Progress in aviation has traditionally been associated with speed. Following the Wright Brothers’ flight in 1903, aircraft speeds steadily increased each decade, and increasing aircraft speeds was one of the primary goals of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NASA’s predecessor).
A great many of the phenomena this newsletter discusses can be explained by the "project/product" dichotomy. Some fields of endeavor just remain stuck in the "project" phase of the learning curve, in which everything is boutique and production too small-scale to learn and improve by iterating endlessly, let alone to defray the upfront costs of tooling and capital plant.
Cars and appliances bridged that gap pretty quickly after their inception, with some government support in the form of road-building and rural/public electrification. Semiconductors got there with a greater proportion of government support (if I recall correctly the Apollo Program was the single largest global consumer of integrated circuits in the 1960's) and then took on a life of their own as commercial applications emerged widely in response to falling costs, as did solar PV.
Conventional commercial aircraft are *just barely* close enough to a mass market product that jetliners can be produced (somewhat) profitably by a handful of firms with lots of hiccups and screw-ups and ongoing government subsidy in the form of military R&D and contracting.
Supersonic civil aircraft are not, at present, a mass market. They have the potential to one day become a mass market, but only if someone gets basically every decision in the development tree right while operating on a relative shoestring of venture capital funding, so that the first "project" iteration of the eventual "product" shows sufficient promise to justify continued investment.
I don't know enough to guess what the chances of that are, but I can't see them being very good for any individual effort.
The most attractive use case for supersonic aircraft is on very long haul flights - the US east coast to East Asia or the Middle East, or southern Africa or Australia to pretty much anywhere. The problem is that foreseeable supersonic aircraft won't have the range of subsonic ones, throwing away much of that advantage.
Sydney-London direct flights are expected to start in 2025 and will take 20 hours. That's a significant time saving compared to the current stopover routes (most commonly via Singapore, Bangkok or Dubai) but it's still a pretty unappealing proposition in economy class!
If you could do a non-stop flight on a Mach 2 airliner it becomes a 9-10 hour trip. Still not a barrel of laughs but a) much more pleasant, and b) it saves you nearly a day of total travel time.
The savings on shorter routes such as New York-London are undoubtedly nice but not nearly as material in terms of total door-to-door travel time. However, the majority of the world's international aviation is medium-haul routes around the northern hemisphere rather than the slog to the Antipodes.
Maybe the North America-Asia market is large and lucrative enough, and the routes long enough, to support these aircraft. But I remain doubtful they will be built this time around, particularly with the likely cost crunch facing the airline industry when they switch to sustainable fuels.
"Supersonic transport (SST) projects have thus far the unfortunate distinction of being some of the largest commercial failures in aviation history, though a new crop of aviation startups is hoping to change this."
Just one point; apart from the horrible crash, Concorde suffered a high level of non-fatal faults during flying. If you look at the record (can’t find it now) I think you will discover approx. 15 to 30(?) incidents, e.g. parts falling off. I believe it’s the highest ever for any modern passenger plane per plane or miles flown.
If the incident rate of, say, a 747 were as high, I reckon they would have been grounded. Which leads me to the conclusion that there was insufficient oversight and investigative journalism in play.
Even the Paris crash was prefigured by an earlier incident when the tyre shredded and passed through the wing without hitting anything vital – thereby a shocking opportunity was missed.
I never flew on the Concorde, but I had a much richer relation who did. He said that the champagne was good, but that the cabin was uncomfortably warm at supersonic speeds. If you have the money, it probably makes more sense to just buy, lease or jet-share a private jet. It might be no faster than flying commercial, but it can be very comfortable. Private jet technology has come a long way too. (It's also nice to skip the TSA stuff and fly into more pleasant, less crowded airports.)
"Supersonic transport (SST) projects have thus far the unfortunate distinction of being some of the largest commercial failures in aviation history, though a new crop of aviation startups is hoping to change this."
Very unfortunate phrasing. It sounds like the startups are trying to be even larger commercial failures. I suggest "...a new crop of aviation startups is hoping to succeed where they failed."
Very nice writeup. I wasn't aware of all the history, but this explanation clearly explains the impossible economics of the project.
I've been aware of various proposals to make some "new" supersonic transport. The ones I've seen seem focused on the business jet segment. I can understand the thought that people who can afford a business jet won't be as sensitive to fuel and operating costs. But, the business jet segment is pretty small, and the development costs are not much less than for a new airliner. Which would mean billions of dollars of design and certification costs (even if no new technology needs to be developed) amortized over perhaps 100 aircraft per year. This would make the purchase price of the jet much higher than for a conventional jet, once again making the economics very difficult. And if the noise problem can't be solved, we're back to very limited over-water routes, which is not a recipe for success for a business jet.
Still, the dream persists. I don't understand why it attracts serious investment capital.
Why don't they just "lob" a passenger cabin across the Atlantic in 1 hour of flight time, to land on it's own rockets like SpaceX? Surely that is the future....very expensive.....but doable?
Because they were not a World War III winning technology which would move tens of thousands of soldiers to Europe to beat back those drunk liars from Moscow.
A great many of the phenomena this newsletter discusses can be explained by the "project/product" dichotomy. Some fields of endeavor just remain stuck in the "project" phase of the learning curve, in which everything is boutique and production too small-scale to learn and improve by iterating endlessly, let alone to defray the upfront costs of tooling and capital plant.
Cars and appliances bridged that gap pretty quickly after their inception, with some government support in the form of road-building and rural/public electrification. Semiconductors got there with a greater proportion of government support (if I recall correctly the Apollo Program was the single largest global consumer of integrated circuits in the 1960's) and then took on a life of their own as commercial applications emerged widely in response to falling costs, as did solar PV.
Conventional commercial aircraft are *just barely* close enough to a mass market product that jetliners can be produced (somewhat) profitably by a handful of firms with lots of hiccups and screw-ups and ongoing government subsidy in the form of military R&D and contracting.
Supersonic civil aircraft are not, at present, a mass market. They have the potential to one day become a mass market, but only if someone gets basically every decision in the development tree right while operating on a relative shoestring of venture capital funding, so that the first "project" iteration of the eventual "product" shows sufficient promise to justify continued investment.
I don't know enough to guess what the chances of that are, but I can't see them being very good for any individual effort.
I have maintained that SST is made obsolete by wifi on planes
"Via great planning disasters (redo as actual graph)"
Guessing this was a note to self and not meant to make it into the final article?
The most attractive use case for supersonic aircraft is on very long haul flights - the US east coast to East Asia or the Middle East, or southern Africa or Australia to pretty much anywhere. The problem is that foreseeable supersonic aircraft won't have the range of subsonic ones, throwing away much of that advantage.
Sydney-London direct flights are expected to start in 2025 and will take 20 hours. That's a significant time saving compared to the current stopover routes (most commonly via Singapore, Bangkok or Dubai) but it's still a pretty unappealing proposition in economy class!
If you could do a non-stop flight on a Mach 2 airliner it becomes a 9-10 hour trip. Still not a barrel of laughs but a) much more pleasant, and b) it saves you nearly a day of total travel time.
The savings on shorter routes such as New York-London are undoubtedly nice but not nearly as material in terms of total door-to-door travel time. However, the majority of the world's international aviation is medium-haul routes around the northern hemisphere rather than the slog to the Antipodes.
Maybe the North America-Asia market is large and lucrative enough, and the routes long enough, to support these aircraft. But I remain doubtful they will be built this time around, particularly with the likely cost crunch facing the airline industry when they switch to sustainable fuels.
"Supersonic transport (SST) projects have thus far the unfortunate distinction of being some of the largest commercial failures in aviation history, though a new crop of aviation startups is hoping to change this."
Is the double meaning here intentional?
What a fantastic article, thank you! An SR-71 is on display at the Air Zoo in Kalamazoo Michigan, worth laying eyes on if you ever get the chance.
Excellent review!
Just one point; apart from the horrible crash, Concorde suffered a high level of non-fatal faults during flying. If you look at the record (can’t find it now) I think you will discover approx. 15 to 30(?) incidents, e.g. parts falling off. I believe it’s the highest ever for any modern passenger plane per plane or miles flown.
If the incident rate of, say, a 747 were as high, I reckon they would have been grounded. Which leads me to the conclusion that there was insufficient oversight and investigative journalism in play.
Even the Paris crash was prefigured by an earlier incident when the tyre shredded and passed through the wing without hitting anything vital – thereby a shocking opportunity was missed.
I never flew on the Concorde, but I had a much richer relation who did. He said that the champagne was good, but that the cabin was uncomfortably warm at supersonic speeds. If you have the money, it probably makes more sense to just buy, lease or jet-share a private jet. It might be no faster than flying commercial, but it can be very comfortable. Private jet technology has come a long way too. (It's also nice to skip the TSA stuff and fly into more pleasant, less crowded airports.)
"Supersonic transport (SST) projects have thus far the unfortunate distinction of being some of the largest commercial failures in aviation history, though a new crop of aviation startups is hoping to change this."
Very unfortunate phrasing. It sounds like the startups are trying to be even larger commercial failures. I suggest "...a new crop of aviation startups is hoping to succeed where they failed."
Very nice writeup. I wasn't aware of all the history, but this explanation clearly explains the impossible economics of the project.
I've been aware of various proposals to make some "new" supersonic transport. The ones I've seen seem focused on the business jet segment. I can understand the thought that people who can afford a business jet won't be as sensitive to fuel and operating costs. But, the business jet segment is pretty small, and the development costs are not much less than for a new airliner. Which would mean billions of dollars of design and certification costs (even if no new technology needs to be developed) amortized over perhaps 100 aircraft per year. This would make the purchase price of the jet much higher than for a conventional jet, once again making the economics very difficult. And if the noise problem can't be solved, we're back to very limited over-water routes, which is not a recipe for success for a business jet.
Still, the dream persists. I don't understand why it attracts serious investment capital.
Why don't they just "lob" a passenger cabin across the Atlantic in 1 hour of flight time, to land on it's own rockets like SpaceX? Surely that is the future....very expensive.....but doable?
I just flew in from London and BOY are my arms tired!
Try the veal, and don’t forget to tip your waitress…
> needed to be in service for at 30,000 flight hours
Typo, missing "least".
electrify airplanes. problem solved. just like electric cars.
/jk
What an amazing and fantastic essay. Thank you!
Because they were not a World War III winning technology which would move tens of thousands of soldiers to Europe to beat back those drunk liars from Moscow.