospace combine.

I think there are many implications of such a slightly more robust SST network and American as well as German activity. I doubt the SSTs fly over mainland Europe or America for long if at all. Does this add fuel to spur the environmental movement in this era? Does it alter how the energy crisis arrives or is dealt with? How does it impact both technology, industry and trade? I have the SST mixed into the political fabric as a lot of things, it is an interesting McGuffin as I ponder the alternative.
 
I highly doubt it. Even Tokyo-Honolulu is just barely at the edge of OTL SSTs' max range.
Well there was the 'Model B' which was being looked at around the time of Concorde's launch. The idea was that by upgrading the engines, modifying the air intakes and exhausts, making some changes to the wings, use of composite materials to reduce weight, and other improvements would have reduced it's noise levels and fuel consumption which combined with the extra fuel carried have increased its range by roughly ten per cent. If those estimates were correct that could make Tokyo to San Francisco or Los Angeles in two stages via Honolulu a possibility.
 
Well there was the 'Model B' which was being looked at around the time of Concorde's launch. The idea was that by upgrading the engines, modifying the air intakes and exhausts, making some changes to the wings, use of composite materials to reduce weight, and other improvements would have reduced it's noise levels and fuel consumption which combined with the extra fuel carried have increased its range by roughly ten per cent. If those estimates were correct that could make Tokyo to San Francisco or Los Angeles in two stages via Honolulu a possibility.
I think I should note, from a few seconds work with my fingers as a geometric compass on a small globe, that if a two stage flight from Tokyo to the US Pacific Coast is possible, just from distances alone two stage via Anchorage Alaska is just as possible; winds might throw this off one way or the other I suppose. I suspect that except for the factor of bad landing and takeoff weather being more probable along the cold Pacific NW coast being somewhat more likely, the coast-hugging route might be more favorable, in that optional diversion landing fields, with an emergency field on the Aleutians (terrible weather much of the time, I know) and backup/emergency diversion to Fairbanks, Juneau or Whitehorse Yukon, Vancouver BC/Seattle WA, or Portland Oregon are all pretty close to the most direct Great Circle route, whereas the great circle route from Japan to Hawaii has essentially nothing to divert to in that stage except possible emergency strips newly built along the tiny northwest islands between the main islands and Midway--Midway itself being quite tiny though of course moderately developed already. Between the main inhabited Hawaiian islands and CONUS is essentially nothing. The total airmiles going via Hawaii would be greater than going via Alaska and either Anchorage or a strip at Kodiak would be closer to the halfway point, so a range marginal for direct to Honolulu would have more margin via Alaska.

Again winds and weather remain relevant; Hawaii has good weather I gather and the route would be well south of the jetstream generally; IIRC the jetstream blows west to east so it would often assist flights from Japan to America via Alaska but oppose it the other way while high altitude flights via Hawaii would be more neutral, winds neither helping nor hindering. It suggests to me that the northern route would be favored from west to east when weather in Alaska is good, while it might be preferable routinely to go from America to Japan via Honolulu and sometimes to switch to that route west to east too if landing and takeoff conditions in coastal central Alaska are bad. But even then, if a flight takes off and conditions worsen before it can arrive at Anchorage with Kodiak also likely socked out by the same conditions, there remains a good chance Fairbanks, in another weather zone due to the coastal mountain ranges and inland rather than coastal weather, might be open long enough for a small diversion to take it safely there for quick refueling; reduced range might compel a landing in CONUS or British Columbia north of desired destination but quite safely reachable. The Hawaiian route is more of a sure thing but always longer in practical airmiles, since an unfavorable jet stream can generally be gone around, and the added air distance and travel time should still be well within the range of the plane's single stage, if it can reach Hawaii at all.

Having good relations with Russia can further improve the utility of the northern route.
 

Archibald

Banned
Most people don't realize that Kennedy SST was to fly at Mach 2.7 and not Mach 2.2. Also it was to carry 250 passengers instead of Concorde and Tupolev 140. It was also 300 ft long, longer than an A380 !
The reason why they picked Mach 2.7 (despite the tremendous technical diffifculties) is because they did the economic equation. Every Concorde successor designed since 1975 everywhere carries 250 passengers, not 140.
But why Mach 2.7 ? it's because of trans-Pacific and trans-Atlantic flight times. In order to beat subsonic aircraft economically, and just like every other airliner, a SST lose money if it is stuck in the ground. The more it flies, the more it earns money. A 747 can do a single Tokyo - LA or N.Y - Europe rotation in a day. But it carries a lot of passengers.
A SST can't get a fuselage large enough; 250 passengers results in a 300 ft long aircraft. Carrying less passengers, the SST has to fly more, and faster. It happens that Mach 2.7 makes a difference over Mach 2.2, particularly on the Atlantic.
More on this later.
 

Archibald

Banned
I did the math.

At Mach 2.7 the transantlantic crossing takes 2 hours instead of Concorde 3 hours. That makes a big difference.

Let's suppose a Boeing SST lift-off from Paris at 6' in the morning.
Then it lands at New Yorks two hours later.
Then, it spents one hour on the ground loading kerosene and passengers.
Rince, and repeat.

Something like this

Paris, 6 o'clock in the morning.
6 > 8 > 9 (New York, 1H stopover)
9 > 11 > 12 (Paris, 1H stopover)
12 > 14 > 15 (New York, 1H stopover)
15 > 17 > 18 (Paris, 1H stopover)
18 > 20 > 21 (New York, 1H stopover)
21 > 23 (Paris)

So you can see that, flying at Mach 2.7 instead of Mach 2.2 makes a big difference. A 747 would make a single, daily rotation, a concorde, two, but the SST can make three, within the bounds of night flying restrictions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_flying_restrictions
 
Last edited:
ITT: Me throwing my hands in the air and groaning as the reasons why SST can't be in my TLs piles up.

Ahh, but you're the "Author" so 'reasons' can and should be found to get what you want as well as inform you why it didn't happen OTL :)

As Archibald notes there were in fact "good" reasons why the US SST project picked the goals it did. Those goals drove it out of happening but they were 'good' for the time period.

Having noted that oil prices, (AvGas) was one of those factors I'm curios as to why it took so long for Liquid Methane to become a 'thing' in aerospace despite the rather obvious benefits. A good chunk of money was spent in the late '70s on the idea of LH2 as an aviation fuel but relatively little on LHC even though LNG was actually being advanced as a "future fuel" for industry and motor travel. Between intake pre-cooling, (discovered during the late 50s Aerospaceplane program and then forgotten till HOTOL/Skylon) and density compared to hydrogen it really SHOULD have had more impact. But it doesn't get much mention until the early 90s in regard to military programs.

Randy
 
Ahh, but you're the "Author" so 'reasons' can and should be found to get what you want as well as inform you why it didn't happen OTL :)

As Archibald notes there were in fact "good" reasons why the US SST project picked the goals it did. Those goals drove it out of happening but they were 'good' for the time period.

Having noted that oil prices, (AvGas) was one of those factors I'm curios as to why it took so long for Liquid Methane to become a 'thing' in aerospace despite the rather obvious benefits. A good chunk of money was spent in the late '70s on the idea of LH2 as an aviation fuel but relatively little on LHC even though LNG was actually being advanced as a "future fuel" for industry and motor travel. Between intake pre-cooling, (discovered during the late 50s Aerospaceplane program and then forgotten till HOTOL/Skylon) and density compared to hydrogen it really SHOULD have had more impact. But it doesn't get much mention until the early 90s in regard to military programs.

Randy
This https://www.nasa.gov/centers/dryden/pdf/87708main_H-361.pdf is a 1964 NASA study of LH2 vs liquid methane vs hydrocarbon for hypersonic aircraft. It is old, so there may advances on this. WRT liquid methane, it states on page 3
At first glance, liquid methane appears to be attractive. However, the last three colums indicate that the small increase in available heat sink over the hydrocarbons would not warrant the loss in performance or the increase in tank volume
 
This https://www.nasa.gov/centers/dryden/pdf/87708main_H-361.pdf is a 1964 NASA study of LH2 vs liquid methane vs hydrocarbon for hypersonic aircraft. It is old, so there may advances on this. WRT liquid methane, it states on page 3

At first glance, liquid methane appears to be attractive. However, the last three columns indicate that the small increase in available heat sink over the hydrocarbons would not warrant the loss in performance or the increase in tank volume

"Hypersonic" is you keyword here :) Aka: You need a propellant that can be used to put excess heat into and frankly (and technically :) ) it's why LH2 always wins here and arguably in a reentry vehicle. This is also why Skylon uses LH2 and not LHC or LNG as it the former has such a deep delta-T. (Thermal difference) In general the reason for using LH2 was always that it had more 'energy' than LHC or other hydrocarbons but in reality it TAKES a lot of energy to make LH2 and the bulk means a 'draggy' vehicle and a lot of wasted energy in pushing that through the air. Along those lines its why an LH2 fueled subsonic aircraft makes 'some' sense compared to a hydrocarbon powered one in that the 'drag' isn't as important. Supersonic is a different argument.
(Good information though thanks!)

Randy
 
Ahh, but you're the "Author" so 'reasons' can and should be found to get what you want as well as inform you why it didn't happen OTL :)

As Archibald notes there were in fact "good" reasons why the US SST project picked the goals it did. Those goals drove it out of happening but they were 'good' for the time period.

Having noted that oil prices, (AvGas) was one of those factors I'm curios as to why it took so long for Liquid Methane to become a 'thing' in aerospace despite the rather obvious benefits. A good chunk of money was spent in the late '70s on the idea of LH2 as an aviation fuel but relatively little on LHC even though LNG was actually being advanced as a "future fuel" for industry and motor travel. Between intake pre-cooling, (discovered during the late 50s Aerospaceplane program and then forgotten till HOTOL/Skylon) and density compared to hydrogen it really SHOULD have had more impact. But it doesn't get much mention until the early 90s in regard to military programs.

Randy
Oh. Yeah.
I know the soviets had quite a few designs for liquid-hydrogen powered bombers, of which precious little info exists.
 
Top