Airplanes + Cars. Will we ever go any faster?

I was flying from Baltimore to Cleveland to Chicago last week and I was calculating fly time and distance using basic math in my head and was thinking?

Will we ever fly commercial passenger planes faster than 550mph or so? Will we ever fly 750mph (850? 900?) via Southwest Airlines?

Will cars ever travel faster than 70-75mph on the highway? Cars have improved since I started paying attention in 1968 but why are we still traveling the same speeds?

Have reached the peak for these two vehicles in my lifetime? My kids lifetime?

When will we be flying George Jetson copters around?

When will the giant slot cars come?

Passenger planes are maxed out until we are willing to pay more for tickets. They are capable of going quite a bit faster, but they suck fuel to do it.

Cars are topped out until the next mass death, at which point the safety nazis will die from infections when we run out of hand sanitizer. Then we can bump highway speeds up to a reasonable level. And by reasonable, I mean MUCH faster than we drive now.

I'm doing the best I can to raise the speed of highway travel, but Johnny Law keeps interfering with my research.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concorde

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autobahn#Speed_limits

Money and bureaucracy prevent many things that have already been attained and proven from being implemented in such a place/manner that we could enjoy them.

I would absolutely LOVE a 70-75 mph speed limit here. Seems we get saddled with 55 and 65 while you shiny happy people everywhere else get an intelligent speed.

Don't think I didn't notice the traffice flow was better to boot. I'm watching you* berkeleyers like a hawk.

*You = everyone to the west of eastern WV.

Passenger planes are effectively limited by the speed of sound. Getting close to and past mach 1 gets a lot more expensive quickly, so current planes are going as fast as they are going to go with any economy.

Super sonic and hyper sonic passenger planes my become a reality someday, but they will still probably be pretty expensive and only useful for very long flights.

I know I've seen a solution somewhere.... Hmmm...

aircooled wrote: Passenger planes are effectively limited by the speed of sound. Getting close to and past mach 1 gets a lot more expensive quickly, so current planes are going as fast as they are going to go with any economy. Super sonic and hyper sonic passenger planes my become a reality someday, but they will still probably be pretty expensive and only useful for very long flights.

All of those problems go away when you start flying at the edge of space. The thinner air removes the (already way overstated) sonic boom problem and the lack of drag means you can cruise at whatever speed you want. Just have to get up that high first...

In reply to Jay:

Do we really want all of those people that high?

Oh wait...

Snoop Dogg could start an airline! They'd have the most relaxing flights ever.

But they already made that movie...

Snakes on a plane?

I really want high-speed train service, but that involves a new infrastructure that has no railroad crossings.

So we won't be seeing that in a very long time

High-speed trains in Germany run through level crossings all over the place (however they go 200 km/h rather than 400.) It's more a matter of having a really thorough traffic control scheme.

mguar wrote: Why insist on speed where most of those who drive are not competent to drive faster..

That's the first thing I thought of.

Pete240Z wrote: Will cars ever travel faster than 70-75mph on the highway?

A lot of Texas has an 80mph speed limit.

Honestly, even as cars get better, I don't see speed limits creeping up due to EPA regulations (In fact, I could see them creeping down). The efficiency of ANY car will decrease rapidly as speed increases.

Streetwiseguy wrote: Cars are topped out until the next mass death, at which point the safety nazis will die from infections when we run out of hand sanitizer.

Brilliant idea... a line of highly infectious products marketed as Earth Sanitizer™

I was stuck behind someone observing the speed limit this morning in a 25mph zone (who does that?!?!?) and I was thinking how ridiculous 25mph is as a speed limit on any road given the capabilities of today's cars. Even in an affordable, basic, family hauler I had ABS, stability control, advanced radial tires, excellent steering and handling, great visibility, 7 air bags...25 mph is crawling!!!

pinchvalve wrote: I was stuck behind someone observing the speed limit this morning in a 25mph zone (who does that?!?!?) and I was thinking how ridiculous 25mph is as a speed limit on any road given the capabilities of today's cars. Even in an affordable, basic, family hauler I had ABS, stability control, advanced radial tires, excellent steering and handling, great visibility, 7 air bags...25 mph is crawling!!!

I think 25mph is perfectly reasonable in a neighborhood/dense residential area.

pinchvalve wrote: I was stuck behind someone observing the speed limit this morning in a 25mph zone (who does that?!?!?) and I was thinking how ridiculous 25mph is as a speed limit on any road given the capabilities of today's cars. Even in an affordable, basic, family hauler I had ABS, stability control, advanced radial tires, excellent steering and handling, great visibility, 7 air bags...25 mph is crawling!!!

A 25 mph zone is not for your safety, it's for the safety of the kid on the bike, or the pedestrian...

ProDarwin wrote: The efficiency of ANY car will decrease rapidly as speed increases.

Motorcycles, too. Relevance: wife and I are taking a motorcycle trip in a few weeks. I know that her bike will get 40mpg at 75mph and 45mpg at 70mph. I did the math, and using a range of 192 miles (what her tank will conservatively do at 75mph), the difference in time between fill-ups is just about 11 minutes. Using $4/gallon, the 5mpg difference amounts to just over $21/hr.

Going 5mph faster isn't worth it, to me.

On ground I could care less about highway speeds. I think we should replace highways with mag-lev high speed rail and be done with it. If you waited an extra 30 minutes for a train, but the train went 350mph, you wouldn't worry about being late.

I love driving country roads with turns, but I absolutely despise driving flat, straight, boring interstate.

I hate flying, so the high-speed rail has more appeal.

Jay wrote: High-speed trains in Germany run through level crossings all over the place (however they go 200 km/h rather than 400.) It's more a matter of having a really thorough traffic control scheme.

Yes, that is true, but that is something that is hard to do in the US.

pinchvalve wrote: I was stuck behind someone observing the speed limit this morning in a 25mph zone (who does that?!?!?) and I was thinking how ridiculous 25mph is as a speed limit on any road given the capabilities of today's cars. Even in an affordable, basic, family hauler I had ABS, stability control, advanced radial tires, excellent steering and handling, great visibility, 7 air bags...25 mph is crawling!!!

I do. People and bikes pop out behind cars way, way too quickly to be able to be careful enough to them. As said before, 25-35mph isn't about your driver's safety, it's for everyone else.

Heck, there's a road in my home town that I totally disagree with the limit being raised from 35 to 45 mph- the lanes are far, far to narrow, and there are a lot of side roads that people get on and off of. And then there's the brush that hides a lot of stuff.

For the speed thing- my drive is 70mph to work, if the limit is raised to 90, it won't save me much time. Flying wise- is there enough of a real demand for that high of speed flight? The Concorde's experience says "no." Moreso in today's tech world, where you barely need to get from A to B half way around the world in time faster than you can now- teleconference will do just fine most of the time. Casual travelers will always take the cheap route.

And for the train vs. plane thing- most of the PITA of planes can be seen in the security lines and time it takes to get through. Considering the risk of high speed trains to be pretty close to planes, if they get to be equally popular, then the PITA'ness of travel will be roughly the same.

Any time I drive on the interstates, which is as seldom as possible., 75 seems to be the usuall speed even when the posted limit is 65. On the secondary roads, there are few that I even want to drive fast due to the poor pavement. One of my favorite fun roads is so rough that it is no longer fun. This is all in upstate NY.