Sixteen years after the Concorde supersonic airliner took its last flight, a handful of companies are working to create a new generation of airliners capable of flying faster than the speed of sound (Mach 1, or about 770 miles per hour). Firms like Boom and Aerion promise to be flying passengers at 1,000 miles per hour or more by the mid-2020s.
But some companies are working toward passenger planes that will leave these supersonic jets in the dust. These so-called hypersonic aircraft would be capable of flying at or above Mach 5, or about 3,800 miles per hour. At Mach 5, a trip from New York City to London would take just two hours instead of the typical seven or eight.
An English company claims to have taken a big step toward a hypersonic future. Reaction Engines, based in Oxfordshire, announced Monday that it had successfully tested an engine cooling system that could support aircraft flying at Mach 3.3. If subsequent tests go well, the “pre-cooler” system could help aircraft reach Mach 5 or higher — and possibly power a spaceplane.
The system addresses one of the biggest challenges in the development of hypersonic airplanes: controlling the buildup of extreme heat within engines.
The Sabre engine was created to curb the extreme heat buildup in hypersonic plane engines.Reaction Engines
At Mach 5, air temperatures inside an engine can reach 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit. That’s enough to melt metal, and it interferes with the combustion that generates the propulsive power. The pre-cooler lowers temperatures by passing super-hot air over thousands of tiny coolant-filled tubes.
In the first round of tests, conducted in March at a facility at the Colorado Air and Space Port in Adams County, researchers used a fighter jet engine to blast the experimental device with air heated to 788 degrees Fahrenheit. That’s just about the temperature that an engine would experience while traveling at Mach 3.3, or 2,532 miles per hour. The device cooled the airstream to a manageable temperature in less than 1/20th of a second, according to the company.
“It’s very exciting,” Jeffrey Hoffman, an aerospace engineering professor at MIT, said of the successful test. But, he added, “they’re basically trying something that’s very new, pushing materials to extreme limits, and there’s a lot of unknowns in there.”
In future testing, the pre-cooler will be challenged with temperatures even higher than the 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit typical of flight at Mach 5, the threshold for hypersonic flight. And Reaction Engines said craft powered by its cool-as-a-cucumber engine could someday reach speeds of Mach 25, or 16,537 miles per hour, in space. Just not anytime soon, Hoffman warns.
“There’s a long way to go before we’re flying hypersonic vehicles from the surface of the Earth up into orbit,” he said. “We just have to wait and see.”
President Trump began Monday morning on Twitter by offering a lesson in Branding 101.
The test case: “If I were Boeing.”
Just weeks ago, as Boeing came under intense scrutiny for the safety of its 737 Max 8 planes, Trump asserted: “Airplanes are becoming far too complex to fly. Pilots are no longer needed, but rather computer scientists from MIT.”
But he took a different tack Monday when he said that if he were in charge of the American aviation giant — as opposed to, say, the executive branch — he would “FIX the Boeing 737 MAX, add some additional great features, REBRAND the plane with a new name.”
“No product has suffered like this one,” Trump tweeted. “But again, what the hell do I know?”
What do I know about branding, maybe nothing (but I did become President!), but if I were Boeing, I would FIX the Boeing 737 MAX, add some additional great features, REBRAND the plane with a new name. No product has suffered like this one. But again, what the hell do I know?
The tweet stands in contrast with his earlier stance that the problem with air travel was that flying had just become “far too complex.”
“I see it all the time in many products. Always seeking to go one unnecessary step further, when often old and simpler is far better.”
However, an aviation consultant who spent two years as marketing director for Trump’s ill-fated aviation venture, Trump Shuttle, described Trump as a “marketer’s marketer” who had little business expertise in airplanes or airlines.
Trump spent lavishly on gilded interiors for his company’s planes but wanted to cut corners on important safety issues, including an FAA requirement to have three pilots in the planes, Henry Harteveldt said.
“The 727 required three pilots but he at one point questioned why we needed the third pilot — the flight engineer — and we had to explain to him why you can’t just do that,” Harteveldt said.
Trump shuttle ceased to exist after 1992 when it merged with another company.
Boeing has come under intense scrutiny — from regulatory agencies and customers alike — since two 737 Max planes crashed within a five-month window, killing 346 people. But the special relationship between the 102-year-old company and the federal government made it all the more noteworthy for Trump to claim that “no product has suffered like this one.”
As The Washington Post reported last month, Boeing and the U.S. government have historically relied upon one another, “together creating hundreds of thousands of jobs, outfitting the United States with top military aircraft and supplying planes worldwide to allow the growth of passenger air travel and to boost U.S. exports.” Yet those close ties are being seen through a more critical lens as Boeing and U.S. regulators appeared slow to react to the March 10 crash of a Boeing 737 Max 8 jet in Ethiopia.
Trump hardly stood apart from earlier presidents in his broad support for Boeing. Speaking at a Boeing plant in South Carolina in 2017, Trump closed out his speech saying, “God bless you, may God bless the United States of America, and God bless Boeing.”
Last week, the White House Office of the U.S. Trade Representative announced it would pursue tariffs against a slate of aircraft and airplane parts coming from the European Union, as well as other products such as brandy and brooms from E.U. countries. The office warned that the tariffs would have consequences for an extended trade dispute involving Airbus, the European aircraft behemoth, and said the damage caused by E.U. subsidies totaled $11 billion every year.
“The World Trade Organization finds that the European Union subsidies to Airbus has adversely impacted the United States, which will now put Tariffs on $11 billion of EU products!” Trump said on Twitter. “The EU has taken advantage of the U.S. on trade for many years. It will soon stop!”
The president’s Monday morning tweet came four weeks into a worldwide grounding of Boeing 737 Max jets — a precaution that will likely drag on for some time. American Airlines said Sunday it was canceling flights on the aircraft through Aug. 19 while it waits for Boeing and the Federal Aviation Administration to fix and recertify the 737 Max’s flight-control systems.
“We remain confident that the impending software updates, along with the new training elements Boeing is developing for the MAX, will lead to recertification of the aircraft soon,” American Airlines President Robert Isom and CEO Doug Parker wrote in a letter to pilots and employees.
United Airlines on Monday said it was cancelling Boeing 737 Max flights through early July, CNBC reported.
Harteveldt said like many travelers, Trump failed to understand the complexities of running an airline or aircraft safety.
“He certainly does understand branding and marketing,” he said. “In this case, though, when it comes to airplanes, he doesn’t understand the details and complexity that come with aircraft design and certification. He’s not a pilot, he’s not an aviation professional, he’s a traveler. And travelers don’t always understand the details of how the airlines work.”
Trump Shuttle got its start in 1989 when Trump bought Eastern Airlines out of bankruptcy, acquiring a small fleet of Boeing 727 jets.
Trump then spent about $1 million on each of the 21 planes, installing luxury furnishings including chrome-plated seat belts embossed with the Trump logo. He had little knowledge of the planes themselves, however, and was not sensitive to the technical and regulatory side of running an airline, Harteveldt said.
As far as Trump’s suggestion that the 737 Max be fixed and rebranded: “You cannot just rebrand an airplane,” Harteveldt said. “Airplanes are not detergent or gum or aspirin. … They are certified by the FAA as a specific model according to the training that pilots and flight attends need.”
Harteveldt said Boeing would likely view Trump’s early-morning tweet as “more of a nuisance than anything else,” noting that Boeing has been in the crosshairs of the presidential Twitter account before.
On Dec. 6, 2016, a month after his election but before his inauguration, Trump said on Twitter that Boeing’s contract to build Air Force One should be canceled entirely because of its high costs. Early last year, the White House announced that it had reached a deal with Boeing for two airplanes at a cost of $3.9 billion.
Harteveldt described the 737 Max as a “brand extension” to an older model of 737s. An entirely different plane would have had trouble breaking into a market where generations of 737 jets are already accepted.
“Large 737 customers didn’t want a new airplane,” he said. “It would have been more complex and expensive in terms of onboarding the new plane. Not just certifying with the FAA, but the amount of knowledge and training that went into it.”
While crisis-hit Jet Airways is cancelling flight operations on many routes, airfares are expected to go up. The airline is now operating a reduced number of flights. The crisis has even worsened as the airline has failed to get any investor onboard to capitalise it to meet the operational expenses. Several international flights have been cancelled, as the airline failed to pay various charges. The airline has suspended international operations till Monday afternoon.
Besides Jet Airways crisis, the directive for the grounding of B737 Max aircraft has resulted in 15 per cent impact on the industry capacity, according to an IANS report. The additional demand due to the cancellation of Jet Airways flights and grounding of B737 Max aircraft is likely to propel the airfare upward.
The fares are expected to remain high in the near term, the report said. On the other hand, the capacity to cater to the customers has gone down.
The shortage of flights has definitely resulted in passenger inconvenience. If the capacity is not increased before the peak summer travel season, the situation may further worsen. Jet Airways reportedly has stopped forward bookings for some of its international sectors.
Watch this Zee Business video here:
However, IndiGo and SpiceJet will add aircraft to their fleets over the next few months. SpiceJet will induct 16 Boeing 737-800 NG aircraft on dry lease to minimise passenger inconvenience, the airline said. The airline has applied to the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) for a no-objection certificate (NOC) to import the aircraft. The aircraft are expected to join the SpiceJet fleet in the next ten days, which is subject to regulatory approvals.
My son is getting his PhD next month and I would like to fly my parents in from across the country for his graduation, but I have some concerns about the flights. My dad is 82 and has trouble walking long distances and uses an oxygen tank for his COPD. What airport or airline services are available to help elderly passengers?
— Proud Mother
Dear Proud,
Flying across the country can be exhausting for anyone, but for seniors with health issues or physical limitations it can be extremely challenging. Here are a few flying tips and a number of resources that can help.
Booking: When you go to book your parent’s flight, this is the time to make special requests that can help make the trip easier for your parents. You’ll likely need to make these requests over the phone.
For example, you may want to book preferred aisle seats in the front of the plane for easier access or bulkhead seats that provide extra leg room, and you should probably request a wheelchair or two with attendant(s) to maneuver your parents through the airports they will be departing from and arriving to, and if there’s a connecting flight in between.
If your parents don’t want a wheelchair, but want some help, ask about electric carts.
You also need to check with the airline regarding their policy for oxygen units for your dad. While the Federal Aviation Administration prohibits the use of personal oxygen tanks during flights because they contain compressed gas or liquid oxygen, they do permit certain portable oxygen concentrators.
Getting to the airport: If your parents need help getting to the airport there are various senior transportation options, depending on your parent’s location. To find out what’s available in their area visit RidesInsight.org.
Airport assistance: If your parents are flying on their own, most airports allow elderly fliers to be escorted to and from the gate by a non-traveling companion as long as they get a gate/escort pass, which he or she can get at the airline check-in counter by showing a government-issued photo ID.
But if no one is available to help your parents, find out if the airline can assist them when you call to book their flight. Some airlines offer special check-in and escort assistance to passengers that request it.
Or, consider hiring an independent company like Royal Airport Concierge Services, which will meet your parents at the curb, check their bags, expedite all check-in and security processes and escort them to a VIP lounge and the aircraft gate when they are ready to board. Costs typically range between $200 and $400.
If you parents need even more help, there are also a number of traveling companion services you can call on like FlyingCompanions.com and FirstLightHomeCare.com. These services will do everything including making the travel arrangements, accompanying your parents on the trip, and facilitating their needs along the way. Fees for these services will vary depending on what’s needed and travel costs.
Security and boarding: To help you parents get through security screening a little easier, the Transportation Security Administration offers special expedited screening to passengers 75 and older, as well as those with disabilities and medical conditions. This allows them to move through security without removing their shoes or jacket, and some airports may have a special line. Call TSA Cares at 855-787-2227 or visit https://www.TSA.gov/travel/special-procedures to learn more.
When it’s time to board, your parents can also take advantage of the airlines pre-boarding option for elderly passengers who need some extra time to get on the plane and get settled. And for getting off the plane, they can wait for the other passengers to disembark so attendants can assist them with carryons and escort them from the plane.
“It’s very exciting,” Jeffrey Hoffman, an aerospace engineering professor at MIT, said of the successful test. But, he added, “they’re basically trying something that’s very new, pushing materials to extreme limits, and there’s a lot of unknowns in there.”
When you think about it, it’s pretty cool how fast we can get to other places around the world. So hey, here’s a big shout-out to all those rocket scientists and test pilots who made it possible — so many decades ago.
Yeah, decades ago. The big breakthroughs in jet engines happened over the second half of the 20th century, and quite a few decades have passed since we’ve seen any major upgrades. What gives?
There’s been some science hangups that have been keeping engines from getting faster, but maybe not for much longer. A group of scientists just successfully completed an engine test that, if applied to an actual passenger jet, could make the trip from New York City to London take under an hour.
Jet travel then and now
Jet air travel is nothing new, not by any stretch of the imagination. Let’s look at the highlights, so get ready for a brief history lesson.
Work on jet engines really got going in the late 1930s. About a decade later in 1947, test pilot Chuck Yeager achieved supersonic speed and broke the sound barrier over California. He became the fastest man alive when he passed Mach 1, or about 750 miles per hour.
Jets became common throughout the world, both for military and commercial flights. Then, the next big milestone came in 1976 with the debut of the Concorde.
Introduced into Great Britain and France passenger service, it had a cruising speed of about 1,350 miles per hour, or twice the speed of sound. It could make the trip from London to New York in about 3-and-a-half hours. Not too shabby.
Long story short, the planes got old, and maintenance costs kept rising while passenger numbers dwindled. The Concorde, along with commercial supersonic flights, ended in 2003.
BONUS: ARE ROBOTS TAKING OVER PILOTS’ JOBS?
Forget supersonic travel, it’s time for hypersonic
Just about everyone wants to get to their destination faster, and there have been a few pushes over the past few years to bring back supersonic passenger service. But forget supersonic, the future is about hypersonic speed.
Researchers at Reaction Engines in the United Kingdom have been working on new technology to get over the big hurdle that’s been keeping traditional jet engines from getting any faster than Mach 3. And that’s the fact that a lot of jet engines have the pesky habit of melting once they hit 2,500 miles per hour. You know, nothing major.
For their experimental Synergetic Air Breathing Rocket Engine (SABRE), they managed to build a pre-cooler that simulated the speed of Mach 3.3, or just over 2,500 miles per hour – and hey, nothing melted! Take a look at a video about their SABRE technology:
What does it all mean? Reaction Engines said their SABRE engines are capable of Mach 5.4 (4,143 mph) in air-breathing mode. And that means you could get from New York to London in about 50 minutes or so. How cool would it be to cross the Atlantic faster than it takes you to get through a TSA checkpoint?
Future of the SABRE engine
The test was conducted at a facility in Colorado, and they’re planning more. But their work isn’t just about getting passengers from point A to point B on Earth. They’ve got big plans for space, too.
I mentioned that the SABRE could potentially hit Mach 5.4 in air-breathing mode. Put it in rocket mode for space flight, and you’re looking at Mach 25. That’s over 19,000 miles per hour.
Now for the bad news: Testing and development can take a long time. A really long time.
Although this is a promising breakthrough that could one day mean a quick trip across the pond, it won’t be happening anytime soon. Even Reaction Engines says this technology is decades away from use in passenger jets.
So if you were hoping to get to London in the time it takes you to watch one episode of “Game of Thrones,” it’s just not happening. But that’s good news if you’re behind, because you’ll be able to watch almost an entire season during your seven-hour flight. There’s always a silver lining, so sit back and enjoy the ride.
Creepy facial recognition technology coming to an airport near you
You’ve probably heard how scary China’s mass surveillance program is, but what if I told you some of those surveillance techniques were making their way to America?
It’s been another big week for air travel news in Europe.
This week JetBlue confirmed its long-rumored plans to expand into the European air travel market with the announcement of its first transatlantic routes, which will run from both Boston and New York – JFK to London starting in 2021. JetBlue said that it plans multiple daily flights on the two routes, and that it is still evaluating exactly which London airport to fly into. The carrier will operate the flights on Airbus A321 long-range aircraft, which will offer a “reimagined” version of its premium Mint product designed for transatlantic flights, as well as a transatlantic update of its core cabin product offering.
Also in Europe, this week marked the official launch of Air Italy’s new San Francisco – Milan service, just one week after the airline launched its new service between Milan and Los Angeles. The new flights out of San Francisco will operate four times weekly on Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday and Tuesday on Air Italy’s new Airbus 330-200 aircraft, offering 24 seats in the airline’s newly revamped Business class and 228 in Economy. From Milan, domestic connections will be available to destinations in central and southern Italy, including Rome, Naples, Palermo, Catania, Lamezia Terme, Cagliari and Olbia.
Luxury Travel Advisor’s ULTRA Summit
Finally, this week American Airlines announced it will cancel a number of flights through June due to the grounding of the Boeing 737 Max aircraft after the tragic crash of one that had been operating Ethiopian Airlines flight. The move will amount to the cancellation of approximately 90 flights per day, American said. The airline’s customer reservations team will contact affected customers directly via email or phone, and, if a flight is canceled and a customer chooses not to be rebooked, they can request a full refund at aa.com/refunds.
Economy class seating in the new WestJet 787 Dreamliner airplane is shown in Calgary on February 14, 2019. In the wake of an onboard incident where flight attendants and bystanders acted swiftly to deal with alleged sexual harassment, Canada’s two biggest airlines say its crews are trained to handle passengers who pose a threat — though one expert warns that airline policy and behaviour are two different matters. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Todd Korol
Incidents involving unruly airline passengers have been rising in recent years. In 2017, airlines reported one altercation for every 1,053 flights, up 35 per cent from the previous year, according to the International Air Transport Association.
Drugs and alcohol play a leading role in many of these incidents. The association says 27 per cent of the cases involved alcohol consumption or some other kind of intoxication. An additional 24 per cent were related to non-compliance with smoking regulations.
“Drink-fuelled air rage is becoming more commonplace,” says Robert Quigley, a senior vice-president for International SOS and MedAire, which provides travel-security services. “Multiple agencies that oversee in-flight regulations are now collaborating with the commercial airlines to review present practices of the selling and the consumption of alcohol in both airport bars as well as inflight.”
It looks like a simple problem: too many airline passengers are getting drunk. But the solution is not so simple. Some passengers say the obvious answer is for airlines to limit sales of alcoholic beverages. But airlines are leaning toward a regulatory fix, perhaps because they’re reluctant to lose the revenue from selling alcohol to passengers.
If you’re on a plane this summer with someone who’s had one too many, you can still protect yourself. But you’ll have to be proactive. (More on that later.)
Airline crews are trained to handle intoxicated passengers. They also have strict policies to prevent inebriated passengers from boarding — but they don’t always work.
Randall Flick, a recently retired airline pilot, recalls one traveller who breezed past a gate agent and boarded Flick’s plane while “heavily” intoxicated. “I told him that he wasn’t getting on his flight. I don’t think he really understood,” Flick says.
The inebriated traveller and the gate agent were both at fault. Flick says the passenger should have had less to drink before boarding and the gate agent should have screened him properly and kept him off the plane.
“The gate agents didn’t always notice when a passenger was intoxicated,” Flick says. “Most of the time, the intoxicated passenger just went to sleep as the cabin altitude rose during the flight. But an intoxicated passenger could endanger the safety of others during an emergency.”
Federal law prohibits flight crews from allowing “obviously intoxicated passengers” to board aircraft, and it doesn’t allow flight attendants to serve alcohol to anyone who appears intoxicated.
Another regulation prohibits passengers from “assaulting or intimidating” crew members and interfering with their duties. Doing so carries a fine of as much as US$35,000 and a prison sentence of as many as 20 years.
For some air travellers, the solution to this problem seems clear. If the government can end smoking on flights, then why not ban drinking? Barring that, why don’t airlines better enforce the rules that prohibit intoxicated passengers from boarding an aircraft and continuing to drink on board?
“Don’t allow people to board a plane if they’re obviously drunk and limit the drinks any passenger can have inflight,” says Barbara Howell, a frequent air traveller and registered nurse from Carpinteria, Calif.
But alcohol isn’t always the problem. Consider what happened this year on a Delta Air Lines flight from Seattle to Los Angeles. A passenger allegedly refused to stay seated and walked toward the cockpit several times. The flight diverted to Portland, Ore., and police arrested the passenger, who told authorities he had been high on methamphetamine before boarding the plane.
The airline industry believes more regulations would help.
The transport association, which represents the worldwide airline industry, has lobbied for stronger international treaties to deter unruly behaviour. It says gaps in the international conventions governing such offences allow many unruly passengers to escape punishment. It wants, at a minimum, for authorities to clarify what constitutes unruly behaviour and to reinforce the right of airlines to seek recovery of the significant costs of dealing with unruly passengers.
“We need more countries, including the U.S., to ratify a new treaty that closes loopholes that enable unruly passengers to elude any legal consequences on international flights,” says Tim Colehan, an assistant director for the association.
Experts believe a few practical steps would also reduce the number of unruly passengers in the air. MedAire’s Quigley says airlines need to develop an industry-wide policy that limits the number of drinks per passenger and to enforce this policy consistently. Gate-screening processes should also be tightened, he says, and should involve airport security personnel, not just airline employees.
“Flight attendants are not trained or expected to act as law-enforcement agents,” Quigley says.
One obvious solution is to stop serving alcohol on board, an idea regularly floated by passengers who have grown tired of the seemingly endless parade of such incidents.
But alcoholic beverages account for more than half of all in-flight sales, so it’s unlikely the airline industry will go there.
As usual, the fix is up to passengers. For your safety and that of your fellow passengers, avoid alcoholic beverages or recreational drugs before and during a flight.
If you’re seated next to someone who is drunk or high, don’t wait for the cabin doors to close. Report the passenger immediately, but discreetly, to a flight attendant. Someone who smells like a distillery shouldn’t be allowed to board.
If the flight crew doesn’t do anything, and there’s no empty seat to move to, ask to take the next flight, time permitting.
Just remember that until we find a workable solution, you don’t have to become another anecdote in an air-rage article.
Major League Baseball’s Colorado Rockies postponed an afternoon game against the Atlanta Braves until August. A few school districts in Colorado and Wyoming canceled classes, while others opted for a shortened day and canceled evening activities. Local governments, including in Denver and Cheyenne, Wyoming, and state government in the Denver area closed offices early to give workers time to commute before conditions worsened.
Sixteen years after the Concorde supersonic airliner took its last flight, a handful of companies are working to create a new generation of airliners capable of flying faster than the speed of sound (Mach 1, or about 770 miles per hour). Firms like Boom and Aerion promise to be flying passengers at 1,000 miles per hour or more by the mid-2020s.
But some companies are working toward passenger planes that will leave these supersonic jets in the dust. These so-called hypersonic aircraft would be capable of flying at or above Mach 5, or about 3,800 miles per hour. At Mach 5, a trip from New York City to London would take just two hours instead of the typical seven or eight.
An English company claims to have taken a big step toward a hypersonic future. Reaction Engines, based in Oxfordshire, announced Monday that it had successfully tested an engine cooling system that could support aircraft flying at Mach 3.3. If subsequent tests go well, the “pre-cooler” system could help aircraft reach Mach 5 or higher — and possibly power a spaceplane.
The system addresses one of the biggest challenges in the development of hypersonic airplanes: controlling the buildup of extreme heat within engines.
The Sabre engine was created to curb the extreme heat buildup in hypersonic plane engines.Reaction Engines
At Mach 5, air temperatures inside an engine can reach 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit. That’s enough to melt metal, and it interferes with the combustion that generates the propulsive power. The pre-cooler lowers temperatures by passing super-hot air over thousands of tiny coolant-filled tubes.
In the first round of tests, conducted in March at a facility at the Colorado Air and Space Port in Adams County, researchers used a fighter jet engine to blast the experimental device with air heated to 788 degrees Fahrenheit. That’s just about the temperature that an engine would experience while traveling at Mach 3.3, or 2,532 miles per hour. The device cooled the airstream to a manageable temperature in less than 1/20th of a second, according to the company.
“It’s very exciting,” Jeffrey Hoffman, an aerospace engineering professor at MIT, said of the successful test. But, he added, “they’re basically trying something that’s very new, pushing materials to extreme limits, and there’s a lot of unknowns in there.”
In future testing, the pre-cooler will be challenged with temperatures even higher than the 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit typical of flight at Mach 5, the threshold for hypersonic flight. And Reaction Engines said craft powered by its cool-as-a-cucumber engine could someday reach speeds of Mach 25, or 16,537 miles per hour, in space. Just not anytime soon, Hoffman warns.
“There’s a long way to go before we’re flying hypersonic vehicles from the surface of the Earth up into orbit,” he said. “We just have to wait and see.”
