Hey, I had both the book and record of Harold and the Purple Crayon.
The colors do tricks
when you know how to mix
your red, yellow, and blue!
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In your shoes Iâd think on how often Iâd like to take it for a spin and how much time I really have to take it for a spin.
Bottom Line: Think of it as a boat.
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That ripped jacket! 
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Been up there a couple of times (by car), once to see the sun rise, which was spectacular.
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One user on X said the jet deserved Indian citizenship as it had been in the country long enough, while another suggested that India should start charging rent and that the Kohinoor diamond would be the most appropriate payment.
My immediate thoughts went to a faulty âkill switch.â
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How about using hypersonic transports to deliver needed FEMA aid and international disaster relief toâŠoh. Right. Not nowadays.
âCenter for Biological Diversityâ. Just having the D-word in there is the killer.
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This is just just good old point-to-point with what are basically SSTOs.1) Which they have been faffing around with, on and off, since the late 1950ies. Which even if somebody finally manages to hit the sweet spot between dry mass, engine power, fuel requirements, payload, range, workable flight trajectories, cost ⊠still doesnât address the elephant in the room: infrastructure.
Those things are supposed to be able to land anywhere in the world in the middle of nowhere, i.e. decidedly not at an airport or whatever, and be able to fly back to base from there. Thatâs the whole selling point. Get materiel and personnel somewhere a cargo plane canât go to, fast.2)
⊠and then check a bunch of complicated and delicate systems for flight readiness, possibly make minor repairs like replacing tiles from the heat shield, then refuel with tons and tons and tons of either highly toxic storables or cryogenics in the field ⊠Sounds like fun!
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1) Single Stage To Orbit. Configured as a rocket. Space planes are out for this particular use case - anywhere you can land a space plane, you can land a fleet of huge cargo planes.
2) Not counting the time it takes to prepare for launch, obviously.
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Iâm thinking along the lines of hypersonic a/c (not ssto) being developed now for cargo/passenger service and with their intention to use existing airports. And yes, said airports would need to accommodate such aircraft; big "if there, and especially when considering sonic booms. Yes. Lots of moving parts: aero/engines/logistics/locations/politics. (You likely already know that NASA and one or two others are trying to work the aerodynamic aspects; one has already met some success re sonic boom mitigation. Thereâs one company (thank you, Ivett Leyva!) Hyperianâs HYPERLiner Cargo thatâs working along those lines. I believe that humanitarian and military missions are part of their spiel. 100% dedicated starting points for the a/c wouldnât have to be in every state (FEMA large-scale supply warehouses are in only four states, and from there (or nearby) aircraft could set out. As with all things in the research phase, all remains to be seen.
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This started out about the Johnston Atoll not being used (for the time being) for testing rockets, but okay, things with wings (or lifting bodies) are just as interesting.
A somewhat unstructured rant.
Anything large-ish with wings flying suborbital at hypersonic speeds while being capable of carrying any payloads to speak of (i.e. more than just the equivalent of one warhead) across continents is some variant or other of SĂ€nger & Bredtâs Silbervogel. A concept thatâs ~90 years old. There arenât any yet. Arguably you might count the Space Shuttle if you squint hard, but ⊠Well, you know.
Throwing in âweâll use hydrogenâ and âitâs AI-drivenâ changes neither the physics, nor the economics that need to be dealt with. (Again with the infrastructure and logistics, he growled.)
Unless AI actually comes up with the unobtanium-style materials with the magical properties required (instead of just hallucinating them) this is a very long and very steep road.
The only way to get any serious funding (money and the time to spend it) for projects like this is getting the military interested. Economics can always take the back seat in military projects; at least initially. I.e. until the project doesnât deliver on the hype overly optimistic projections and wilts in the bright light of the next hot thing. At this point, budgetary considerations are the perfect instrument to cull it.
As âLetâs build new instruments of death and destruction, muahaha!â tends to throw off some people, adding âIt can be used for humanitarian stuff, too!â to the pitch usually takes care of that, and piling on with âThere may even be commercial applications as well!â wonât hurt either.
Hyperian Aerospaceâs VTOL âSKYLIFTâ proposals look very much like the Rolls-Royce Griffith Supersonic VTO Airliners. A concept thatâs ~50 years old. I wonder why they never built one.
As to FEMA missions and the like, I canât see concepts like Hyperianâs HYPERLiner Cargo doing anything that canât be done now with freight planes and helicopters. Maybe a shorter initial response time, but in âtotal stuff hauled over time and distanceâ metrics? No way.
Speaking of Hyperian, nice renderings and buzzword heavy PR blurb on LinkedIn and their homepage ⊠Yeah, Iâm totally convinced already.
As to the current projects to have another go at super sonic transport, thereâs another lengthy rant about it up thread.
So Iâll just point out that Boomâs concept looks very interesting, but it would carry about half the number of passengers at slower speeds than Concorde.
A lot less passengers a lot less faster than what Boeing tried to build and what Lockheed and North American proposed to build.
Boom has successfully flown a one-seater x-plane as proof of concept for âquietâ super sonic flight. And then retired it, which doesnât make sense to me. Thereâs bound to be a lot of interesting data still to collect.
Anyway, at the moment Boom has optimistically maybe 10% of the money theyâll need to scale up the proof of concept into an actual airliner witch can carry ~50 passengers. And it looks like theyâll also have to develop their own engines on top of the airframe. Unless they get a huge infusion of cash soon, Boom is dead but hasnât stopped moving yet.
Yes, several airlines have said theyâd love to buy some supersonic planes once theyâre produced - but they wonât put any money into the development. Except the sonic boom theyâd also face all the problems Concorde had, and weâre back to the economics just not working out. Boom have some projections that look good on paper, but those are based around building ~1,000 units. Yeah, right.
Boom has also pitched the Overture to the Air Force as VIP transport or maybe even the new Air Force One, but I canât see this happen. Because the logistics involved, thereâd be nothing to gain whatsoever compared to what they can do with what they have now.
I might shut up about it when I finally get my Spandex jacket. Maybe.
Ah, what am I saying. Itâll come in the wrong size and a hideous colour scheme, wonât it.
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Find out who shortened the floor. Check for any kind of warranty, receipt. Inspect the join top and bottom.
(Obviously, if it is not a v-shape, walk away immediately).
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Well by seventy-six thirty-six weâll be A-O.K
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Whether SSTO or air-breathing a/c : We donât want big zoom-zooms leading to boom-booms.
(Iâve just reminded myself of an early Boeing SST conceptual diagram marked up with personal observations by one of the principal engineers. He drew an arrow pointing at the aircraftâs nose and with this written in: âNice and pointy.â)
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This F1 car had a P&W jet engine. Not as much HP though, considering. BTW: The first pic appears to be a diecast model.
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Watch it peel off from the curb!
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