Concorde last ever flight - hopefully not

[KvHagedorn]

Yeah wasn't there a supersonic bomber in the 60s with that sort of front wing? Wasn't it too unstable to fly?

[Brian R.]

You may be thinking of the B-58 Hustler. It didn't have canards though. The B-58 was the only operational supersonic bomber that I know of (not including fighter-bombers).

I doubt they will design this plane so it can ever go supersonic. Boeing is trying for general applicability, not just trans-Atlantic flights like the Concorde was confined to. No market. Noise is too big of a problem for supersonic flight over land.

[UtwigMU]

The Tu-160 is operational supersonic bomber.

http://www.aeronautics.ru/archive/vvs/tu160-01.htm

[Technoid]

The nose on that boing is abit ugly, but as a whole it reminds me of the SR71

And about faster than the sound and noise over land: It all depends on how HIGH the plane flies!!!

[Dr Mordrid]

Originally posted by KvHagedorn
Yeah wasn't there a supersonic bomber in the 60s with that sort of front wing? Wasn't it too unstable to fly?

It's called a "canard" wing and was on the original Wright Flyer for good reasons; it all but eliminates stalling and improves maneuverability considerably.

Canards are now found on many European fighers such as the French Mirage, SAAB Viggen and Eurofighter Typhoon as well as most of Burt Rutans designs. Rutan is one of todays premiere aircraft designers. If you want to see an extreme example of a canard wing check out the pic of Rutan's Proteus in this article;

http://www.isepp.org/Pages/02-03%20Pages/Rutan.html

The 60's bomber you're talking about was the MACH 3+ Rockwell XB-70 Valkyrie strategic bomber. Far from being unstable it was considered a technological sucess, but by the time it was finished advances in ICBM's and submarine launched ballistic missiles made its role as a strategic bomber redundent. It also could not do low-level penetration, which was a role the existing and much cheaper B-52 could already fill.

http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/usa/bomber/b-70.htm

The only "instability" in the XB-70 I can find is that the wing control surfaces showed a larger than expected displacement during landings, but I can't find anything about it causing a problem.

Dr. Mordrid

[Wombat]

Originally posted by Brian R.

I doubt they will design this plane so it can ever go supersonic. Boeing is trying for general applicability, not just trans-Atlantic flights like the Concorde was confined to. No market.

I think the market will be there. In a decade or so, people will really want to get from Tokyo to LA in a few hours or some such. I think right now Boeing is learning a lesson: if they don't have a craft that will do XYZ, then Airbus will build one, and then Boeing is screwed.

[VJ]

Isn't Tupolev also still working on a supersonic passenger-plane ? (a successor to their Concorde-competitor - which is IIRC still in flight for experimental purposes)

There also are a number of plans (Nasa et al.) to go to the edge of space in order to obtain high speed flights.


Jörg

[KvHagedorn]

Yes, that's the one.. the XB-70 Valkyrie. I vaguely remembered seeing a feature on TV somewhere about this plane, and I thought they had said something about instability, but apparently that's not the reason it did not go into production.

In 1961, President Kennedy announced that the XB-70 program was to be reduced to research only, citing high cost (over $700 million per prototype) and vulnerability. The Kennedy administration felt ICBMs were more cost effective because they were less vulnerable and were cheaper operationally. Although two XB-70 prototypes were built, with the first flight in 1964, the program terminated in 1969. The XB-70 had speed, range, and adequate payload, but it was expensive, not suited to low level penetration, and thus did not compete with ICBMs for strategic funds.

Too bad they put this one on the shelf.. way cooler than the B-1 or B-2. Mach 3 with a 70,000 ft ceiling.. like an SR-71 with a payload.



Pretty cool looking plane.. it actually looks a lot like the Concorde, or perhaps I should say the Concorde looks like the Valkyrie.

[Kruzin]

I remember building a plastic model of that plane in the late 70's as a pre-teen.
Always thought it was a sweet lookin plane

[mdhome]

The Valkyre was one of those planes that looked like it belonged to Captain Scarlet or Thunderbirds. Pure Sci-fi fantasy material in the here and now.
As an aside, I believe that the Mig 25 Foxbat was designed as a counter to this plane and the large design of the F-15 Eagle was to combat the Foxbat.

MD

[GT98]

Originally posted by Brian R.
You may be thinking of the B-58 Hustler. It didn't have canards though. The B-58 was the only operational supersonic bomber that I know of (not including fighter-bombers).

The B-1B is supersonic and the FB-111 (not much of fighter..just has the desgation from its development work when the project started out as a Navy program) is also.

[GT98]

Originally posted by Dr Mordrid
If 9/11 hadn't happened Boeing would have. They had plans for a mach .95 - .98 passenger plane called the Sonic Cruiser that in reality could have been updated to supersonic if the market presented itself.

Fact sheet: http://www.boeing.com/news/feature/c...factsheet.html

Photos: http://www.boeing.com/news/feature/concept/photos.html

Unfortunately the post 9/11 downturn in air traffic caused the project to be suspended. Maybe that'll change as the economy improves.

Dr. Mordrid

Too bad Boeing is bad shape now...they are looking to get passed by Airbus in the Civil airfleet and if the the new 7X7 Dreamliner doesn't get picked up by someone soon they are gonna be really hurting. Add in them losing the contract from the Air Force for a new Tanker Fleet because of funny business going and couple of their CEO's resigning due to this...they got BIG problems and it doesn't look pretty.

[Dr Mordrid]

Yup....and losing the Joint Strike Fighter contract to Lockheed didn't help either.

Boeings problems were obvious to anyone who watched the PBS documentary on the JSF (F-35 series) shoot-out round. This is where prototypes go head-to-head to see who's best.

At the end Boeing's design wasn't even what they proposed to go into production and was way over budget while Lockheeds design was ready on time and budget

What impressed me a lot was Lockheeds F-35B, which is to replace the Marines Harrier jump-jet (aka: AV-8).



The Harrier is rather tough to control in terms of transitional flight and hovering, requiring a lot of training and being the cause of many accidents.

In contrast the F-35B has a very advanced fly-by-wire system. It's so stable that if you let go of all the controls the plane hovers itself until the pilot takes control again

Dr. Mordrid

[borat]

i thought the boeing seemed to be the better of the 2 planes personally, sure the prototype submitted was inferior to lockheeds, but it was a simpler design. While the lockheed has some astounding technology, the boeing looked to me like a designwith less areas to go wrong, and im sure with more developement it could have equaled the lockheeds performance. Still thats the opinion of someone who knows bugger all about aerospace design.

[Brian R.]

Interesting. I didn't know about the B-1B being supersonic. Just barely supersonic I guess. Also didn't know about the fold-down wing tips of the XB-70.

That's what happens when you get old. The first thing to go is ....

what was I talking about????