An Idea Whose Time Has Come? Supersonic Bizjets

SUPERSONIC BIZJETS INCH CLOSER TO REALITY
(http://www.avweb.com/eletter/archive...ll.html#196352)
Gulfstream, Supersonic Aerospace International and Aerion Corp. are
all whittling away at their supersonic bizjet models as the market for
such designs leaps closer to credibility. The Teal Group, through Vice
President of Analysis Richard Aboulafia, believes that demand for
supersonic travel is significant -- over 20 years of production, the
Teal Group sees a market for up to 400 jets and Aerion aims to make
its jet the first available offering. Aerion expects to spend time and
$2.2 billion to land its jet in the market by 2014, citing a lack of
available talent (a shortage of engineers) as a primary obstacle.

On Oct 10, 8:19 am, Larry Dighera wrote:
SUPERSONIC BIZJETS INCH CLOSER TO REALITY
(http://www.avweb.com/eletter/archive...ll.html#196352)
Gulfstream, Supersonic Aerospace International and Aerion Corp. are
all whittling away at their supersonic bizjet models as the market for
such designs leaps closer to credibility. The Teal Group, through Vice
President of Analysis Richard Aboulafia, believes that demand for
supersonic travel is significant -- over 20 years of production, the
Teal Group sees a market for up to 400 jets and Aerion aims to make
its jet the first available offering. Aerion expects to spend time and
$2.2 billion to land its jet in the market by 2014, citing a lack of
available talent (a shortage of engineers) as a primary obstacle.

There'll always be a market for SSBJs - probably the folks flying BBJs/
G550/Globals might make the leap.

BTW, Aboulafia is a loud-mouth who makes outrageous statements to
generate media buzz. (just ask Vern Raburn, amongst others)

On Thu, 11 Oct 2007 10:27:13 -0700, Kingfish
wrote in om:

There'll always be a market for SSBJs

They wouldn't useful today for domestic travel. Doesn't that
significantly impact their marketability?

Larry Dighera wrote:
On Thu, 11 Oct 2007 10:27:13 -0700, Kingfish
wrote in om:

There'll always be a market for SSBJs

They wouldn't useful today for domestic travel. Doesn't that
significantly impact their marketability?

The inability to fly supersonic over most land masses certainly
impacted the Concorde's marketability.


--
Jim Pennino

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On Oct 11, 2:02 pm, Larry Dighera wrote:
On Thu, 11 Oct 2007 10:27:13 -0700, Kingfish
wrote in om:

There'll always be a market for SSBJs

They wouldn't useful today for domestic travel. Doesn't that
significantly impact their marketability?

It sure does, but I've recently read about new nose spike technology
being tested to reduce the sonic boom. If it's successful (and can be
applied to a SSBJ) maybe the FAA might reconsider. I can see them
being successful for trans-Atlantic/Pacific use though, range
permitting.

Kingfish wrote:
On Oct 11, 2:02 pm, Larry Dighera wrote:
On Thu, 11 Oct 2007 10:27:13 -0700, Kingfish
wrote in om:

There'll always be a market for SSBJs

They wouldn't useful today for domestic travel. Doesn't that
significantly impact their marketability?

It sure does, but I've recently read about new nose spike technology
being tested to reduce the sonic boom. If it's successful (and can be
applied to a SSBJ) maybe the FAA might reconsider. I can see them
being successful for trans-Atlantic/Pacific use though, range
permitting.

You have to convince more than the FAA to allow supersonic flight
in general.

At one time, supersonic flight over CONUS without prior arrangement,
and especially if coming from outside CONUS, was an automatic shoot down.

I have no idea if that has changed.

--
Jim Pennino

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Jim

I spent many years in the Air Defense Command (from fighter pilot on
alert to Cmd and Control in a SAGE Block House) and never heard about
any authority to shoot down an aircraft going super sonic as the
criteria.

During the cuban Missile crisis I ran a shift on the Dias in a SAGE
center and we controlled all the fighters in the sector, launching
them and giving them shoot down authority.

Where did you get your shoot down info?

Big John
************************************************** *****************

On Fri, 12 Oct 2007 04:15:03 GMT, wrote:

Kingfish wrote:
On Oct 11, 2:02 pm, Larry Dighera wrote:
On Thu, 11 Oct 2007 10:27:13 -0700, Kingfish
wrote in om:

There'll always be a market for SSBJs

They wouldn't useful today for domestic travel. Doesn't that
significantly impact their marketability?

It sure does, but I've recently read about new nose spike technology
being tested to reduce the sonic boom. If it's successful (and can be
applied to a SSBJ) maybe the FAA might reconsider. I can see them
being successful for trans-Atlantic/Pacific use though, range
permitting.

You have to convince more than the FAA to allow supersonic flight
in general.

At one time, supersonic flight over CONUS without prior arrangement,
and especially if coming from outside CONUS, was an automatic shoot down.

I have no idea if that has changed.

Big John wrote:

Jim

I spent many years in the Air Defense Command (from fighter pilot on
alert to Cmd and Control in a SAGE Block House) and never heard about
any authority to shoot down an aircraft going super sonic as the
criteria.

During the cuban Missile crisis I ran a shift on the Dias in a SAGE
center and we controlled all the fighters in the sector, launching
them and giving them shoot down authority.

Where did you get your shoot down info?

Army Air Defense Command.

I was oversimplifying.

We were authorized to track, lock on, and arm warheads for unannounced
supersonic traffic.

Final authority to launch came from ARADCOM or, within certain guidelines,
the battery Commander.


--
Jim Pennino

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Jim

Went to the Army missile school at Fort Bliss and never heard about
that there either.

When I went super sonic never got a warning in cockpit that a missile
radar had locked on to me back when we could go SS over the US.

And that leads to a war story.

Oxnard had F-89's (carried 104 2/75 FFAR's). The Commander at Oxnard
and the Navy commander at China Lake were good drinking buddies.

Oxnard got a call from Navy one day that a drone had got away and was
drifting toward Los Angles. Oxnard was asked to shoot it down, so a
pair of F-89's were scrambled.

They were vectored up and closed very close behind the drone (filled
the windscreen) and the first fired his full load of rockets (104 of
them in salvo) and punched some holes in the drone and it kept on
flying. The 2nd F-89 came up and did the same thing. None of the 208
heads that hi the drone exploded. It kept on circling and drifted
south of LA and ran out of gas and bellied in with no damage to anyone
on ground.

The FFAR's that were fired impacted a county road north of LA and blew
big holes in it ) as the heads had armed well before they hit the
ground.

The report went up channels to Washington and 2 things took place.

1. All 89 pilots were again briefed that the heads of the FFAR's did
not arm for several seconds after they were fired to give them time to
clear the launch airplane.So not to try to fire them very close to a
target. Let the radar fire them which would give proper separation.

The second thing that happened was that in any future case like this,
authority to fire had to come from Washington.

6 months after this, another Navy drone got loose around Seattle. ADC
launched alert birds and tailed it all the way down the coast until it
crashed north of LA again not hurting anyone on the ground. Washington
would not let anyone fire on it over the US (

End of true War Stories for today )

Big John

*********************************************
On Fri, 12 Oct 2007 18:35:02 GMT, wrote:

Big John wrote:

Jim

I spent many years in the Air Defense Command (from fighter pilot on
alert to Cmd and Control in a SAGE Block House) and never heard about
any authority to shoot down an aircraft going super sonic as the
criteria.

During the cuban Missile crisis I ran a shift on the Dias in a SAGE
center and we controlled all the fighters in the sector, launching
them and giving them shoot down authority.

Where did you get your shoot down info?

Army Air Defense Command.

I was oversimplifying.

We were authorized to track, lock on, and arm warheads for unannounced
supersonic traffic.

Final authority to launch came from ARADCOM or, within certain guidelines,
the battery Commander.

Big John wrote:
Jim

Went to the Army missile school at Fort Bliss and never heard about
that there either.

I went to the Army missile school at Fort Bliss and never heard about
that there either.

It wasn't until I was on an actual missile site.

When I went super sonic never got a warning in cockpit that a missile
radar had locked on to me back when we could go SS over the US.

Not surprising. In most of CONUS, most of the time the radars weren't
even turned on, much less was there someone looking at them; that was
someone else's job.

And that leads to a war story.

A new pilot arrived at Osan AFB and decided to go take a ride in his
F4 before he got the ROK SOP briefing. How he managed to do that,
I have no idea, but I'm sure some procedures changed after that.

One of the missile sites spotted him (there were always hot sites
in the ROK unlike CONUS) going places he shouldn't be.

The guano hit the rotary impeller, every site in the ROK went hot,
and Osan sent fighters.

The fighters found him quickly (not surprising since there were so
many people tracking) and before he did anything dumb enough to get a
missile laundhed up his ass and escorted him back to Osan.

There he found the base Commander waiting to escort him to a transport
back to the States. You might call it a career limiting move on his
part.

--
Jim Pennino

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