>>1145124I'm surprised there hasn't been a private SS plane yet. You know that everyone will be disappointed if that is not the gulfstream 7.
But I think it's a great idea to slow down airliners. That would mean more safety because of lower take off and landing speeds possible, although they might just try to get away without using high lift devices then. But also not having to worry about ransonic effects means that it will be easier to implement other kinds of efficiency gaining techniques like boundary layer ingestion and what not. It seems like everything is easier when they don't battle transonic effects.
But im not sure if airlines would be game for the lack of flexibility. As it is now in some designs, like the e-jet, they have a cruise speed of around .75 mach but can go .82 mach if they have to. That means they can get some efficiency but make for delays if need be. I would imagine what airlines really want is an airplane that "can do it all." Maybe they would be highly attracted to a plane that wouldn't be as efficient in transonic cruise but still be able to go there while also having a HYPER efficient real subsonic cruise.
I also wonder if planes without transonic design considerations might be more susceptible to jet upset and overspeeding issues. Like if a plane got jumbled by turbulence and then entered a dive. This used to be a yuuuge problem in the 60s because they had manual flight controls that wouldnt be able to overcome the airpressure at overspeeds. With the introductions of the trijets and 747 airlines pushed boeing to incorporate heavy hydraulic boost so that couldn't happen. My point is that a straight winged airplane in a steep dive would be harder to design in a way that it could sustain those forces. Or maybe not if the plane is draggy enough at transonic speeds? But still it's good to know that on modern airliners that most of the time they can pull out of a super sonic dive like China Air 006.
