Supersonic business jets: flight of fantasy or reality? Tupolev would have to create a supersonic business jet from scratch Supersonic business jet

A supersonic administrative aircraft (business jet) with a capacity of up to 50 people can be designed in seven to eight years if there is enough engine capacity, the Ministry of Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation reported. Demand in the domestic market is forecast at 20-30 aircraft at a price of $100-120 million, and the aircraft may also have significant export potential.

"At the enterprises of PJSC "UAC" there is a scientific and technical reserve for supersonic administrative aircraft. According to preliminary estimates, the design and creation of the first demonstration flight model with a capacity of up to 50 seats may require industry about seven to eight years if there is a reserve for power plant", the press service of the Ministry of Industry and Trade told TASS.

The idea of ​​creating a supersonic business jet based on the Tu-160 was expressed by Russian President Vladimir Putin on January 25 during a visit to the Kazan aircraft plant and viewing a demonstration flight of the Tu-160M ​​Pyotr Deinekin missile carrier.

“We need to make a civilian version,” Putin said. “Why did the Tu-144 go out of production? The ticket had to correspond to some average earnings in the country. But now the situation is different. Now large companies appeared that could use this plane." The President noted that it is faster to fly to New York than from Kaliningrad to Vladivostok.

Return to the idea of ​​flying supersonic aircraft

A Russian serial civilian supersonic aircraft may be created by 2030, and in the near future a flying demonstrator may appear, the appearance of which is still being worked out. He announced this in January 2017 in an interview with Rossiyskaya Gazeta. CEO Central Aerohydrodynamic Institute named after Professor N. E. Zhukovsky (TsAGI) Sergey Chernyshev.

At TsAGI, in the center of competence in the field of creating supersonic passenger aircraft, research is being carried out on supersonic aircraft that would have good aerodynamics and a low environmental impact of the sonic boom. The result of research in recent years has been the conceptual appearance of the aircraft, embodying compromise solutions for its integral aerodynamic configuration. It was possible to obtain good aerodynamics, low fuel consumption, low noise levels and sonic boom, which was not the case with the first generation of supersonic aircraft - Tu-144 and Concorde.

The sonic boom resembles several explosions following one another. The level of sonic boom (a sharp pressure drop in the shock wave) from the Tu-144 was 100-130 Pascals. But our modern research has shown that it can be increased to 15-20. Moreover, reduce the volume of the sonic boom to 65 decibels, which is equivalent to noise big city, - says the general director of TsAGI.

The project of a supersonic business aircraft for 12-16 passengers, called Rumble in the West, is aimed at justifying acceptable levels of sonic boom. Research and testing in wind tunnels at TsAGI prove that an aircraft can be made with both good aerodynamics and very low level sonic boom.

Today we have made significant progress in supersonic technologies, and we also understand much better what such an aircraft should look like and what consumer qualities it should have. I think we are 10-15 years away from a flying prototype. In the near future, according to our plans, a flying demonstrator should appear, the appearance of which is being worked out. His the main task- demonstrate the basic technologies for creating a supersonic aircraft with a low sonic boom level. A new generation serial supersonic aircraft may appear on the horizon in 2030, noted Sergei Chernyshev.

At the same time, he added that Europeans are also participating in the project of a supersonic aircraft for 12-16 people, which was launched jointly with the Sukhoi Design Bureau and MAI, and added that several options for such an aircraft are currently being considered.

We are considering several options: an airplane for 12-16 passengers and one for 60-80. There is an option for a very small business aircraft - for 6-8 passengers. But we start with the first of the designated supersonic aircraft.

According to various estimates, today there is already an unrealized need for fast flights on the market. business people on airplanes with a passenger capacity of 12-16 people. And, of course, the car must fly a distance of at least 7-8 thousand kilometers along transatlantic routes,” Chernyshev explained.

In America, two supersonic business jet projects are also being developed at once. One supposedly has some kind of atypical tail, and the other has a completely unusual wing.

Yes, everyone is looking for new layout solutions. The design of our aircraft also looks very unusual. Like a seagull in flight: a V-shaped wing with a large aperture angle, consoles with a smaller angle, but also V-shaped, a fuselage with a curved central axis... The engines are on top, and this is important, since due to the screen effect the level of sonic boom is reduced. Also, during takeoff and landing, the “screen” reduces the noise level from the engines. The work plan provides for a ground-based experiment on a real engine to demonstrate the screen effect. We must confirm a noticeable reduction in jet noise due to the reflection of acoustic disturbances from the flat surface of the tail section of the glider.

Sukhoi Supersonic Business Jet - supersonic project passenger plane, belonging to the business class, which was developed by the Sukhoi Design Bureau. On this project, Sukhoi JSC collaborated with Dassault Aviation, Gulfstream Aerospace and many Chinese companies. Today further fate The SSBJ S-21, like the Tu-444, remains unclear.

In 1981, development of the S-21 and S-51 began on the initiative of designer Mikhail Petrovich Simonov. This project was headed by Mikhail Aslanovich Pogosyan, deputy chief designer.

An analysis of the commercial operation of Concorde and Tu-144 showed that with an increase in fuel prices, supersonic aircraft will not be able to compete in the mass transportation segment with more economical subsonic airliners. The number of passengers who are willing to overpay for speed is insignificant and is determined, as a rule, by senior officials and representatives of large businesses. At the same time, priority routes are airlines that connect world capitals. This, in fact, determined the concept of an aircraft designed to transport eight to ten passengers over a distance of seven to ten thousand kilometers (non-stop flight between cities sharing the same contingent and with one refueling during the flight to any capital of the world). Equally important is to reduce the flight length so that the aircraft can be accepted by airports around the world.

While working on the aircraft, different layout options were analyzed: with two, three or four engines. The collapse of the USSR was the reason for the cessation of funding for the program. Sukhoi Design Bureau began searching for independent investors. In the early 1990s, work was carried out together with well-known company Gulfstream Aerospace. A variant with two English engines, which received the designation S-21G, was jointly developed. But in 1992, the American company refused to finance the project, suggesting that the costs would become prohibitive in the future. As a result, the project had to be suspended.

However, very soon, in 1993, Russian investors were found, after which the project was resumed. $25 million received from investors allowed the design to be completed. Experts tested aircraft models in aerodynamic turbines, as well as ground tests of engines.

In 1999, the aircraft was shown at the Le Bourget air show. There M.P. Simonov said that to begin production of serial airliners (as well as to complete all work on the aircraft) it will take about $1 billion. With full and timely funding, the aircraft could take off in 2002, and the price of one model would be about $50 million. Then the possibility of continuing work on the project with Dassault Aviation was considered, but the contract fell through.

In 2000, Sukhoi Design Bureau tried to find investors for this project in China.

To date, investments to complete the creation of the aircraft have not been found. Even in the state program “Development aviation industry for 2013-2025”, which was adopted at the end of 2012, there is no mention of the SSBJ aircraft.

Characteristics of SSBJ - Sukhoi Supersonic Business Jet

Aircraft dimensions

    length, m 28

    height, m ​​6.5

    wingspan, m 20

    wing area, sq.m 114

    Crew, people 2

    Number of passengers 6-8

    Engines, quantity/type 4/AL-31F

    Engine thrust

    (without afterburner), kgf.... 30000

    Takeoff weight (max), kg.... 60000

    Empty weight, kg.... 24000

    Fuel weight (max), kg.... 36000

Kreis. speed

    Supersonic (M=2, H=18000m), km/h 2125

    Subsonic (M=0.95), km/h 1050

Practical range, km

Sukhoi Supersonic Business Jet. Gallery.

We are increasingly hearing statements from aircraft manufacturing companies about their work on creating supersonic business jets. What are these – abstract dreams or realities of the near future? Columnist for the Corporate Jet Investor portal Alud Davies assesses modern projects to create a supersonic aircraft. *** A serious blow to the heads of corporations and banking structures was the cessation of operation in 2003 of Concorde, the only aircraft that made it possible to fly between New York and London or Paris and return within one working day. The removal of the Concorde supersonic airliner from regular service doubled the time spent on such a flight. And since in those years the level of development mobile communications was not yet very high, which meant that passengers were cut off from any external information for eight hours or more. And if for an ordinary passenger this represented only some inconvenience, then for the heads of leading international corporations and banks such a break from reality could cause multimillion-dollar financial losses. Concorde was a real “time machine” for business people of this level. But for all its amazing time-saving capabilities, Concorde had one significant drawback. So significant that it ultimately became the reason for the cessation of operation of this aircraft - not only in the UK and the USA, but also in Japan, and even in Iran - all 20 Concordes built were gradually withdrawn from flights. The Concorde problem was not new - it has plagued supersonic aircraft since their inception, and unfortunately, it appears to be far from resolved to this day.

Breaking the sound barrier

To travel faster than the speed of sound, an object must break the sound barrier, both literally and figuratively. And although supersonic speed it is not so difficult for an aircraft with the appropriate engine power to achieve, the problem arises at the very moment the aircraft transitions to supersonic. That is, the sonic boom that occurs at this moment has such high level noise that this was the cause of the disaster of the entire Concorde project. The plane could not take off and land over settlements– from the roar that accompanied the supersonic transition, glass in houses flew out. It has been 11 years since Concorde last made a commercial flight. Over the years, research projects related to supersonic aviation, multimillion-dollar investments were used... Are aircraft manufacturers any closer to solving the sonic boom problem? The most famous in this direction was the joint project of NASA and the manufacturer of business jets Gulfstream, which received the unofficial name “Quiet Spike”. The design was based on the model NASA aircraft F-15B, on the nose of which was installed a retractable “spear” made of composite materials more than 7.3 meters long. By cutting through the air in front of a flying aircraft, this spike reduces drag and directs the shock wave towards the ground, thereby significantly reducing the level of noise generated during supersonic transition. The first successes of the project were achieved in 2007. In subsequent years, the company did not demonstrate a single project on the market in which this technology was to some extent put into practice, but most likely this is due to the general crisis in the production of private aircraft. Gulfstream's announcement of success has not stopped other companies - they continue to independently explore the possibilities of using supersonic technologies in light aviation.

Aerion and Spike: supersonic business jets

Aerion Corporation is an ambitious project to create its own supersonic business jet design; The company is currently looking for a manufacturer willing to build a real aircraft based on its engineering developments. At the same time, the developers decided to bypass the sore point of the need to reduce sound effects: according to their plan, the flight over populated areas will take place at subsonic speeds (about 0.99 M), and the sound barrier will be broken, as in the case of Concorde, only over water space where the flight speed can reach 1.6 M. Such an aircraft is designed to carry up to 12 passengers. The maximum flight range will be 4000 nautical miles(7,400 km), which will allow it to be used for flights between Europe and the USA. But despite the fact that the first publications about the project date back to 2004, as of January 2014, the developers were unable to find a single manufacturer ready to take on the construction of such a business jet. Another ambitious company, Spike Aerospace, announced its supersonic project quite recently: in September 2013. It promises to release its aircraft (working title Spike S-512 SSB) to the market in 2018. At the same time, like Aerion, Spike will be able to operate in supersonic mode only over water expanses (estimated speed - up to 1.8 M flight range - the same 7,400 kilometers), allowing travelers to make transatlantic flights in 3-4 hours. Thus, despite the efforts of many research groups, it is not yet possible to definitively answer the question stated in the title. None of the announced projects have yet demonstrated their ability to fly at supersonic speeds over populated areas while remaining within modern noise requirements. And therefore, as in the case of Concorde, their operation will be limited to an extremely small number of routes connecting pairs of cities on opposite shores of the ocean. And since today the largest for business aviation there is still the US domestic market, where flights from city to city go over populated areas, and for Western Europe Intra-European flights are the most relevant; it will be extremely difficult for the creators of such an aircraft to find a market to sell their product.

If you're a talented young engineer working for one of the world's leading airlines, and suddenly you get the idea to tell the director about a great new idea for developing a supersonic passenger plane, you can bet that you will almost immediately be asked to leave the management office or completely kicked out of your job. However, the situation changes if you work for a small company. In this case, such a number may work; moreover, for such a project it will be possible to get some investments and even draw a number of beautiful sketches. This is exactly what the young designers from the Aerion Corporation did, who have been exploiting the idea of ​​​​building the Aerion AS2 SBJ (supersonic business jet) aircraft for a very long time.

This company has long dreamed of creating a private supersonic aircraft for members of the business community. They have been running around with this idea for quite a few years, regularly releasing reports and new renderings of the car. Not long ago they presented the public with yet another innovation, having decided to make changes to the project. Thus, the Aerion AS2 SBJ aircraft will have to receive 3 engines at once instead of the originally planned two.


Jokes aside, this decision of the designers should be recognized as logically correct. While there are obvious disadvantages of such a solution - a general increase in the cost of the project, a heavier vehicle, an increase in the number of engines - there is also a very important positive effect in the form of a decrease in the specific thrust of each engine during takeoff. Less thrust on the engine means less noise. It is worth noting that it is the rumble that is one of the Achilles heels of many supersonic aircraft, if we are talking about passenger cars. Initially, the project developers planned to install 2 Pratt & Whitney JT8D engines in the supersonic version on the aircraft. It is worth noting that this engine was created 50 years ago, and since then it has been installed on many popular aircraft, in particular the B727, MD80, DC9 and many others.

The main distinctive features of the Aerion AS2 project, which distinguish it from a number of similar projects, include the wing of its original design. Aerion Corporation engineers decided to abandon the delta or ogive wing in favor of using their own design - Aerion “unswept” SNLF (supersonic natural laminar flow). According to the company’s specialists, such a shape and profile of the wing provides a significant increase in the laminar flow area, which in turn makes it possible to reduce total area airframe by 20% at once. They confirm their statements with data that were obtained while blowing the model in the NASA wind tunnel.

It is obvious that modern technologies do not stand still; they are constantly striving for improvement. So, it is not worth ruling out the possibility that in the near future airlines will begin to operate similar supersonic aircraft that can reduce long-distance flight time to 1-2 hours. At the same time, in discussions about the future of large passenger supersonic airliners and their design in last years there is a lull. Along with this, a large number of projects of small supersonic aircraft belonging to the business class have appeared.

A supersonic aircraft of this class for 6-15 passengers is hardly easier to develop and create than a similar aircraft for 150 passengers, but it will cost significantly less, and experts predict the demand for such aircraft to be quite large. In Europe and the USA, in the last few years, a large number of projects of similar small supersonic aircraft have appeared, which this moment are at various stages of implementation. To be fair, it is worth noting that all projects are still only in the paper stage.


All projects of such machines, with all the variety of original components and parts, have one thing in common - they either look like grown-up fighters, for example, the F-15 or Su-27, or are significantly “shrunken” in size, the Tu-144 and Concorde. The same double tail, the same delta-shaped wings, etc. Against this background, it is the Aerion AS2 SBJ project that stands out from the overall picture with a fresh look. Aerion AS2 is a small 12-seater aircraft, in the appearance of which the main attention is drawn to the straight wing, which is more correctly called diamond-shaped, and the same tail.

Aerion AS2 is a supersonic business jet that attracts attention with its unusual diamond-shaped wing. Some people think that this model cannot compare with fighter jets in terms of efficiency and flight speed, but in fact they are mistaken. What is the project of this aircraft outwardly reminiscent of the F-104 fighter that has long sunk into oblivion, which received the unflattering nickname “flying coffin” for the numerous deaths of pilots, does not mean anything. The aerodynamics of the wing of this aircraft were made using the latest and most advanced technologies. The wingspan of the new aircraft is 19.8 m, the length of the aircraft is 44.15 m. These dimensions are of a design nature and may change by the time the aircraft is launched into production.

According to the creators of this supersonic aircraft, its main advantage over competitors should be the quietest flight at supersonic speed. Until the plane reaches Mach 1.1, no sonic boom will be heard on the ground. Thanks to this aircraft, the road is opened to mass operation without the emergence of claims and conflicts that relate to permits and approvals from the authorities of those states over whose territory the flight route will be laid.


When flying over populated areas, the aircraft can maintain a speed of 0.99 Mach to 1.1 Mach, which is still significantly faster than usual passenger aircraft and small business class cars. At the same time, when flying over the ocean or sparsely populated areas, the aircraft will be able to reach speeds of up to 1.6 M. Moreover, even at such a flight speed, the force of the sonic boom will be noticeably lower than that of smaller supersonic fighters and significantly less than that of the same “ Concorde."

Today main question The question is whether such an aircraft will be in demand on the market. The company gives skeptics this example - a flight from Tokyo to New York with a landing in Anchorage (rest 1 hour) on the new Aerion AS2 aircraft will take only 9 hours 33 minutes, including the rest time itself, while a flight without rest (but with making one refueling) on ​​business class aircraft takes 14 hours 21 minutes. At the same time, the maximum flight range is almost 8 thousand kilometers with a cruising flight speed of 1.4 M. Very serious indicators.

Moreover, the plane will be able to take off not only from large airports. Landing speed the machine, which, according to the designers, is 237 km/h, allows it to land on airfields with a runway length of only 1.5 km. Landing a Concorde-type aircraft on such a runway would be very difficult and, in practice, practically impossible. The take-off run of the aircraft is also relatively small - about 1.8 km, which is a fairly good indicator for a supersonic machine. This is the advantage of using a diamond-shaped wing in combination with flaps that are made along its entire span.

At the same time, there is another important point, which is one of the main reasons why supersonic airliners have not pushed ordinary passenger cars at subsonic speed to the sidelines - the cost of air tickets. Currently, returning to the idea of ​​supersonic passenger transportation, but in relation to compact business class aircraft, manufacturers in various countries believe that the rich and those who value their free time people will be able to overpay for higher flight speeds and a reduction in flight time by 1.5 or even 2 times. It was against this background that the Aerion aircraft project arose, the creators of which announced that a flight on their aircraft would be no more expensive, and even slightly cheaper, than on existing subsonic jet aircraft designed to carry from 10 to 20 passengers.

The company's engineers claim that their model's air resistance at supersonic flight speeds, despite the use of a diamond-shaped wing, will be 20% lower than that of aircraft equipped with a delta-shaped wing of similar sizes. Also added here are the well-known turbojet engines of Pratt & Whitney, which is rightfully considered one of the industry leaders. All this allowed Aerion Corporation to talk about developing a fast, but at the same time quite economical aircraft costing approximately $80 million. However, before mass production and sales begin, the cost of the new product may increase significantly. At the same time, the company’s specialists evaluate modern market supersonic business class aircraft at approximately 300-400 aircraft per year.

Previously, the company even reported that there were 19 buyers for the aircraft, which is currently under construction, and the total amount of contracts concluded was $1.5 billion. For the first time, a supersonic business class aircraft was presented to the public at the Dubai Air Show. Of course, the price of this aircraft cannot compare with the amount that a person decided to pay who wanted to buy the world's largest airliner, the A380. But unlike the Airbus, the new Aerion AS2 has its main advantage - flight speed.


The maximum speed of the aircraft should be 1.6 M (about 1900 km/h). Considering the fact that in all countries of the world there is a law banning supersonic flights over continental territories, the aircraft will not be able to reach its maximum speed everywhere. At the same time, it will be able to fly at supersonic speed over the surface of the ocean, as well as over states that have vast, sparsely populated territories. Among such countries are Russia, Canada and Australia. In these countries, it is possible to obtain special permission for such flights.

Information sources:
http://ru-aviation.livejournal.com/2975482.html
http://transserver.net/modules/myarticles/article_storyid_99.html
http://totugo.ru/avia/52
http://news.kuda.ua/10464

 

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