Having mentioned my interest and involvement in the,Concorde project which has now been retired with many years of life left in it many have speculated about it being a step backwards in development. However much was learned from it. Many do not realise that its speed was limited by the materials it was made from! Titanium would be better but was prohibitively expensive. It also was very heavy due to the problems of supersonic flight. It took an estimated 5 Tons in just having a tilting nose, necessary for the pilot to be able to see forward to land the bloody thing! The Delta wing, (Actually an Ogive) needed to have a high angle of attack for landing otherwise the whole of the M4 would be needed to land the bloody thing and tyres have a finite life! It also expanded about 10 inches due to the heat of supersonic flight so the floor had to suspended from the fuselage to allow this! Adding weight! With the fall of the USSR, Boeing paid for the Tupolev Tu-144 to be put back into flight for research purposes it having failed in Civilian use. Now consider the, Boeing Dreamliner and it suggests which way Boeing is headed! Its fuselage is Carbon Fibre and one of the advantages is that its coefficient of expansion is very, very low which is why the frame for the optics of the Hubble space telescope is made from it! This in addition to its light weight and strength! One of the problems solved! A lot of weight can also be saved by modern avionics and in addition the pilot could look through a flat screen, (Possibly 3D) Doing away with the heavy tilting nose! Look out for a Dreamliner with Ogive wings pointey nose and Rolls Royce engines!
Posted on: Sun, 06 Apr 2014 19:05:50 +0000
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