How can we make clean-green airplanes that travel as fast as typical passenger jets?

[belchfire]

Since time has not always been I'm going to have to disagree with the omnipotence you give it and nature is merely mankind's feeble attempt to describe what in not under whatever control delusions allow us to believe we have.

And what airliner speed are we talking about? Thunderguppies and Airbuses (they're like real buses only slower!) or 74, (76 can step along but is a bit slower) 77 and 78 speeds? There can be a difference of up to 20% of the speed of sound and perhaps more if one considers minimum buffet margin (I don't know what speed the 73 and AB's will fall out of the sky at, only what they normally plod around clotting up the airspace at!)...

 

[guy_liking_pretty_planes]

Since time has not always been I'm going to have to disagree with the omnipotence you give it and nature is merely mankind's feeble attempt to describe what in not under whatever control delusions allow us to believe we have.

And what airliner speed are we talking about? Thunderguppies and Airbuses (they're like real buses only slower!) or 74, (76 can step along but is a bit slower) 77 and 78 speeds? There can be a difference of up to 20% of the speed of sound and perhaps more if one considers minimum buffet margin (I don't know what speed the 73 and AB's will fall out of the sky at, only what they normally plod around clotting up the airspace at!)...

I'm talking about 75% Mach speeds or higher. What is the typical cruising airspeed of a Boeing 747? The Concorde? What about fighter jets? I don't know of any aircraft carrying man that can travel at these speeds (near or exceeding the sound barrier) without non-renewable energy sources as fossil fuels, hydrocarbons. Private jets are generally advertised at 0.90 Mach. The total depletion of fossil fuels might certainly end high speed air travel as we know it. I don't think propeller-driven airplanes can be designed to carry man at these speeds. What is the airspeed record for a totally-battery-electric-powered aircraft carrying man on board? Also, what are the ranges of travel? Necessity is the mother of all invention. Feasibility makes it happen. The challenge to man is to find FEASIBLE alternative energy. If Mother Nature had wanted man to fly, well, he would have been born with wings.

 

[belchfire]

I don't know what Econ speed on the Concord was (it wasn't M 2.2, that's for sure!) and nothing about them was economical-they were a "statement", we had the Apollo missions, Britain and France had Concord and I'm not sure a "fleet" of six prototypes and fourteen production aircraft delivered to two national carriers counts in the discussion. I know that normal cruise on the F-14 was about M .84 not sure about anything newer-piston WWII fighters would cruise about 140-160 kts depending on which one. Depending on weight, altitude and Cost Index, Econ on the 74 will be M .82-M .85...the Big Lady is Fast! I know the 77 is capable of those speeds but I'm not sure what "normal" is and that the 78 is no slouch in the cruise speed arena.

I don't remember what the unducted fan aircraft were projected to cruise at but the CFM-56 and other electronically controlled high bypass fan engines killed that evolutionary branch of propulsion technology.

The answer lay in advanced physics...when we learn to divide by zero or discover math that lacks the point discontinuity, whole new possibilities await!

Only God Almighty can explain the first few moments of the big bang because He (and She because God embodies both) can actually divide by zero and create a big bang...

I'm not sure man deserves that amount of power-we sure as hell don't at this point in time!

 

[guy_liking_pretty_planes]

Then Father Time will tell then what the future will really bring. Perhaps some aliens will someday save us. The Big Lady is fast until Mother Earth runs out of gas.

What does tomorrow look like to you, belchfire?

MAN HAS TO MAKE HIS OWN FUTURE. HE CAN'T WAIT FOREVER ON A LONG-HAIR BEARDED GUY WITH SANDALS.

 

[belchfire]

Politically the world is an unstable mess with the talithugs back in control of Afghanistan, one revitalized super-power (the former Soviet Union-lets call them for what they are acting as), an emerging super-power (the PRC) doing a bunch of saber rattling while most powers that be ignore their human rights atrocities and not so thinly veiled expansionism while the sun is setting on the super-power status of the US?

Well...

Beyond all the possible permutations of that and barring a cosmic or viral extinction level event (covid-19 isn't it) we've got 30-40 years of fossil fuels left in known reserves. Progress has been made in certain battery technologies (regardless of the environmental effects of the chemical processes involved) but the charging systems still rely on reliable hydro-electric and fossil fuels, horrifically expensive fission processes and the expensive and less than reliable "renewable" sources.

Nevada Solar One is a system that shows great promise but it still requires some fossil fuels to maintain temperature of the thermal exchange media and it is as bad or worse for the bird population than wind "turbines" though the environmental radicals decline to discuss that shortcoming openly. The solar heat collection scheme is also limited as to where it will be efficient and the scale of land use required. They are ideally suited to near sea level deserts that do not have freezing weather.

Birds are very important to the ecosystem as pest control, pollinators and clean up crews. That the radical movements ignore the threat green energy presents to avian species is troubling to say the least!

Improved efficiency is a necessity as the current renewable sources are at best suited to limited geographic areas and even then are not 100% reliable as they rely on the weather to say nothing of the never mentioned negative environmental side effects.

Anyone who denies those things is dwelling in an alternative reality that is not fact based.

Barring the fulfillment of various End Time prophesies, an extinction level event or a global war that reduces the population to a tiny fraction of what it is now I believe there are two possible outcomes.

1) A collapse of the current petroleum based system with global starvation and a massive die-off of humans where only the rich and powerful are able to get food, since they are unwilling to farm behind a mule or ox this will eventually end them too...the "meek" shall inherit the Earth perhaps? Right now there are not enough mules or oxen to get the job done at 1900 levels. A little known fact-until about 1917 there were more horses in the US than there were people!

2) Advances in Physics that allow economical, sustainable fusion (not fission) reactions that provide the level of electrical power that will support what we now consider the standard of living. That abundant amount of electrical energy may make producing Hydrogen gas for fuel economical which would allow for continued high speed travel by aircraft, train and automobile.

 

[guy_liking_pretty_planes]

Belchfire, we can agree on one thing: time will always tell what happens. I was born in 1964. Late boomer. I'm living in a segment of human history in the making with the most uncertainty about the future of the world than since the day the dinosaurs went extinct. The days of the Red Scare and the Cuban Missile Crisis seems rather comforting alongside what we are going through now. Over my lifetime, we went from man steps on the moon to World Trade Center falls to I don't know what. It's all mad.

 

[Pervis]

Times were pretty uncertain when my grandfather was freezing in the trenches of WWI. As were times when my father was floating on a target in the Pacific in WWII. Doom and gloom will always rear it’s ugly head as the worst of times are always in the present. Funny how our pitiful humanity seems to come up with answers to the greatest challenges. Of course there will always be the chicken littles in every age. Boo hoo.

 

[guy_liking_pretty_planes]

9/11 was much more shocking than Pearl Harbor. The way young people look, act, dress and talk these days is most disturbing. Old people tolerate it. Old people did not tolerate the hippies of the 1960's. My mother was disciplined in a 1940's Catholic school. She beat the crap out of me with switches, canoe paddles, hairbrushes and spoons.

 

[guy_liking_pretty_planes]

Times were pretty uncertain when my grandfather was freezing in the trenches of WWI. As were times when my father was floating on a target in the Pacific in WWII. Doom and gloom will always rear it’s ugly head as the worst of times are always in the present. Funny how our pitiful humanity seems to come up with answers to the greatest challenges. Of course there will always be the chicken littles in every age. Boo hoo.

Is earth becoming the planet of the apes?

Is the bare-skinned hominoid getting stupid while the hairy simians are getting smart? Will hairy simians soon rule the world? When this earth is all out of fossil fuels, will it revert to horse transportation and lack of aircraft as in the classic 20th Century Fox film series with Charleston Heston, Roddy McDowall and Kim Hunter?

 

[Pervis]

You are clearly an indication your concerns about hominids are coming to fruition. What do you not understand about SAFs made from plastic or landfill waste? It’s available now and removes two of the biggest concerns we all share. I’ve used it and it burns just as efficiently as Jet A. By the time we use up those resources, we’ll find new solutions. We always do.