it’s not acceleration, it’s air friction vs plane geometry, supersonic airflow has different optimal characteristics both for engines and flight surfaces/wings (naive kinetic energy is just differences of speed squared though).
But performing the Mach-cutoff flight “burns more fuel on the same distance than both subsonic and supersonic flight”, says Liebhardt. That makes it less economically viable than a regular supersonic flight and “the worst speed to fly at for fuel economy”. He sees Mach-cutoff flights as being more of a niche use case for “supersonic business jet users”, rather than for commercial airlines.
seems like they get shit of both worlds tbh with fuel economy (not zoomy enough to just cross distance fast with godawful fuel consumption/not optimized enough for flight at those speeds via engine regimes/geometry (that part might be fixable, but depends on how long it spends on subsonic climb/descend part of journey)
it’s not acceleration, it’s air friction vs plane geometry, supersonic airflow has different optimal characteristics both for engines and flight surfaces/wings (naive kinetic energy is just differences of speed squared though).
from new scientist
seems like they get shit of both worlds tbh with fuel economy (not zoomy enough to just cross distance fast with godawful fuel consumption/not optimized enough for flight at those speeds via engine regimes/geometry (that part might be fixable, but depends on how long it spends on subsonic climb/descend part of journey)
oh that makes so much sense thank you!