Why aren't they building faster planes instead of bigger ones?

[Ellen Forradalom]

So you can shove 800 people into an A-380....whoop de doo shit. It still takes you fucking forever to get there. And with more crying babies and slobbering drunks!

How about a new generation supersonic plane for those interminable long-haul flights like LA to Hong Kong or LA to Paris?

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. Too expensive to operate.

Concorde never made money for Air France or BA. It just takes too much fuel to make an airplane go that fast, and Concorde wasn't even very big. With oil at $90 there's no way any airline could afford to operate an SST.

[Ellen Forradalom]

3. Yes, certainly at current oil prices it's very expensive

but I wonder if there's any work being done to speed up ordinary jets?

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

5. Physics. You can't make an existing airplane go faster

without completely redesigning it. If you put bigger, more powerful engines on it you have to reinforce the airframe, which makes it heavier, which means it uses more fuel. You could put big CF6 engines on a little CRJ airplane to try to make go faster but the structure wouldn't be able to withstand the additional weight and thrust. Airplane designers have to balance the weight and strength of a structure against the forces involved in greater speed and the cost to carry increased weight. They go as fast as they can make them go -- "Cap'n, I canna' change the laws of physics!"

[Ellen Forradalom]

8. Thanks

Don't know much about airplane design as you can see.

[Mike03]

2. Cost and Physics?

I don't know, but this is an intriguing question.

Maybe there is some speed limit to what airplanes can achieve in the atmosphere with engine technology currently available. There could also be some critical mass point in the use of fuel, where it becomes more expensive to travel beyond some certain speed.

Hopefully some people who are experts in this area will answer this question.

[1000evorlrak]

4. The A-380 is the Toulouse Goose....

....possibly.

If you have the choice of two models of aircraft that each cost the same to operate per seat, and fly the same distances, one seats 400 and one 800, you want the one that seats 400. That's because having two planes gives you more options than just one.

Plus as mentioned the fuel costs, the Boeing 787 is very efficient as a passenger jet in this regard.

[Ellen Forradalom]

11. Singapore Airlines just got its goose

which suggests that in its domain hauling 800 people at a clip makes sense.

[cloudbase]

6. Going back a loooong way, but if I recall correctly,

speed and power have a cubic relation: doubling the speed requires eight times the power.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

7. That sounds familiar -- would explain why Concorde never made any money.

[Initech]

9. With the American concept of "bigger and better", I'm surprised these haven't caught on:

[JBoy]

10. The cost could be reasonable

if you don't mind having your body first burned down into ashes before being loaded on board. Oh yeah, and no luggage.