Supersonic Private Jet?

[~Legend~]

$60 million supersonic jet by Spike Aerospace - windowless and part funded by donations.
Is this a glimpse of aviation of the future?

Spike Aerospace is hoping to raise $250,000 from crowdfunding to go towards building a supersonic private jet that has no windows and can fly from London to New York in just four hours.
The futuristic Spike S-512 luxury jet is estimated to cost $60 million (£36m, €44m) and will be able to carry a maximum of 18 passengers at a time. In place of windows, the jet will feature giant screens that stream live video taken from micro-cameras surrounding the outside of the plane to show passengers what is going on outside, or be used to project movies and other content. The Boston-based company is ditching the traditional oval windows seen in aircrafts today as they slow the plane down by adding extra weight and weakening the body of the aircraft.

"There are several reasons for removing the windows from the cabin. It has long been known that the windows cause significant challenges in designing and constructing an aircraft fuselage. They require addition structural support, add to the parts count and add weight to the aircraft," Spike Aerospace President and CEO Vik Kachoria explains in a blog post.
"But until recently, it has not been possible to do without them."

Commercial airlines today usually fly at the speeds of .85 Mach, which is about 567 miles per hours (mph). In contrast, the Spike S-512 has been designed to fly at speeds of 1.6 – 1.8 Mach (1060-1200mph), using advanced composite materials, avionics and jet propulsion technologies. The founders of Spike Aerospace are aerospace engineers who previously worked for aircraft manufacturers such as Boeing, Airbus, Gulfstream and Nasa. They have been designing the supersonic jet for two years and hope to launch the aircraft in December 2018. In order to generate publicity for their project, Spike Aerospace has launched a crowd-funding campaign to raise $250,000. The money will be used to help complete the next phase of the aircraft design, which will cost a total of $800,000.


   

[Archie]

Looks comfortable and cheaper than it deserves, but doesn't it use a lot of electricity?

[~Legend~]

Looks comfortable and cheaper than it deserves, but doesn't it use a lot of electricity?

It does seem as if it will consume a fair amount. The engines, of course, to keep it going at such high velocities, but I am also interested in the virtual 'video windows'. You wouldn't want some grainy display surrounding you, so I wonder how they are going to pull it off.

But this is a jet of the future, and maybe we should be thinking outside of the box. Perhaps in the space of the windows they'll line the aircraft with solar panels to generate electricity and what not.

[TiMoN]

lol big deal

[[WS]Jacob]

I like it.

[~Legend~]

Reminds me a bit of the new jet from GTA V:

[aleksandar_gojkovic]

Yep, and in Serbia we cant afford brand new Nike sneakers... Lol

[~Legend~]

People can't afford brand new Nike sneakers in nearly every autonomous state in the world. But at the same time in each of those states, there are also enough people to buy thousands of the same sneakers. Wealth imbalance is an unavoidable consequence of a material planet, but its presence should not mean that we scrap our ambitious projects which could revolutionise the way we live in the future.

[aleksandar_gojkovic]

People can't afford brand new Nike sneakers in nearly every autonomous state in the world. But at the same time in each of those states, there are also enough people to buy thousands of the same sneakers. Wealth imbalance is an unavoidable consequence of a material planet, but its presence should not mean that we scrap our ambitious projects which could revolutionise the way we live in the future.

Just shows how much our world is screwed . There aint no middle class anymore. Those who think that are wrong. You are either rich or poor, and unfortenoutly there is way too much poor. DId ya know that if you took ALL the wealth from the worlds 100 richest people, you could end world hunger? Eh, that is the probelm with our world... Let 100 men have multi million sports cars, and let billion of people starve just so those 100 can have supercars. Nice going humanity!

[~Legend~]

Just shows how much our world is screwed . There aint no middle class anymore. Those who think that are wrong. You are either rich or poor, and unfortenoutly there is way too much poor. DId ya know that if you took ALL the wealth from the worlds 100 richest people, you could end world hunger? Eh, that is the probelm with our world... Let 100 men have multi million sports cars, and let billion of people starve just so those 100 can have supercars. Nice going humanity!

Ahh I guess we can't dictate who has what.
Apparently the wealth of half the world's population (3.5 billion) = the wealth of 85 of the richest individuals on the planet.

The good thing is, more people know about the issues as well as the good stuff (like this new plane) and hopefully a lot more's being done in the way of  both.