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Michael A. Terrell

geoff wrote:

In message ?, Michael A.
Terrell ? writes
?
???(((°? wrote:
??
?? On Sun, 22 Aug 2010 20:57:06 +0100, Phil Hobbs
?? ? wrote:
??
?? ? aemeijers wrote:
?? ?? zzzzzzzzzz wrote:
?? ?? (snip)
?? ????? They spent wads of money to
?? ????? build and maintain them, then junked the entire fleet. It was noisy
?? ????? and
?? ????? very fuel inefficient. That forced the fares so high that they
?? ????? weren't
?? ????? able to compete with better planes from multiple countries.
?? ???? What other supersonic airliners are those then?...
?? ???
?? ??? Don't read well, do you? The 747 kicked its butt.
?? ?? 747 ain't supersonic. But on a dollar/gallon per passenger mile
?? ?? basis, it is a whole lot cheaper to run, when anywhere near fully
?? ?? loaded. In recent years, due to passenger volume being so reduced, a
?? ?? whole lotta 747s and other jumbos were parked in the desert, in
?? ?? 'preservation pack' status. Airlines switched to the itty-bitty jets
?? ?? for many routes. Now that volume is picking up again, some jumbos are
?? ?? being brought back out of storage. At one point, they were gonna
?? ?? modernize the 747 fleet, but it will probably never happen, because
?? ?? Boeing would rather sell new planes, and Airbus is nipping at their
?? ?? heels. But the long delays in the Boeing Dreamliner rampup can be at
?? ?? least partially blamed on the airlines getting gun-shy. It costs a lot
?? ?? of money to keep airplanes with a lot of lifespan left sitting in the
?? ?? desert. Another air disaster or major fuel cost spike, and there will
?? ?? be multiple airlines going belly-up.
?? ?? Supersonics only made sense for civilian use for a very tiny niche
?? ?? market of rich people and businessmen who had to have face time
?? ?? someplace far away in a hurry. That niche market got even smaller with
?? ?? the rise of cheap easily available hi-rez video-conferencing services.
?? ?? A lot of execs don't travel near as much as they used to. Plus, of
?? ?? course, with the general economic downturn, there are a lot fewer
?? ?? executives. Either retired or flipping burgers for somebody else.
?? ?? Absent some technological leap that allows cheap suborbital flights
?? ?? for the masses, world travel will be slower and more expensive from
?? ?? here on out.
?? ??
?? ?
?? ? Plus the externalities, such as having your windows rattle twice a day
?? ? (waking the baby, of course) just because some rich nitwit couldn't wait
?? ? another couple of hours to get to LA. Anyway, rich nitwits save more
?? ? time than that by buying or renting their own subsonic jet, which goes
?? ? wherever they want, whenever they want. It's a far more rational
?? ? solution (if you can call it that).
?? ?
?? ? There was also a big outcry at the time about the pollution--apparently
?? ? folks were worried about damage to the ozone layer or something, due to
?? ? inefficient engines spewing crap in the stratosphere. I'm not sure
?? ? whether there was anything to that (there so often isn't, in the
?? ? environmentalist cosmos), but that and the sonic booms were what got
?? ? supersonic flight banned.
?? ?
?? ? Cheers
?? ?
?? ? Phil Hobbs
?? ?
??
?? Just more symptoms on Not Invented Here syndrome.
?
?
? Yawn. US SS military jets were banned from populated areas long
?before the first Concord was pieced together from British and french
?landfills.

Because falling out of the sky and killing people is not a vote winner

Cleaning out your ass, again?

--
Politicians should only get paid if the budget is balanced, and there is
enough left over to pay them.