WesternDC6B wrote:

The climate nay -sayers will roadblock it.

Think the laws of physics and economics already done that.

I’ve heard about “London to Sydney in 90 minutes” (or variations thereof) for more than 40 years, and it has always stranded; the technology that’ll both make it happen, be economical enough and compliant with aviation regulations simply does not exist. It would take a monumental leap in technology, not quite warp core but close, to make this work.

Must say, though, that every “launch” of such project over the last 40 years have succeeded, to various extends, in lifting loads of millions off star-struck investors. They were near as always also accompanied by some very sexy drawings and specs, and did provide a few minutes of entertainment. So there’s that.

People, let's be realistic here. Even with the introduction of this plane, only rich snobs will be able to afford it. This will not be available to the "unwashed" masses to which I also belong. Let Bezos and Musk have their toys and I'll continue to fly commercial as always.✈️

This is suborbital Space Shuttle, any takers on those odds. Teleportation is more realistic.

744SPX wrote:

strfyr51 wrote:

EA CO AS wrote:

Gee, where have I seen this before?

https://youtu.be/P65yI26hZ58

I actually saw that show, before going to work at United.

Me too.
As a 10 year old, I thought it was a pretty cool made-for-TV movie (plus it had Lee Majors in it)

I always wanted (and still want!) a Starflight One desk model. The movie was decent, but the turnaround time for shuttle launches being measured in hours instead of months was hilarious.

[url][/url]

B777LRF wrote:

WesternDC6B wrote:

The climate nay -sayers will roadblock it.

Think the laws of physics and economics already done that.

I’ve heard about “London to Sydney in 90 minutes” (or variations thereof) for more than 40 years, and it has always stranded; the technology that’ll both make it happen, be economical enough and compliant with aviation regulations simply does not exist. It would take a monumental leap in technology, not quite warp core but close, to make this work.

Must say, though, that every “launch” of such project over the last 40 years have succeeded, to various extends, in lifting loads of millions off star-struck investors. They were near as always also accompanied by some very sexy drawings and specs, and did provide a few minutes of entertainment. So there’s that.

The ones that were close were probably the projects that disappeared from the public eye.

Rumours are of a few fast mover aircraft that did become reality, but not for public use - probably technology demonstrators. They were said to use quite dangerous fuels.

744SPX wrote:

manny wrote:

This is just a conspiracy by US carriers to bring long haul flying to under 2 hours so they do not have to serve any meals even in first class.

Now that, I'd believe.

Does anyone know what types of meals were served on the Concorde? Was it considered short haul?

deebee278 wrote:

Is anyone (besides me! ) old enough to remember an episode of the original "Twilight Zone" called "The Odyssey of Flight 33? (1961) A transatlantic flight goes uncontrollably VERY supersonic and, after some severe turbulence and assorted drama, finds themselves back to normal speed and flying over NYC, which is covered with dinosaurs. Time warp, end of first segment, cue the commercials...

Not only remember it, but also still have it on VHS, together with the "Shatner sees a 'gremlin' on the wing" episode. A 'Twilight Zone' commercial aviation two-fer.
And after the 4-man 707 crew again goes through the same 'time/space warp' and they think they're safely back in 1961, they find they're just a bit off: They look out and see the signature 'Trylon and Perisphere' from the 1939 NY world's Fair, and the voice on the other end of their radio asks them if they said their aircraft was a 'Boeing 247'.

Ziyulu wrote:

Does anyone know what types of meals were served on the Concorde? Was it considered short haul?

It was on-par with long haul First Class.

Absurd beyond belief. Fall of Rome. 4% of humans currently alive have ever flown and that includes in bush planes and military transports. We’re going to punch holes in the ozone layer so 0.1% of 4% of humanity can get from New York to Sydney in a hurry????

B777LRF wrote:

Ziyulu wrote:

Does anyone know what types of meals were served on the Concorde? Was it considered short haul?

It was on-par with long haul First Class.

No it wasn’t. Business class maybe. The whole flight was only three hours. When I rode the rocket, I had a crab starter, a shepherds pie main, and a slice of cheesecake. I will grant you that the wine list was intercontinental first, given the fare of £1 per second gate to gate and the nature of the clientele that is understandable. So the aforementioned washed down with a gallon of vintage champagne.

cedarjet wrote:

Absurd beyond belief. Fall of Rome. 4% of humans currently alive have ever flown and that includes in bush planes and military transports. We’re going to punch holes in the ozone layer so 0.1% of 4% of humanity can get from New York to Sydney in a hurry????

Honestly, if I were a billionaire that sort of thing I would pay for rather than supercars and etc. 90 minutes instead of 21 hours, that's a huge difference. No amount of luxury would be equal to time saved.

At the moment strapping a chair to an ICBM is more feasible than what is proposed but I hope somehow we will have some sort of sub-orbital transportation in our life time.

edit -typo

cpd wrote:

TMccrury wrote:

This is interesting. According to this Travel and Leisure article Venus Aerospace in Texas is developing a passenger plane that could fly from New York to Sydney in 90 minutes. It would use regular Jet Engines for take off and landing but once airborne would fire the rockets.

https://www.travelandleisure.com/venus- ... ne-7500789

I’m not going to immediately dismiss it, research into this is worthwhile and faster travel is needed badly if you live 13 hours away from any overseas destinations.

But Mach 9 is going to be really really difficult from a tech point of view.

Tom Cruise beat Mach 9 easily!

cpd wrote:

I’m not going to immediately dismiss it, research into this is worthwhile and faster travel is needed badly if you live 13 hours away from any overseas destinations.

Needed badly? Sounds like a First World Problem for a very small part (0,3%-ish) of the world population…

cedarjet wrote:

B777LRF wrote:

Ziyulu wrote:

Does anyone know what types of meals were served on the Concorde? Was it considered short haul?

It was on-par with long haul First Class.

No it wasn’t. Business class maybe. The whole flight was only three hours. When I rode the rocket, I had a crab starter, a shepherds pie main, and a slice of cheesecake. I will grant you that the wine list was intercontinental first, given the fare of £1 per second gate to gate and the nature of the clientele that is understandable. So the aforementioned washed down with a gallon of vintage champagne.

My flight (BA001) saw fine champagne, caviar, a delicious steak paired with an equally delicious red and an assortment of cheese with a very expensive port. Perhaps BA had “enhanced the experience” when you took the flight? Mine was in 1995.

Ziyulu wrote:

744SPX wrote:

manny wrote:

This is just a conspiracy by US carriers to bring long haul flying to under 2 hours so they do not have to serve any meals even in first class.

Now that, I'd believe.

Does anyone know what types of meals were served on the Concorde? Was it considered short haul?

The Concorde flew in the days when airlines actually put some effort into comfort and service. So, who knows.

I wish I had 10%... heck... 1% of the skills these Venus Aerospace people must have in making investors part with their money. I wonder who does the "due diligence" on these projects on the investors side.

TWA772LR wrote:

Another cutsie named company that has big promises that the won't deliver on and will make some headlines every now and then but nothing will happen. Then in a few years there will be an a.net thread that they went bust.

Yeah, just like SpaceX

SurlyBonds wrote:

TWA772LR wrote:

Another cutsie named company that has big promises that the won't deliver on and will make some headlines every now and then but nothing will happen. Then in a few years there will be an a.net thread that they went bust.

Yeah, just like SpaceX

For every SpaceX there are 10's if not 100's who have failed.

I am sure 30 Minute turns will be possible.

I can't quite tell from the concept pictures but it looks like a one aisle plane. I guess their research did not include reading a.net to see how many posters require two aisles to cross an ocean.

SurlyBonds wrote:

TWA772LR wrote:

Another cutsie named company that has big promises that the won't deliver on and will make some headlines every now and then but nothing will happen. Then in a few years there will be an a.net thread that they went bust.

Yeah, just like SpaceX

SpaceX's first product was a small rocket that didn't promise nor do anything revolutionary, indeed it put exactly 1 sat into orbit. The feat was that is was all new and privately developed, but nobody had any doubt that such a rocket could be made, as it was already being made by plenty of companies/government orgs.

Falcon 9 is more impressive and has evolved into something revolutionary, but SpaceX had proven itself by then.

We all know that making commercial passenger aircraft is a very expensive, very difficult process, even for established manufacturers, and for non revolutionary planes. Look how much Russia and China are struggling with it. And tell me you really believe in this.

[photoid]u[/photoid]

AirplaneWizard wrote:

It’s probably more cost effective to build an underground/sea tunnel to take you from North America to Australia. Then we can just run hyperloop trains or something all the way there.

It will be something that’s like 200 times bigger than the English Channel Tunnel

Now if the tunnel was dead straight through the planet the vehicle would both accelerate and decelerate under gravity. Would need enough power to ensure got the surface again rather then yo yo ing to a gradual demise in the centre of the earth.

Still does not answer why would anyone want to do it and suffer the most extreme jetlag possible, other then to say they had done it?

It is interesting though that extreme long haul travel is slower now then 30 years ago with the demise of the 747, and the now much increased required pre flight and transfer time for additional security measures. In 1992 with United Airlines would book Auckland to London.1 hour 30 min preflight reporting Auckland, 1 hour 40 minute transfer at LA including luggage collection, immigration processing and terminal change.
Then landslide with luggage Heathrow well inside an hour from touchdown .
747SP first leg, 747 100 second leg.

I’m guessing they’d rather give their passengers pretzels and peanuts than pay for full service catering

744SPX wrote:

strfyr51 wrote:

EA CO AS wrote:

Gee, where have I seen this before?

https://youtu.be/P65yI26hZ58

I actually saw that show, before going to work at United.

Me too.
As a 10 year old, I thought it was a pretty cool made-for-TV movie (plus it had Lee Majors in it)

Glad to see they hoped to maintain a Flight Engineer

CarlosSi wrote:

I don’t really see this as beneficial for very many…

Like how many people BADLY need to travel between New York and Sydney in just 90 minutes, and couldn’t even accept a 6 or 8 total hour trip instead?

I guess that answer is: enough people? Don’t know.

Grindr ? Lol.

MavyWavyATR wrote:

I have a feeling that this will face many of the same issues the Concorde faced regarding sonic booms and other things in that dept.

At the altitudes we are talking here, 170,000 feet, there is basically no atmosphere. The density of air at that level is less than 0.1% of sea level, and about 0.25% of normal cruising altitude. Any sonic boom would be negligible and certainly not able to be heard at ground level.

I STILL cannot get past Sassie Duggleby

https://www.linkedin.com/in/sduggleby/

deebee278 wrote:

Is anyone (besides me! ) old enough to remember an episode of the original "Twilight Zone" called "The Odyssey of Flight 33? (1961) A transatlantic flight goes uncontrollably VERY supersonic and, after some severe turbulence and assorted drama, finds themselves back to normal speed and flying over NYC, which is covered with dinosaurs. Time warp, end of first segment, cue the commercials...

I am! Not in its original run (I was born in 1966); however, I watched it voraciously in reruns. And while my favorite is "Living Doll" - "my name is Talky Tina...and you'd better be nice to me!", I always looked for the episodes with airplanes, just to see what I could identify.

"The Odyssey of Flight 33" was definitely a 707, which I found ironic, because it was a DC-8 that achieved supersonic speed: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/air-spac ... -27846699/

"Twenty-Two" with its infamous line, "room for one more, dear", was an effective (if somewhat slow) episode. My guess was always a Lockheed Constellation.

With regards to this halfway around the world in 90 minutes concept, it COULD be done, but not economically. I have my serious doubts about Boom; I have even more doubts about this.

GalaxyFlyer wrote:

This is suborbital Space Shuttle, any takers on those odds. Teleportation is more realistic.

It's perfectly realistic. Just refurb the space shuttle fleet and abort launches on purpose. You probably can ditch the solid rocket boosters since a lot less fuel will be needed not going into orbit. It's not economical as the fuel burn to do the trip that quickly would be many times the burn of a subsonic flight or even a normal supersonic flight. Tickets would be crazy expensive even if it was powered by hydrogen produced with renewable energy to appease the climate activists.

No way this is happening. It would be like the technological jump from a Ford Tri-motor to a DC-3.

Wait scratch that. More like the jump from Tri-motor to a Connie.

No, more like the jump from a Tri-motor to some fantasy vehicle that flies
5x higher, 5x faster, and 20x farther in an environment where an unprotected human’s time of useful consciousness is measured in seconds. And as long as we are dreaming, let’s say the real cost of such travel was a fraction of the per mile cost of a Tri-motor.

Such technological advances simply do not happen. Unless, of course, an AI can figure it out.

planecane wrote:

It's perfectly realistic. Just refurb the space shuttle fleet and abort launches on purpose.

No it is not realistic at all, what the hell.
The average cost of a Space Shuttle launch was $1.5 billion (for 8 astronauts). Let's say that with 2 pilots and a reduced launch cost of $1 billion (we remove the cost of in-orbit operations) we have an on-way ticket costing $170 millions. And the space shuttle fleet is not refurbishable anyway. And we should talk about the "minor" reliability issues that claimed the lives of 14 passengers.
Space is hard and human-rated vehicle design is even harder.

These are a non starter as you have a headline number in which you could travel in, say 1 hour, Sydney to New York, but you'll never be able to do that is firstly the space ports cannot be near populated areas, so you'll have to travel out to the launcher, which will add an hour minimum each way.

You'll then have to be strapped in, because when you are travelling this fast, you cannot be as free as in an airplane, they will at least add another hour on departure and landing. Then there is issues around weather and timing, so this will add to the time.

At best it will take you about 6 hours for this trip and that is if everything goes smoothly, compared to about 18 hours in a regular jet, where you can go to the toilet anytime and have meals anytime too. Rockets are also a huge magnitude more dangerous than commercial aviation, so I could see really only a select group being able to and wanting to do it and without a good amount of passengers willing to ride, it's not going to be commercially viable.

Francoflier wrote:

WesternDC6B wrote:

The climate nay -sayers will roadblock it.

Reality, economics and the laws of physics will do that well before any environmentalist ever does.

This is your typical techy cash grab, or how to pay for your unemployment by wooing ignorant Wall Street types out of their money using sci-fi technobabble.
It seems to work every time... at least for a while.

That pretty much sums it up. You can now add "CEO" on your list of bona fides. Lots of companies make hiring decisions based on LI profile titles, alas. I seriously doubt there was any intention for this to be anything else.

TVNWZ wrote:

We already have the first stage of a rocket that can launch people into space and then return and land on the pad. When you couple all previous technology, like the space shuttle, this can be very doable in the not too distant future. Technology does not stand still.

You are correct that technically it is possible. I suspect anyone who wanted to do this would need in the range of $1/2 Trillion Dollars to develop it to a passenger certified craft to USA/EU/Canada/Brazil aviation safety standards with appropriate support equipment at the lauch and landing fields.

As such, it's a non-starter. Lots of things can be done. The list is very long of the things that can be done but never are due to the cost. I don't know anyone with a real money tree.

Have a great day,

2175301 wrote:

TVNWZ wrote:

We already have the first stage of a rocket that can launch people into space and then return and land on the pad. When you couple all previous technology, like the space shuttle, this can be very doable in the not too distant future. Technology does not stand still.

You are correct that technically it is possible. I suspect anyone who wanted to do this would need in the range of $1/2 Trillion Dollars to develop it to a passenger certified craft to USA/EU/Canada/Brazil aviation safety standards with appropriate support equipment at the lauch and landing fields.

As such, it's a non-starter. Lots of things can be done. The list is very long of the things that can be done but never are due to the cost. I don't know anyone with a real money tree.

Have a great day,

Yep, suffice to say even Musk wouldn't go for this.

LaunchDetected wrote:

planecane wrote:

It's perfectly realistic. Just refurb the space shuttle fleet and abort launches on purpose.

No it is not realistic at all, what the hell.
The average cost of a Space Shuttle launch was $1.5 billion (for 8 astronauts). Let's say that with 2 pilots and a reduced launch cost of $1 billion (we remove the cost of in-orbit operations) we have an on-way ticket costing $170 millions. And the space shuttle fleet is not refurbishable anyway. And we should talk about the "minor" reliability issues that claimed the lives of 14 passengers.
Space is hard and human-rated vehicle design is even harder.

Realistic and practical are two different things. It isn't financially practical but it is realistic from the standpoint of that it is more than possible to achieve the goal and could have been done with 1970s rocket technology. When Starship stops destroying the launch pad and breaking itself with the debris, the same flight can be accomplished with much lower cost by SpaceX. Again, tickets would be ridiculously expensive but it is certainly something that can be realistically accomplished.

I wasn't actually suggesting that the Space Shuttle fleet be taken out of mothballs for this purpose. I was just illustrating that the feat could be accomplished with existing technology.

We all want to laugh at this kind of news, perhaps with good reason. But let's remember that when the pioneers of aviation began to talk about the possibility of making flight possible for large numbers of passengers and goods, they were first mocked and jeered by their public, before gaining respect and admiration.
I'm surprised that on a site like this, which is supposed to bring together aviation enthusiasts, we encounter so much pessimism and negativism. Perhaps it says something about our times....

airproxx wrote:

We all want to laugh at this kind of news, perhaps with good reason. But let's remember that when the pioneers of aviation began to talk about the possibility of making flight possible for large numbers of passengers and goods, they were first mocked and jeered by their public, before gaining respect and admiration.
I'm surprised that on a site like this, which is supposed to bring together aviation enthusiasts, we encounter so much pessimism and negativism. Perhaps it says something about our times....

Rocket propulsion came into being before jets. Rockets found it's niche - military and space - and feel limited competition there.
There is a very good theoretical understanding of advantages and disadvantages of the rocket vs other engine types - turbine, different non-turbine jets. Especially in terms of fuel burn and energy consumption.
With all that.. Enthusiasm is good, education is even better.

Think about it in such a way - business case for supersonic flight had been reduction of crew hours/costs at a cost of higher fuel burn. It was a solid one with cheap fuel, crushed by increase of energy price.
Now fast forward, rocket spends more energy to do same thing - but fuel prices are even higher than they were... Which gives?

45272455674 wrote:

I’m not going to immediately dismiss it, research into this is worthwhile and faster travel is needed badly if you live 13 hours away from any overseas destinations.

Is it, though? With telecommunications now in the advanced state they are, I've had multiple meetings with people across the country (in my industry, international business is pretty uncommon). The main driver of commercial aviation has been business travel until 2020 hit. Suddenly, everyone realized that for most meetings, videoconferencing works just fine. Even within my own company where a meeting might be a 10 minute drive from my office, we've gone to mostly Zoom meetings because that 20 minutes of commuting to a meeting is 20 minutes I could instead be seeing patients.

When business travel is needed, airlines have made business classes comfortable enough that even an 18 hour flight isn't too awful. Yes, it's awful in Y, but those passengers may be mostly leisure and aren't in a huge rush to get anywhere.

There are some major issues with this flight, leaving aside the technical concerns: 1) It's going to be jaw-droppingly expensive. It won't shock me if it costs as much as a flight in The Residence or even a private jet. 2) There is a 10 hour time difference between JFK and SYD. So I get on a space plane at JFK at 6AM and arrive at SYD two hours later (accounting for taxi time and whatnot) and it is 10PM there. There just isn't a good schedule where you can leave and arrive at a reasonable hour to conduct business. At least with Zoom, I can do the meeting at 10PM from home after having dinner with my family and then go straight to bed.

Sorry, but I don't see this going anywhere fast.

Perhaps they could convince New Pacific Airlines to be their launch customer, that to me would make perfect business sense.