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Aviation History
2003
2003 - 0325.PDF
Future of flight SPEED BARRIER In the second of a monthly series marking the centennial of flight, we look at how commercial airliners will develop over the next 100 years GRAHAM WARWICK / WASHINGTON DC THE FIRST 100 YEARS A century of moving people 1919 Junkers F13 flies-first all- metal airliner 1926 Ford 4ATTri-Motor flies-first US all-metal airliner 1933 Boeing 247 flies-first "mod ern" all-metal monoplane air- -* liner """tiBj"1 1955 Sud Aviation Caravelle flies - first rear-engined jetliner 1962 de Havilland Trident flies - first trijet airliner 1967 Boeing 737 flies- highest selling post-war airliner 1938 Douglas DC-3 flies - most successful pre-war airliner 1938 Boeing 307 Stratoliner flies -first pressurised airliner 1943 Lockheed 049 Constellation flies - first long-range air liner 1969 Aerospatiale/BAC Concorde flies - first supersonic air liner to enter service • Boeing 747 flies - first widebody air liner 1970 Airbus Industrie formed 1971 Boeing 2707 supersonic trans port cancelled i1972 Airbus A300 > flies-first widebody twinjet 1949 de Havilland Comet flies-first 1982 jet airliner 1984 Comet grounded after crashes -fatigue analysis born • Boeing "Dash 80" flies - 707 proto type 1988 TupolevTu-104 flies-first twinjet airliner structure 1987 Airbus A320 flies - first digital fly-by-wire airliner Breaking the sound barrier was once as impossible as travelling faster than light. Beginning with the Wright brothers' first flight, it took aviation 44 years to reach Mach 1, six more to exceed M2, and another 14 to reach the M6.7 speed record that still stands, 36 years later. Today only one civil aircraft can exceed the speed of sound and only a handful can fly faster than M0.9. Has civil aviation hit the speed barrier? The new century opened to the debate over speed versus size. After Airbus launch ed the A380 large airliner in 2000, Boeing abandoned its competing 747-X and tried to interest airlines in the smaller, but faster Sonic Cruiser. The US manufacturer argued that the projected growth in inter national point-to-point services would favour speed over size. Late in 2002, Boeing bowed to the increasingly inevitable and shelved the M0.98 Sonic Cruiser in favour of the Super Efficient Airplane, the dark horse "refer ence" design that had stalked the Sonic since its unveiling in 2001. While Boeing was confident the Sonic could match the 767's operating costs, applying the same technology to the slower Super Efficient resulted in operating costs 15-20% lower than the 767's. For airlines struggling to cut costs, the choice was obvious. Cost over speed It was not the first time that lower cost had won out over higher speed, nor is it likely to be the last. Even before 11 September, the air transport industry was heading in the direction of lower production and operating costs, and lower noise and emis sions. Speed, for the foreseeable future, is not a priority. For speed freaks, the writing may have been on the wall as early as the first gener ation of jet airliners. Convair's 880/990 could cruise at M0.87, but was outsold by the slower Boeing 707 and Douglas DC-8. The Aerospatiale/BAC Concorde first flew in the same year as the Boeing 747, but air lines voted for the mass-transit mathemat ics of the jumbo jet over the elitist eco nomics of the supersonic airliner. The 747 did at least raise the speed bar for subsonic airliners, to M0.85, where it remains. The USA's attempt to outdo the Concorde - the 234-passenger, M2.7 Boeing 2707 - was cancelled in 1971 fol lowing the withdrawal of US government funding in the face of environmental objections. Research continued, led by NASA, and evolved into the High Speed Civil Transport (HSCT) - a 309-seat, M2.4 airliner that was intended to have the eco nomics that would bring supersonic travel within reach of the mass market. 34 11-17 FEBRUARY 2003 FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL www.fliqhtinternational.com
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