Japan invents the biplane!
As wacky as it may look, Japanese scientists are taking a look at designing a modern-day biplane. K-cool!
A Supersonic Biplane that Whispers Where the Concorde Yelled
Txchnologist | 2012-08-16
…a Japanese research group at Tohoku University…designed a modified Busemann biplane with moving wing sections…The Tohoku plane cut drag and sonic booms by employing ‘morphing wings’ that change shape in mid-flight to enable the plane to attain and sustain supersonic speeds (PDF).
More…
Back in the 1970s, Boeing came up with a straight-winged, hypersonic biplane with remarkably low drag as shown on the right. Without the computational power to simulate it’s flight and design, it obviously was to radical to risk the expense to carry through beyond the concept drawing stage. It’s good to see some thinking out of the box coming from normally staid Japan.
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August 17th, 2012 at 1:11 pm
Awesome… except for few details…
Having done some sleepover in unsound french suburbs on appartement right in the alignement of the take of path of the Concorde (*for reasons linked but not included in the Dayton agreement (no, seriously)). That bitch was a screamer at any speed. Like for fighter jets, the engines were guilty. Because the wings were from the start designed to be the most efficient at mach+ speed. That’s why they are dogs at lower speeds, just look at an SR71 refuelling in midair. It would be comical if it was not looking so insanely dangerous.
There is also the fact that unlike Mirage 2000 who are excessively playfull and enjoy low altitude afterburner kicks to play with the landscape, the Concorde was doing Mach+ speed only at high altitude, were I’m pretty sure the effect on the ground were quite tamed…
The fact that I’m ready to bet that unless they find an active cancellation method, the only way to avoid sonic boom is to avoid sonic speeds. Even the french TGV trigger sonic booms in tunnels because of the forwarded compressed air that reach sonic speeds at the exit. The noise is cancelled by the same method used in gun silencers.
And lastly…
They are in Tohoku… and I’m pretty sure that RIGHT NOW, they kinda have a bigger engineering problem to deal with and to put ressources and money on…
August 17th, 2012 at 1:18 pm
Naaa, the Tohoku Dead Zone (40km radius) of the great earthquake/tsunami/nuclear-meltdown should just be sealed off and left alone.
The obscenely over-fished Japanese fisheries need a total moratorium to allow criminally depleted fish stocks to recover. Japanese rice farming is a joke and has never efficient/practical/rational. The tsunami/earthquake debris should be just bulldozed into the closed-off breakwaters and harbors.