Boeing Sonic Cruiser aka 'Project 20XX' aka 'Project Glacier'

[flateric]

I'm interested in Sonic Cruiser iterations 3-views, if any were published (AFAIK, design was very touchy security question for a long). I have all images from Cruiser-related 3 or so Boeing's patents, but want something more accurate. Thanks.

 

[Matej]

A little bit out of topic but interesting. First is supersonic business jet derived from sonic cruiser (Boeing´s propagation material) and second is what-if USAF tanker (internet).

 

[Sentinel Chicken]

The sonic cruiser tanker is purely fictional. That illustration was done by a friend of mine as a sort of tongue in cheek joke on an aviation model collectors' forum.

 

[flateric]

Some Boeing Sonic Cruiser-related patents in chronological order
http://www.google.com/patents?id=HBMPAAAAEBAJ&dq=d477,561

 

[flateric]

Note variety of almost-identical iterations with just slight differences.
http://www.google.com/patents?id=2ycPAAAAEBAJ&dq=d479,501

 

[flateric]

more and more...
http://www.google.com/patents?id=N3kUAAAAEBAJ&dq=6,938,854

 

[flateric]

'Haven't we forget patent something?' was a Boeing motto in the case. Final touch.

 

[flateric]

From Flight International on-line archives goes this notional Sonic Cruiser drawings based on first Boeing's pictures released in 2001

 

[Matej]

Will this help?

 

[LowObservable]

Back when Boeing was getting all excited about this piece of c**p magnificent design, this image turned up, in a NASA paper from 2000 - that is, almost a year before SC was announced.

SC was in my view derived from a supersonic design. Moreover, a Sukhoi-based supersonic design, since Boeing's BBJ team in 2004 admitted that the company had been working with Sukhoi for years.

However, even LO's legendary pentothol martinis were not enough to get anyone at Boeing to admit it.

 

[flateric]

Have found my old Sonic Cruiser model pics from MAKS 2001.

 

[flateric]

Will this help?

These are from interesting critical DLR paper entitled

The Sonic Cruiser – A Concept Analysis
Dr. Martin Hepperle
DLR Institute of Aerodynamics and Flow Technologies, DLR Braunschweig, Germany

Authors used published artist's renderings and a fistful of data that Boeing gave on Cruiser to analyze

"Abstract
Early in 2001 the Boeing company announced a new aircraft, the “Sonic Cruiser”. The most
impressive features of this new project were a range of up to 10’000 nautical miles, a cruise
Mach number above M = 0.95 and the claim of a large reduction in flight time.
A concept level study was undertaken to design and analyze a possible aircraft configuration.
One result of the study is the fact, that the reduction of flight time by increasing the cruise
Mach number to M = 0.98 is relatively small. A larger reduction of travel time seems to be
possible only by using direct point to point services instead of hub and spoke connections.
Another result is, that the claimed range would be very hard to reach."

http://www.dlr.de/as/Portaldata/5/Resources/dokumente/abteilungen/abt_ke/vorentwurf/hepperle-sonic-cruiser-paper.pdf

 

[LowObservable]

You had to post that horrible thing, didn't you?

 

[flateric]

Which thing exactly?

 

[flateric]

Sonic Cruiser tail with Honeywell's APU

 

[red admiral]

A model currently resides at the Rolls-Royce History Centre in Derby. I always wondered what it was, so thanks for telling me.

 

[flateric]

Wow! Are you somewhere nearby?

 

[zhuravlik]

Speaking of models..
http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=172554

Zhuravlik

 

[red admiral]

Wow! Are you somewhere nearby?

I live about an hour from Derby and had a nice guided tour around the history centre site in July. It was good to talk with the old engineers (mostly guys from 1950-60s now). Theres loads of stuff there that I didn't take pictures of, lots of rocket stuff that doesn't really interest me.

Other pictures, mainly engines can be found here;
http://s25.photobucket.com/albums/c84/AviationImages/Rolls-Royce%20Vist/

 

[LowObservable]

Nice pics...
You do wonder whose idea it was to ship a V-3420 to the UK.. or what brilliant person decided that the first flight for the Clyde should be in the nose of a Wyvern...
Speaking of engines in odd places, anyone got the ghost of a scintilla of a clue how come a Napier Nomad ended up in the US National Air & Space Museum?

 

[flateric]

SC was in my view derived from a supersonic design. Moreover, a Sukhoi-based supersonic design, since Boeing's BBJ team in 2004 admitted that the company had been working with Sukhoi for years.
However, even LO's legendary pentothol martinis were not enough to get anyone at Boeing to admit it.

This is taken from not-so-fresh Sukhoi presentation, slide entitled 'Boeing's view'. No chemistry needed=)
Courtesy www.mati-fatal.ru

 

[Skybolt]

I don't know how to cross post, so see here:
http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,4263.msg34296.html#msg34296

 

[flateric]

Chernobyl's Sonic Cruiser...Boeing 2002 patent
http://www.google.com/patents/pdf/Tri_body_aircraft_and_methods_for_their_.pdf?id=eEMUAAAAEBAJ&output=pdf&sig=ACfU3U2p3QL0PYzcLHvDS529cZNC6GulFA

 

[flateric]

Well, was always wondering where Boeing was going to put MLG on the beast...voila...but to put it somewhere, some tricks with engine nacelles were made...and probably this is further stage of SC evolution that it have made before going to dustbin...

 

[LowObservable]

Good grief...

Someone's been spending way too much time here: http://zigzagseattle.com/

A few of Murray's specials will do that too you.

 

[flateric]

Well, the three-body SC was found by Hesham almost a year ago http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,2420.msg24148.html#msg24148

 

[CFE]

I noticed that in the final Sonic Cruiser renderings (circa Summer 2002, in time for Farnborough,) the Sonic Cruiser had lost the cant on the vertical stabilizers and lost the dihedral on the canards. Has any rationale for these design changes been given>

I must admit that when BSC was unveiled in early 2001, I was very excited. That was before I started taking aero engineering classes and didn't know how bad transonic drag really was. In hindsight, I think Boeing was wise to kill the design off so early into the design cycle. A true SST may be in the cards someday, but there's little to be gained from cruising in the transonic regime.

 

[flateric]

I've tried to collect [some] of renderings, showing Sonic Cruiser evolution. File names show year and a month of BCA image release date.

 

[flateric]

...more

 

[flateric]

More severe SC mutations from Everett guys...
Boeing's 2004 US patent #6705567
http://www.google.com/patents?id=QdcPAAAAEBAJ&dq

First one would perfectly fit in Casino Royale...and the second is looking like highly surprised dolphin.

 

[LowObservable]

The "deck and a half" was also seen on the 767 stretch designs that preceded the 777. The problem was that if you put in a full upper deck you ran out of space for the bags.

 

[flateric]

LO, just in case - don't you know what was this high-subsonic 'coke bottle'? Actually, it's from the same patent.

 

[gral_rj]

What little I know(remembered from a Flight International article) is that Boeing presented a SC configuration with a conventional mid-fuselage mounted wing in answer to some of the prospective clients, who disliked the wing and engine arrangement of the Sonic Cruiser. That was shortly(1, 2 months) before canceling the SC entirely, IIRC. The conventional wing arrangement dictated a coke-bottle fuselage, which was just what Boeing didn't want - the placement of wings and canards was chosen because, among other things, Boeing wanted to have a constant diameter fuselage(easier and cheaper to build), while still using area rule.

 

[flateric]

http://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/2002/2002%20-%202818.html?search=sonic%20cruiser

 

[LowObservable]

Yes, I suspect the "coke bottle" - which looks like some early-1970s supercritical wing "7X7" studies - was there to underline what was seen as a key feature of the Chronic Snoozer, which was the parallel-sided body.

 

[flateric]

Holy Banana! John Ostrower have found stadium seating mutation!
! http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/flightblogger/2008/11/boeings-sonic-cruiser-revived.html

 

[Triton]

News conference with Alan Mulally, President & CEO of Boeing Commercial Airplanes, unveiling the Sonic Cruiser design to the press on March 29, 2001. Service entry was expected in late 2007 or early 2008.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_W_lRl1uVrg

Photographs of Alan Mulally and the Sonic Cruiser model from the March 29, 2001 press conference.

 

[Triton]

Photograph of the inlets of the Boeing Sonic Cruiser, according to Boeing 787 Dreamliner by Mark Wagner and Guy Norris, Zenith Press, 2009:

An innovative design feature of the Sonic Cruiser was its low drag inlets beneath the wings. Similar in cross section to the ovoid F-16 inlet but skewed outward, they stood proud from the airfame and clear of the boundary layer, ensuring a flow of "clean," undisturbed air into the shallow S-ducts feeding the buried engines. The configuration, revealed for the first time at the 2001 Paris Air Show, also posed some challenges, particularly with foreign-object ingestion.

 

[Triton]

According to Boeing 787 Dreamliner by Mark Wagner and Guy Norris, Zenith Press, 2009:

To get around airline infrastructure concerns, Boeing presented airlines with alternative configurations. One was a "midwing" design that combined fairly conventional wings and tail surfaces with a "wasp-waisted" or area-ruled fuselage. The concept was configured with two main cabin cross sections, a wide cabin in the fore body and aft body, and a slimmer midbody section. The design resurrected a far reaching 1972 Boeing-NASA study that evaluated area-ruling in several concepts optimized for cruise speeds in the Mach 0.9 to .98 range.

I presume that this is an artist's impression based on Figure 1C, Figure 1D, and Figure 1E attached by flateric above from US Patent 6705567.

 

[Stargazer2006]

Has anyone got an article (or a link) that would explain exactly why and how the Sonic Cruiser was canceled? This was the first transport program that I was really thrilled about and I never quite understood what killed it. All I know is that whenever "Sonic Cruiser" is pronounced, there always seem to be snide or derogatory remarks, if not outright laughs...