Cartman
just made by the Presbyterian Church
Member # 256
posted
Bummer. I thought they were R&D'ing it concurrently to the 7E7 (which, when all's said and done, is just another flying pencil), but the lack of updates should have clued me in, I guess.
Registered: Nov 1999
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quote:Originally posted by Cartman: Forget supersonic. I want trans-atmospheric spaceplanes with a cruise speed of mach 15 and a twenty-thousand mile range. London to Tokyio in 90 minutes, baby. Death to the aircows.
Yeah! Then only a slim fraction of the impossibly small percebtage of people that could afford the Concord would pay even more money to fly on the new uber-plane.
I was watching a program on the Concord the other night and they recalled that British Airways surveyed the Concxord's passengers nad found that most were so wealthy that they had no idea how much their air fare they were paying, but they also thought they were paying far more than the airline was actually charging.
So British Airways raised the fare to meet their expectations.
So much for the adverage joe ever flying supersonic.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
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posted
So much for why Airbus - like Boeing - doesn't bother to develop such a plane...
-------------------- Lister: Don't give me the "Star Trek" crap! It's too early in the morning. - Red Dwarf "The Last Day"
Registered: Nov 1999
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-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
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posted
I think we'll find there's no point in developping a supersonic troop transport if there's no practical way to move the thousands of tons of logistics they need to go with 'em.
quote:Originally posted by Mark Nguyen: I think we'll find there's no point in developping a supersonic troop transport if there's no practical way to move the thousands of tons of logistics they need to go with 'em.
Mark
No need for troops to be delivered supersonically: not when all that precious space can be filled with snuggly-wuggly-cluster-bombs.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
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posted
Yeah, and the plane flies so fast that when they try to drop their bombs over Iraq the manage to hit the ground in California - while the plane is already well over the Atlantic...
-------------------- Lister: Don't give me the "Star Trek" crap! It's too early in the morning. - Red Dwarf "The Last Day"
Registered: Nov 1999
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posted
They'll just drop ball bearings and BB's at that speed.
Or for some real fun: Wonder Balls.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
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posted
(Nim, you ought to read the novel Singularity Sky, by Charles Stross, because a.) it is pretty good, and b.) it features something similar. It has some first novel stylistic quirks that can be a little annoying ((Such as a reliance on a few well-traveled metaphors.)), but I think I can heartily recommend it anyway.)
[I thought I could find the first paragraph online, but no dice. Anyway, it involves a travelling fleet in the business of information trading, and for novel bits of data they're willing to provide any material good imaginable. [[Sure, they wind up disassembling a few moons to get at the raw materials, but you can't make an omelet, etc.]] The book opens with them dropping telephones from orbit onto a planet tightly controlled by a sort of Tsarist regime, promising wonders in exchange for cultural trivia, or songs, or whatever.]
Registered: Mar 1999
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No need for troops to be delivered supersonically: not when all that precious space can be filled with snuggly-wuggly-cluster-bombs.
They already tried that with the XB-70 Valkyie; it was eventually figured that a mach-3 bomber would be pretty redundant in the days of the forever-faster ICBMs, and even now something travelling any faster than mach-2 woulnd't get you very far with a suitable bomb load. Hence, why even the Mach-2 B-58s didn't last too long, and why the B-52 is still in service. If you want something fast with lots of bombs, hop in an B-1 or an F/A-111. If there are any of those left, that is.
posted
Or just drop Hubble on them from orbit. That'll teach 'em!
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
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quote:Originally posted by B.J.: The Sonic Cruiser has been dead for a while now, since they decided to go forward with the 7E7 concept.
Of course, given that one of the technology partners mentioned is "Stork Fokker Aerostructures", the abandonment of the concept is not much of a surprise. Stork fokking is not an effective means of passenger transport, and furthermore can interrupt the emergence of future passengers by preventing the stork from delivering them.
-------------------- . . . ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.
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