> Efficient by what metric? Fuel use? That’s the new master of our existence, our six-proton czar?
If it can be cheap at supersonic speeds, it will be much cheaper at subsonic, always. And use less fuel. The only advantage you get is speed.
If it can be cheap at supersonic speeds, it will be much cheaper at subsonic, always. And use less fuel. The only advantage you get is speed.
The limiting speed of subsonic aircraft is Mach .96 approximately.
For the u2, at its cruise altitude, this means about 100mph of airspeed… barely above its stall speed.
But if you go supersonic, you can break through that barrier and make use of the fact that there is much less air resistance at those altitudes. Not only that, but by riding past your shockwave, you can pick up a bit of recovered energy.
In some corners of the envelope, supersonic actually uses less fuel for the trip than Mach 0.9ish travel - which is where we fly our jetliners.
Also, we nasa has been experimenting with aerodynamic shapes that all but eliminate the sonic boom effect.
It’s not all bad.
Yes, they've been trying to do that since the 1960s. I haven't seen any signs that they've been what I would call successful.
If they are planning to make it more efficient than subsonic trips, it would be the first thing you would see in the website, or at least the FAQ. Supersonic flight is very cool, but for me this is just like Bugatti announcing a faster car for the rich, or an airline showing its first class luxury cabin: not very interesting.
It’s like props vs jets. Jet aircraft were less efficient but faster… until the altitude benefits made them more efficient and faster. Flying at the edge of space is the next step in that speed/ efficiency curve, and that is necessarily supersonic.
Still happy for the engineers working on this, they are probably having a great time designing a new aircraft.