Skylon's upper stage can remain in orbit freeing up the loading bay for your 10-12 tonne satellites, it's effectively a robotic Soyuz, and can be recovered for maintenance and refueling. LH2/LOX has the highest effective exhaust velocity compared to kerosene/LOX or UDMH/NTO engines as far as I can discern, so Skylon doesn't seem at too greater disadvantage being stuck with LH2/LOX, and as such the ability to breath atmospheric O2 is its greatest strength, especially now the pre-cooler heat ex-changers are now working without catastrophic freezing.
I really do believe you'll be proved wrong on this one. I personally see launching everything with rockets as a dead end. So let's see how the first spaceplane fares (Another British first). I have a sneaky feeling Trantor that if skylon was in fact emerging from say Frankfurt, you would be singing it's praises!
Anyway you mentioned cars earlier, guess you should thank those engineers in Milton Keynes for that Red Bull car!
But the British car industry struggled hugely with Unions fighting management. The "British disease", killed the shipyards too. If you were going to install equipment that would allow one man to do 10 others work, the Unions would call strike action (even if it was only about 9% of the union membership). We even had flying strikes, where Unions would picket local industries that weren't striking for "solidarity" but in reality was a form of intimidation for those who where trying their best to make ends meet. My Dad still vehemently remembers with a disdain bordering on hatred of the unions during the "Three-day-week". Where they inflicted such disruption to the Grid, we only had enough coal, oil and gas to power the country for a set time for three days a week. For about 3 months. I'm not anti-union per se. But I am anti British unions (at least in their current form), there run by not overly nice people (IE megalomaniacal thugs). Not to say management couldn't be morons either.. they frequently were.
I dream of owning a Aston Martin DB9 by the way...
GeoModder wrote:If you mean a sort of turbofan, the Brits seem to have invented their own first version as well mid-war, thus before scientific stuff was appropriated from Germany.
And even if not, it's not because the Germans invented something first, it could never have been invented somewhere else later.
You're thinking about the Metropolitan-Vickers F.2 (which was made possible due to the work of Alan Arnold Griffith as he worked out how to make axial compression workable), which was started in 1940 and was tested in 1941, but was found to be too unreliable, so the project was put on hold and became the Armstrong Siddeley Sapphire in 1948.
Trantor wrote:But radial was a dead end, and the Gloster Meteor was a lame duck.
And not even valuable for further research in jet aviation.
Centrifugal compressor jet engine's continue to see extensive use, virtually all ACUs are centrifugal compressor jet engines, helicopters, and a large number of turboprop engines include at least a
centrifugal stage. Centrifugal compressors have the advantage of being simple, lightweight, and reliable, at the expense of a streamlined shape.
Axial compressors are still mechanically less robust and aerodynamically much more sensitive to both intake conditions and downstream pressure changes, IE. rapid throttle movements. These could lead to blade stalling and resulting surges, which can go on to catastrophic blade failure.
Centrifugal-flow designs remain much less complex (the major reason they were first into the air) and therefore have a role in places where size and streamlining are not so important. So they remain a major solution for helicopter engines, and can be built to any needed size without screwing up with the streamlining to any great degree.
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From what I've read, the ME-262 struggled with maneuverability issues, which was the only way hurricanes and spitfires could compete with it's very high speed.
F/Lt Clive Gosling was a test pilot for supermarine, and he flew both the meteor and the 262, and wrote the RAF official documents comparing the two. He was highly favorable of the me-262 mentioning that the ME-262 was Superior in speed, critical speed, and weapons. He did concede that the Meteor had a better view for the pilot, better turning and maneuverability, operating ceiling, climb rate, and range. But perhaps most importantly he believed the Meteor's engine reliability to be much higher. Quoting on the ME-262 "However it was not an aircraft for the inexperienced - it had to be flown. The engines had a very short life and unless a failure in flight was caught immediately, it would go into a spiral dive from which there was no recovery.". The ME-262 was supposedly afflicted with an engine-life of just 10 to 26 hours, depending on pilots ability. This may have been in part responsible for Hurricane/spitfires successes. The Meteor's engine life was in excess of 200 hours.
This all interestingly is backed up by German fighter ace Adolf Galland, when he was flying with, and instructing the AAF. As such he flew the Meteor, in knowledge that it was a rival to the Me 262, he stated that it was a fine aircraft. And supposedly was of the opinion if he could fit the Meteor engines to the Me 262 airframe he would have had the best fighter in the world.
I don't disagree with the fact that the ME-262's legacy was far more important, but the Gloucester Meteor wasn't a "lame duck", and still has a place in the history of aviation. She even proved to be a very good ground attack fighter in the Korean war even with the newer and more dangerous MIG-15. Destroying over 3,500 structures and some 1,500 vehicles.
She was actually used in studies on G-forces on the Human body, and two remain in use as ejector seat test beds.
Oh and she's gorgeous.
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Onwards to the defense of concord!
Concorde’s service with at least with BA was highly profitable. Concorde was about 30% more expensive than the 747 at the time they were constructed. What’s more if Concorde wasn’t profitable, and with BA being private for the 16 years of Concorde’s operating life, they would of stopped Concorde much earlier. Private companies can’t afford to pee away cash.
For example the flight to IAD became unprofitable and was quickly axed, so it wasn’t as if Concorde was purely prestige. Though prestigious she certainly was.
In fact BA Concorde’s story only really began once BA had become private. The operating subsidy which funded the incompetence of BA management in the 70’s, was terminated in 83-4, and as result BA owed the tax payer 80% of Concorde’s future profit.
So BA took the hard decision of sticking with Concorde, paying a huge break out fee to free themselves of their obligations to Her Majesties government, buying up all spare stock, the flight simulator, and finally the original test production craft as another spares source.
Thus BA where able to operate Concorde as free as they liked, and keep the profits in the process. The massively profitable BGI service and the charter program were a result of their desire to make Concorde work financially. Not only this but BA moved to have a stored aircraft returned to flight, and began the first of several cabin refits.
Though at the peak of Concorde’s charters, it only made 9% of concords profit, but it was a handy 9%, plus a very good advertisement. Charters also opened up the chance for people to fly Concorde who would never normally been able too.
Concorde however needed good routes, two major financial cities with a large stretch of water in-between. In other words it needed New York. Now despite the rank nimbyism, of the likes of Carol Berman attempting to continue the ban on US airports for Concorde about the potential noise (despite the fact that planes like the Boeing 707 was in fact louder at subsonic speeds), JFK was to be open for business. This was soon to become core of Concorde’s business with a double daily service.
It wasn’t a celeb service either, 80% of this service was regular business pax. Where else could you leave LHR at 10:30am, and arrive at JFK at 9:20am ready for business. In 1997-98, the LHR-JFK/JFK-LHR Concorde made up only 7% of the BA service on that route, but delivered 30% of the route revenue. Similarly for the BGI route, Concorde carried 43% of the route pax during the winter service, and again delivered 75% of the route revenue.
Concorde at this time was making £30 million of profit per annum directly from Concorde pax, with the added fact that Concorde revenues were under greater spotlight, and rigour than other services.
Prior to the accident, Concorde had been arguably the safest operational passenger airliner in the world in terms of passenger deaths-per-kilometres traveled with zero. However the 2000/2001 suspension, the return to flight modifications, and re-launch just after September 11th did not play into Concorde’s hands.
Passenger loads were good in general, but BA was afraid to commit to a double daily service to JFK, no doubt to the fear that the PR would be bad if the plane was not profitable in this new environment, and as such had to scale Concorde back even further to ensure she was not seen to be operating at a loss. The result was an operation profit, but not enough cash in the Concorde bank to pay for upcoming maintenance (Concordes are basically handmade). And with no lavish funding from central government like airlines in the US or Europe after 2001 BA were holding a ticking bomb.
Then AF bailed, meaning BA was left to support the whole maintenance operation by themselves. As such it was quickly becoming unsustainable, and with the decision by Airbus, the successor firm of Aerospatiale and BAC, to discontinue maintenance support. BA threw in the towel to decommission at the end of the 2003.
BA probably regretted not returning OAA & OAB to flight status at the end. Not only did they struggle to get them in museums. But in her final days and weeks, Concorde made £5 million a week with £5000 in onboard sales, due to the huge demand to fly the doomed airframe.
BA took their eye of the ball with regards to Concorde, updating her cockpit after 30 years may of been a smart move. But generally it didn’t show the boldness of the past. Not surprising perhaps that BA struggled as an airline to survive in 2001-02. The whole weakness of the airline market, and it’s slowness to recover was a blow to Concorde.
Had the accident and/or September 11th not occurred, then most of the fleet were ticking onto 24,000 hrs and required major maintenance in the 04-06 bracket would have been a challenge to of found parts for, as the needed experience for the parts had been eroded by retirement, as well as cost. BA where probably looking to take Concorde to 2010, even though AF were looking at retiring the fleet in 2007.
BA probably hoped that AF would of continued with them if they were continuing, so as to share maintenance with each other. But with the market not recovering quickly enough, BA looked at a late 2004 exit so as to catch the last of the winter trips to BGI, which the seats for were already selling, as well as securing the parts for the maintenance of OAD and OAF. But with AF jumping ship, BA were going to have to fight hard but Airbus were having none of it.
And so a Great plane died, 27 years of exemplary service, a technical marvel, and as always a beautiful Aircraft with still no equal.
Trantor wrote:Wouldn´t bet on that one...
Hubris
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