Boeing Unveils Plans for Hypersonic Airliner: London to New York in Two Hours

Megalith

Megalith

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Boeing is working on a jet that could fly at five times the speed of sound, cutting the journey time between London and New York to around two hours. A top speed of more than 3,800mph would allow trips across the Atlantic in around 120 minutes, while a flight crossing the Pacific would take roughly three hours.

Boeing says it hopes to have the aircraft in service by the late 2030s at the earliest, but warned the project could potentially take a decade longer. The company has stepped up its research in hypersonic flight in recent months and unveiled designs for an intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) military jet capable of reaching Mach 5 in January.
 
Megalith said:
Boeing is working on a jet that could fly at five times the speed of sound, cutting the journey time between London and New York to around two hours. A top speed of more than 3,800mph would allow trips across the Atlantic in around 120 minutes, while a flight crossing the Pacific would take roughly three hours.

Boeing says it hopes to have the aircraft in service by the late 2030s at the earliest, but warned the project could potentially take a decade longer. The company has stepped up its research in hypersonic flight in recent months and unveiled designs for an intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) military jet capable of reaching Mach 5 in January.
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The nice thing is that I have 20-30 years to save for this.
 
Wasn't the Concorde banned because it was too loud and the sonic booms were... sonic booms?
Deep-Thinker.gif
 
I'm wondering how they plan to handle the thermal expansion problems. The SR-71/YF-12 required refuelling after takeoff and very explicit material designs to avoid structural failure at speed.

Even though kids like to pretend we've had landslide advancements in physics and science over the last 40 years.. well physics is still a "B*itch" Capital B and in quotes. There are hard failure points thermally that require exotic or god damn expensive materials for one. For another fuel efficiency and nozzle shape become far more important the faster you travel.

Even with computers, you are talking a ton of horsepower to keep everything in tune to maintain Mach 5 and I am only approaching this from a Physics point of view, not an aerospace one. I can see a military application for such an aircraft but they would truly surprise me if they actually put paying passengers on such a thing.
 
I guess if it'll be comercial by then, military must already be playing around with some pretty neat designs
 
Megalith said:
Boeing is working on a jet that could fly at five times the speed of sound, cutting the journey time between London and New York to around two hours. A top speed of more than 3,800mph would allow trips across the Atlantic in around 120 minutes, while a flight crossing the Pacific would take roughly three hours.

Boeing says it hopes to have the aircraft in service by the late 2030s at the earliest, but warned the project could potentially take a decade longer. The company has stepped up its research in hypersonic flight in recent months and unveiled designs for an intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) military jet capable of reaching Mach 5 in January.
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So basically 80 years later, we finally catch up with the avro arrow?
 
These stories pop up every decade and then Boeing realizes that the cost of oil fluctuates and cancels the project.
 
pcgeekesq said:
By the time a prototype of this plane rolls out, SpaceX plans to be flying BFRs from London to New York in 30 minutes.

But either way, you're still going to spend 3+ hours in the airports.
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I see this as Boeing trying to pull an "Intel 28-core 5ghz" on SpaceX by trying to leverage Boeing as being a "safer" bet.
 
cyberguyz said:
Wasn't the Concorde banned because it was too loud and the sonic booms were... sonic booms? View attachment 85390
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It was banned for overland flight, which made it non-commercially viable. NASA and others have been doing a LOT of research into finding ways to mitigate or redirect sonic booms so you get at most a light *thunk*, so you can use hypersonic planes overland.
 
ZiggyDeath said:
I see this as Boeing trying to pull an "Intel 28-core 5ghz" on SpaceX by trying to leverage Boeing as being a "safer" bet.
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They're not even comparable in the slightest.

Besides, Boeing has a great history with civil transport. SpaceX has nothing.
 
Always like Boeing as a company, and wish too see it become one of the most valuable companies in the world.
I do not even own its stock. Maybe I should.
 
cyberguyz said:
Wasn't the Concorde banned because it was too loud and the sonic booms were... sonic booms? View attachment 85390
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Going 5 times the speed of sound will require most likely leaving the atmosphere partly. If the SR-71 had to be built from titanium due to heating up to 1200° and leaking fuel like a siphon when cold, almost double the speed inside the atmosphere doesn't sound very plausible.
 
Didn't Boeing had a prototype but never got off due to the cost? What makes them think this is cost effective


Edit.. Nevermind I misread the title, "hypersonic"
 
B00nie said:
Going 5 times the speed of sound will require most likely leaving the atmosphere partly. If the SR-71 had to be built from titanium due to heating up to 1200° and leaking fuel like a siphon when cold, almost double the speed inside the atmosphere doesn't sound very plausible.
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Hypersonic testing has been going on for over a decade. NASA is in Guiness with this flight at Mach 10.

A precursor to a joint venture to move the technology into the private sector.
Here is a more recent test involving a US/Austrailian venture.
A different take on the above.

These are just a few of the tests that have been conducted. They are pretty far along in the design and implementation of hypersonic planes.
 
Hypersonic flight in the atmosphere is entirely possible(rockets anyone?). The technical challenges are in the odd quirks of differing atmosphere pressure and nozzle shape and thermal expansion of the frame. This is compounded by the reality that a "direct" flight (Read: Straight line not orbital) is often the fastest which increases the importance of those first two factors. Hypersonic is not very uncommon to a rocket and there is plenty of written material out there going over the effects of the air pressure of bell design(ever wonder why we used multi-stage rockets?).

The main challenge to anyone trying this is ultimately the truth that to put a paying passanger on the thing you have to have a damn near zero failure rate. That means from the tires(a common failure point of the SR-71 et others) to the engines flaming out has to be effectively zero. In a military situation, it is acceptable for every tenth launch to crater 500 feet from the runway as long as the mission profile is still considered more valuable than the hardware and lives. For commercial flights, reliability and a general understanding that the airframe will be under maintinanced are two factors that just scare the crap out of me when passengers are concerned.
 
30 years???? Um, not gonna happen. This is just PR fodder.
 
Really, what's the point of pushing air/gas around at that speed. Sounds like a real drag. You know what a real drag is? Walking a dog with no legs. That's a real drag. Suborbital is the only thing that makes sense. Just the acceleration would kill 50% of the passengers from the g-forces and if you took the time to accelerate to that speed it would be sustained for all of ten minutes. If you want to have speed stick to the OC on your preferred platform.
 
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