Originally Posted by
kb9522
How much has the speed of commercial aircraft changed in the last 50 years?
It's gotten a little slower. DC-8s flew at Mach 0.85. Most flights today operate at Mach 0.82 or so.
As for supersonic, my comment was kind of in jest...but only kind of. I was saying if we're going to stay on a stable, proven platform such as, say, a 737, then YES I expect it to continually get cheaper and better.
If, however, new aircraft were coming out every 3 or 4 years that were progressively faster than previous ones, I'd expect trade offs in other areas. Either higher costs, or yielding on some other feature like space, ability to bring X weight on board with me, etc.
(We have other threads about the economics or aerodynamics of flying supersonic. Those issues are why I say "kind of" in jest...it was more of a simplistic observation, akin to my current laptop being "supersonic" compared to the one I owned 5 years ago.)