The Japanese are foolishly teaming up with the French to build what they call "Son of Concorde":

The new plane will have 300 seats and cut the flight time between New York and Tokyo to six hours, reports said.

While there's unquestionably a market for such a plane, assuming the right ticket price, they provide no clues as to how they can build a supersonic plane this large, with that much range, let alone one that won't be unaffordable to fly, given its fuel consumption. They do pretend to, though:

The ministry added that Japan had successfully tested an engine that could theoretically reach speeds of up to five times the speed of sound.

Whoop de doo.

That's nice, but it has zero to do with building an affordable, boom-free supersonic airliner, about which they seem clueless. One can only imagine that government money is involved.

At least it's no longer US government money.

This effort will share Concorde's ultimate fate, if it's lucky. More likely it will simply be a black hole of tax dollars, ending in nothing but paper, just like NASA's equally poorly-conceived, and disastrous High-Speed Research program in the 1990s.

But if they succeed...

Much has changed since the 1970s: Design and fabrication techniques have improved, lessons have been learned, quieter engines and supersonics have emerged.

The market for travel between major cities at an average speed of Mach 5 is enormous. I'm encouraged that there are countries out there willing to give this a try - evidently the US is not.

None of the things you mention solve the fundamental problems of economic supersonic flight.

Passing the point that materials and technology for subsonic airliners have improved even more, the problem with supersonic flight is that developing engine core technology that allows you to go mach whatever, can be put to use on a much more efficient engine to fly subsonically.
I brought this up to a McDonnel Doug guy during an SST lecture 10 years ago and his response was "Well, yeah, but somebody has to do it sometime." And when somebody does, you get cheap subsonic airliners for the masses and very expensive supersonic ones for the elite. And the question always seems to come up "Why spend gobs of taxpayer money so billionares can get to Rio for Carnival quicker?

I wonder if this is a hedge against the A380 going pop?

So where is the fundamental problem? Is there a study that says it can't be done? The French and English know better than anyone else the real economics of supersonic passenger flight. As the rich of the world get richer, the case becomes more compelling.

Like yourself, I think the quiet supersonic technology will change a lot of things. I note that the money put forward so far is just for preliminary studies, and I can't imagine that they would omit quiet supersonics.

The fundamental problem is save drag and sonic boom that result from the fact that they are doing nothing to address eliminating the shock. There is nothing I've seen in any of the reportage on this that they even understand the problem, let alone are solving it. They continue to use military technology and brute-force approaches. It will continue to fail.

Didn't you read the link I provided to my TechCentralStation piece?

A damn shame, as Japan already has a very interesting DC-Xish VTVL technology demonstrator (the RVT) and doesn't seem to realize what it has. More of their resources (but not too much more...pork knows no borders) should be pointed at that, and the Uchumaru/Kankoh-Maru concepts that depend on RVT experience....

Frank

Unless the article misquoted the number, it's only $1.84 million per year. That tells me they're looking at the possibility, not embarking on a design and build effort.

Would that technology from the VRC be useful in rocket applications? Could it reduce drag and reentry heat of a SpaceShipOne or Shuttle-type vehicle?

Good catch, Dan--I didn't notice that. So this is just a PR stunt.

As for whether it would be useful for reentry, the short answer is...no. It's probably only useful in cruise--not for acceleration or deceleration.

Two odd things in the article, one was this bit, "In fact, shock-free supersonic bullets have been designed for use by military snipers."

That's interesting. As a dedicated gun-nut this is the very first I have ever heard of bullets with such astonishing properties. Perhaps some followup or link to a relevant article on these bullets could be provided?

The second odd thing in the article was no mention whatsoever of the supersonic flight principle of compression-lift. So far as I know the XB-70 is still the only supersonic aircraft to have flown that utilized compression-lift and to very great benefit. I have heard the XB-70 had better lift to drag at supersonic speed than at subsonic speed.

The Concorde by contrast was no more aerodynamically sophisticated than a B-58 or a J35 Drakken.

Perhaps some followup or link to a relevant article on these bullets could be provided?

No, I only have the word of the designer, and I'm not aware that it was ever actually put into service.

In addition to VRC, DARPA has a Quiet Supersonic Platform project going on to address sonic booms and engine noise. I think NASA Glenn is doing some work on it as well. I haven't heard of the shock-free bullets, but that sounds very interesting. Can you say if it reduces wave drag, or just the noise signature? Even if it couldn't be used with lift-generating airplanes perhaps it could be applied to launch vehicles. Would it reduce the noise environment the payload is exposed to, or just that heard by an outside observer?

Whatever technology is developed to reduce the sonic boom will almost certainly make small quiet supersonic airplanes practical before large ones (though admittedly some bolt-from-the-blue breakthrough might invalidate that assumption). For this reason I expect that the next SST won't be the 300 seater Japan and France are boasting about, but a business jet sized airplane, as I elaborate on here: http://ideasinprogress.blogspot.com/2005/06/japanesefrench-son-of-concorde-vs.html

Having just endured a 9 1/2 hour flight back from the Paris Air Show in a packed and cramped 767 I can fully understand the interest in supersonic flight. I never had the good fortune of flying the Concorde, but did get to touch the test model at the museum out at Le Bourget (couldn't go in though, they didn't want the enormous number of people at the salon to tromp through and tear them up).

I'm going to keep an eye on how this develops, although my gut feeling is that we'll be doing suborbital hops between the major cities by (or before) the time supersonic flight technology becomes really mature, effectively consigning it to special interest projects as suborbital hop capabilities consume increasingly larger sums of capital.

Sorry to come late to the party but:

Sonic booms arn't a big issue over open ocean -- like over virtually all long distence flight paths to and from Japan?

Fuel and ticket prices would be higher, but when you're looking at killing a day crossing the pacific (rather then saving a couple hours over the atlantic), You might well fork over the bigger fare without blinking.

To Brads:
"..So far as I know the XB-70 is still the only supersonic aircraft to have flown that utilized compression-lift and to very great benefit. I have heard the XB-70 had better lift to drag at supersonic speed than at subsonic speed..."

Some supersonc fighters like the F-14 used compression lift, and yes a pla and engine designed for high speed cruse can be much more efficent at it then you'ld expect. The SR-71 reportedly got its best fuel milage at Mach 3.5.