Professional Pilot, October 2016

SSBJ PROGRESS Reviewing civil supersonic flight with an outlook to bizav acceptance Much has been accomplished but hurdles still persist C ivil supersonic airtravel used to be routine Several times a day Concordes departed London Paris and New York to cross the Atlantic at twice the speed of sound well above normal air traffic In the early 80s there were flights to Dubai and Singapore and even Singapore Airlines operated 1 Concorde However Mach 2 at 60000 ft ended in 2003 For a younger generation that grew up learning that smartphones and Facebook are the foremost frontier of technology this may be a little surprising Performance of the Concorde Concorde supersonic flights were routine airline trips operated by British Airways and Air France bookable at a price somewhat higher than 1st class Passengers were able to fly 128 PROFESSIONAL PILOT October 2016 over the Atlantic conduct business overseas and return on the same day The flights operated safely and accident free for over 20 years However the fatal crash of an Air France Concorde after takeoff in Paris Charles de Gaulle in the year 2000 led to the eventual end of Concorde operations in 2003 While engineers in the 60s and 70s believed that the future of air travel was supersonic the 80s and 90s brought slower fuel efficient mass airtravel instead of speed and comfort Designs such as the Boeing SST were canceled and the Russian Tupolev TU144 only saw a short period of airline service within the Soviet Union Congress dropped funding for the Boeing SST in 1971 due to concerns about the impact of sonic booms for people on the ground and all civil supersonic flights over the US were banned The Concorde was therefore the only successful civil supersonic airliner ever built The Concorde was not a quiet neighbor though I remember waiting for line up clearance for my MD11F at Runway 13L at JFK when a Concorde was coming in on the Carnasie Approach a VOR DME approach with a curved visual segment that requires very good manual flying skills As the Concorde passed us ready to touch down 4 afterburners kicked in as a go around was initiated by the pilots for a 2nd try Allen Paulson planned to have a supersonic Gulfstream In the early 1990s while Concorde was still operating Gulfstream planned to build a supersonic corporate jet under the leadership of Allen Paulson This revolutionary design called the S21 was designed together with the Russian aircraft manufacturer Sukhoi well known for advanced fighter jets The cooperation was only possible because a few years earlier the Berlin Wall had fallen and the Cold War seemingly had ended The S21 was designed to transport up to 10 passengers at speeds up to Mach 2 However at that time the market demand for this aircraft seemed to be not strong enough for a profitable production run and Gulfstream By Peter Berendsen ATP CFII Boeing 747 MD11 Aerion AS2 s range at M 14 is 4750 nm Range at M 095 is 5300 nm Cabin seats 8 and galley is forward Final approach speed is 135 kts Design calls for 3 engines with powerplant supplier still not confirmed AS2 s current price is 100 million