I agree, but something like the Sonic Cruiser and better acceleration/deceleration profiles so that more time in the air could be spent at something like Mach .99 adds up pretty well.
LAX-JFK @ Mach .85 is 4:24. @.99: 3:47. United quotes 5:25 for the flight.
Okay, so forgive me as I only fly VFR piston if I am mistaken with some of the airways routing.
But, I don't care that its 2,200 nm straight line. It's going to be a lot more than that.
United have quoted that time because they have added up how long they will spend climbing and descending. Odds are that the plane that has never existed will need to get high to be able to go fast. This takes time. Generally they don't go for more than 1,000ft per min.
The whole best rate of climb and performance thing is hard to discuss because this craft doesn't exist. But lets say it takes 30 min, and has a Y speed of 450nm on average.
Going back to the united one, not knowing what they fly, lets just use 550knots because thats kinda faster side of common. They are able to do 3,000nm in that time, yet the straight line distance is just 2,200nm. All that time spent climbing/descending smoothly, then don't forget holding a few NDBs before entering the main patern. Circuit Speed isn't going to change much.
I would just suggest then that no matter what happens, we've 1hour of 'slow' time for that flight. That gives us about 1800nm to go faster on. That is about 3:20 with current gen stuff. Lets go for the best case, just subsonic. That is 660~knots. So we can now do it in 2:45, a massive saving of 35 min. So now that time could be 4:50. Add in security, baggage, transport to and from airport.
Not going to make much difference. Having more (maybe smaller) planes a day will be better for people who's time is very valuable. I believe Musk has his own Yakk which is capable of some 1000knot+ speeds.
Are track log (showing rate of climb and ground speed) and flight path for American 19 today JFK->LAX
Rate of climb is just under 2000fpm, and step-climbs to altitude are in the 25 minute range (with several periods of level flight prior to being cleared higher).
The direct route is 2148nm. The airways routing is 2214, or about 3% longer. In good weather, visual arrivals tend to be fairly direct and hold-free.
Biggest point was flightaware is cool. Check it out. :)
Well that is a lovely one for watching isn't it! Thanks.
Have you seen www.skyvector.com you can select the high or low routes if you wish. Whilst the mapping isn't 100% (ie don't fly from it, make very rough plans from it before going to your golden source state issued maps) it is really cool, espesually because it covers the world.
I have a dream of spending 6 months flying a little light aircraft along the silk route, visiting and exploring all the hops on my journy. One day maybe I'll have the means and the political situation will be suitable. That website lets you quickly see what such a mission would entail.
Concorde's specs were up to 5000 fpm climb. With some tweaking to the aerodynamics, flight planning and whatnot, I'm sure you could be supersonic 150nm into the flight instead of 250nm. (same goes for anything else getting up to cruising altitude)
In general, you don't want to fly in the transsonic zone (Mach 0.8 to Mach 1). The flow over parts of the wing goes supersonic, and while aero engineers can deal with supersonic and subsonic flows separately, we can't really deal with them together, the approximations flip (things go from being proportional to speed to inversely proportional). Most jetliners cruise right below the transsonic zone specifically to avoid this. The 777 uses specially designed wings to let it go further into the transsonic zone, so it can cruise at 0.85. If you design a plane to go any quicker either you need really long wings to lower the pressure differentials or to just go supersonic.
No, it's not, that's the point. Unless you find some way to fly without creating pressure differentials, a plane with wings that are miles wide, or a usable description of airflow transitioning from subsonic to supersonic, you aren't flying at Mach 0.99.
