Military and Civilian Planes and Trains When the Concorde came out many viewed it as the future of aviation. It had a top speed of 1354 miles per hour. We all thought it would reduce flight time between countries tremendously, after all the plane was roughly 2 1/2 faster than a normal commercial jet. It turned out the plane had big problems. The first one was every time it broke the sound barrier a huge window shattering bang was heard in towns and cities below it. To counter this, Concorde’s were forbidden from flying faster than the speed of sound over cities and towns. The second problem was a ticket on the Concorde was extremely expensive. One of the reasons for this high cost was the fact it only held a maximum of 128 passengers and some were only allowing 92 passengers on board to make the trip more comfortable. The worst thing of all started to happen when Concorde’s began to crash. There were so many incidents with the plane crashing and having bad landings and experiencing mechanical problems the plane was finally grounded forever. The same problems existed with a similar Russian commercial airline. The last flight of the Concorde occurred on October 24, 2003. Since the Concorde was grounded no other supersonic plane was available to replace it. We had to content ourselves with planes traveling at an average speed between 547 to 575 miles per hour. On top of this seating has gotten worse as years have gone by as airlines try and jam more and more people into the same space by taking space away between seats. Complaints have risen to an astronomical height. Many today believe the long trips and cramped settings have made commercial flights unbearable and I am not even mentioning what people go through at the airport before they get on the plane. NASA has been working on the problem of eliminating or quieting the Sonic Boom when airplanes break the sound barrier. They claim Lockheed Martin Corporation will continue work on a plane called the X-59 which is a supersonic passenger aircraft. The plane looks more like a needle than even the Concorde did. The plane will not be as fast as the Concorde was, but will be able to travel at a speed of 940 miles per hour. Hopefully as time goes by this speed will be able to be increased and still not produce a huge Sonic Boom. It is being claimed the noise from the Sonic Boom has been reduced so much it only sounds about as loud as a car door slamming and at the altitude a plane will be traveling this means nobody below will even hear it. Apparently, the Lockheed Skunk Works has been working on this plane for a while. The Skunk Works is where secret projects take place. Over the years the Skunk Works was responsible for some of the best military aircraft in the world including the famous SR-71 Blackbird which still holds the speed record for the fastest plane in the world even though it was retired years ago. In a way I am a little disappointed at how much slower this plane will be from the Concorde from about forty years ago, but there seems to be a trend in planes right now where they are not getting faster, but slower. I am talking about military aircraft. The F-35 has a top speed of 1200 miles per hour. The older plane the F-16 has a top speed of 1500 miles per hour. The older F-15 Eagle has a top speed of 1875 miles per hour. Does this make sense to anyone? Yes, I realize the F-35 is a stealth plane but it better not get into visual range with an enemy plane because they will fly rings around it Not only that every day research is being done to defeat stealth. The answer by the Air Force was the plane is a great platform for firing weapons from long distances and this is one of the biggest excuses I have ever heard. The reason I say this is any plane could be used to fire weapons from a distance if it’s going to be that far away. I have complained about the F-35 for years now. It just is not a good plane and it is far too slow and not maneuverable enough and has problems. The British are working on ways to increase the speed of planes which we already have by installing a new system for the engine. They have a concept known as SABRE. The engine was originally developed to achieve single stage to orbit capability. It has a rocket engine that has two modes one is air breathing and the other works in space. They have been able to get far more speed out of a jet engine by lowering the temperature of the air that enters it. I’m not going to get any further into the technology of the thing but suffice it to say in the atmosphere planes with these engines may be able to reach five times the speed of sound in the beginning and eventually travel much faster. The speed of sound varies depending on altitude. At ground level it is said the speed of sound is 761.2 miles per hour. Traveling at five times the speed of sound would mean a plane would reach the speed of 3086 miles per hour. Now that is more like it. There is another strange wrinkle when we talk about commercial planes. Some people are claiming eventually train travel will be faster and could eventually connect continents. Elon musk claims his hyper loop train will be able to travel at 760 miles per hour. Yes, this is certainly much slower than the X-59, which I said could reach 940 miles per hour. There are other things to consider however and that is time wasted going to and from the airport, long lines and comfort. A train traditionally has more legroom between the seats an overall is more comfortable. At 760 miles per hour this train would be far faster than commercial jets today. Even if it never was able to travel under the ocean, it might still be a great way to travel across the continent. Today, the fastest train in the world is said to be the Shanghai Maglev which travels at speeds of over 267 miles per hour. Will things suddenly change in transportation? It is beginning to look like wherever we want to go we are going to get there much faster than today and only in a couple of more years.
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