[HN Gopher] Rolls Royce Ends Boom Supersonic Partnership
___________________________________________________________________
Rolls Royce Ends Boom Supersonic Partnership
Author : theparanoid
Score : 165 points
Date : 2022-09-08 16:46 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (airwaysmag.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (airwaysmag.com)
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| To put this in perspective, developing a modern high-efficiency
| supersonic engine requires an order-of-magnitude more money than
| the airframe itself.
| 6stringmerc wrote:
| Still have my money on Darkhorse showing promise to actually work
| at least.
| BryLuc wrote:
| rocket_surgeron wrote:
| Regarding Boom there are only two reasonable conclusions one can
| reach:
|
| 1. They are a Theranos-style operation
|
| 2. They are a Madoff-style operation
|
| I, a lone aerospace engineer working out of my garage in my spare
| time, have a better chance of achieving supersonic flight than
| Boom does.
|
| Even their technology demonstrator is an obvious scam. It
| demonstrates nothing. It does not demonstrate the ability to
| design, build, or maintain a supersonic passenger airplane, and
| it doesn't demonstrate any new technologies or materials.
|
| The bloatiest of bloated old-school defense contractors can throw
| together a supersonic prototype for less than $100 million, in
| fewer than 7 years.
| _fizz_buzz_ wrote:
| Harsh! I think Boom is trying to be SpaceX. A technology that
| is definitely possible, but pretty difficult to pull off as a
| start-up. But saying they are Theranos or Madoff is unfair. If
| they succeed to make the technology work and then succeed to
| make it profitable is of course not obvious at this point.
| ghaff wrote:
| I'd argue there's a significant market for the pre-SpaceX
| rockets--which are still used today. There's just a much
| larger potential market for significantly cheaper rockets
| given sufficient reliability as well.
|
| There is on the other hand no apparent market for commercial
| supersonic passenger flight given the economics. That doesn't
| mean that some people wouldn't pay the freight but that there
| hasn't been enough apparent market to build an airplane
| program around that.
| yabones wrote:
| Well, the problem was never technological to start with. The
| problem with supersonic transports was and will always be
| economic. There's a reason that there were only two SSTs in the
| 20th century instead of the five or six that were planned, and
| it's because the bean counters at Boeing, McDonnel-Douglas, and
| Lockheed-Martin wouldn't let their companies bankrupt
| themselves over a vanity project.
|
| So, you take that and couple it with 21st century VC-appeal and
| you have a fantastic money-losing-machine whether it works or
| not. Hell, it probably _does_ work with enough R &D, but that
| was never the problem in the first place.
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| To be technical, I'd actually argue there were four. The
| first Concorde reached production & was later redesigned to
| include an afterburner (or reheat). Why I forget, but it
| apparently did actually save some fuel since it was used
| while accelerating to supersonic then shut off.
|
| The Tu-144 went the opposite direction. Introduce with
| military engines which require full time afterburner. Later
| it was redesigned and re-engined with a non-military engine
| not needing afterburner all the time.
|
| So two airframes, but with four distinct airplanes produced
| as a result.
|
| None of these were particularly economical, to your point.
| hangonhn wrote:
| The reheat is needed to get past the transonic region and
| onward to supersonic. Once you've gone supersonic the drag
| actually drops a lot. So you want to get through the
| transonic region as quickly as possible and reheat is a
| good way to do it. After that the Concorde just
| supercruised.
| zardo wrote:
| > Once you've gone supersonic the drag actually drops a
| lot.
|
| Certainly the drag coefficient drops, does it actually
| drop fast enough to counter the v^2 and see total drag
| drop as velocity increases?
| HPsquared wrote:
| I think so, many planes are like this: the transonic
| regime has the highest drag. It's not as simple as v^2,
| you have to consider the compressibility effects (wave
| drag where the pressure wave moves along with the plane,
| like a bow wave on a ship). Flying faster also means you
| can fly higher in lower density air, so the indicated
| airspeed (proportional to density * v^2) is reduced.
| TylerE wrote:
| Huh? The Concorde was designed with afterburners right from
| the start. It certainly did not _enter service_ without
| them.
| pmyteh wrote:
| Yes; the Olympus engines used were derivatives of an
| existing military turbojet and had reheat from the
| beginning. It was used for takeoff and then to get
| through the high-drag transonic regime as quickly as
| possible to minimise fuel use. Once at cruising speed the
| engines operated 'dry'.
|
| There was a longer-range 'Concorde B' designed, which was
| intended to have larger engines with no reheat at all (as
| well as larger wings and some other changes) but this was
| cancelled when it became apparent that it would never be
| profitable.
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| OK, I think I got it wrong. You're correct it always had
| afterburners. It could supercruise, which is flying
| without the afterburner at supersonic speeds. So I guess
| that would bring the actual number to 3.
| cmdrriker wrote:
| Unless some government(s) steps in and dumps a ton of money
| into SST development and production nothing is going to happen.
|
| The Concord showed this by shouldering the burden of research,
| development, prototyping, and then production. Turns out SS's
| don't have the load factor & associated economics to make it a
| viable mode. That revelation was before environmental and
| political challenges made those economics worse.
|
| Unless unobtanium can me mined, tooled, and manufactured
| cheaply into airframe parts and power such as scram-jet or
| super cruising turbofans can push a plane at Mach 2 with 200+
| seats behind the pilot, methinks its just a pretty artist's
| conception on a Pop Mechanics or Science magazine cover.
| rollinggoron wrote:
| Agreed. I know nothing about aerospace engineering or aircraft
| design, but the hype around Boom always puzzled me. If this
| start up can all of a sudden make an economical supersonic jet,
| then surely the existing plane manufacturers could do it
| quicker and cheaper. Boeing, Lockheed, Airbus, etc... already
| have existing designs from decades past that they could at
| least use as a base. They have experts in material science,
| airplane design, and actual resources/contracts to actually
| build one. If it made sense.
| pbreit wrote:
| "surely the existing plane manufacturers could do it quicker
| and cheaper"
|
| How could you possibly think that?
| nfw2 wrote:
| I also know nothing about the subject, but just to play
| devil's advocate here, doesn't SpaceX show that a startup
| could potentially solve hard physical engineering problems
| more effectively than established incumbents?
| bell-cot wrote:
| Yes, definitely. BUT - there is a very wide and thinly-
| populated gulf between the folks who only _talk_ about
| doing that, and those who actually deliver viable, working
| systems.
|
| SpaceX went from founding the company to their first
| orbital launch attempt in 4 years, was obviously d*mn close
| to successful orbit 1 year later, and actually made orbit
| another 18 months after that.
|
| Vs. Boom Supersonic, _not_ having had to design nor build
| its own jet engines, is already 5+ years behind on their 1
| /3-scale, zero-passenger technology demonstrator even
| trying to taxi down the runway.
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| It does, but a supersonic personal jet is a much bigger
| feat of engineering than a rocket that lands. Most people
| don't appreciate that. We had landing rockets in the 80's,
| but Boom was trying to do several things that are
| completely new. SpaceX's real technology is about launching
| the rockets cheaply, not re-using them (which is only part
| of the problem).
|
| And SpaceX started with engineers who knew a lot about the
| domain of the actual problem (rocket engines). Boom has
| never designed an engine.
|
| Starlink satellites are a great example of SpaceX solving
| engineering problems that an incumbent couldn't, but SpaceX
| was a pretty large company at the time the effort started.
| signatoremo wrote:
| Boom isn't trying to do something completely new. Concord
| was in commercial services for many years. Benefits and
| shortcomings are well known.
|
| OTOTH, there was never a rocket that could land, only
| suborbital prototypes. Shuttle doesn't count since it's
| reusable in name only, as it still cost substantial
| amount of money and time for refurbishing. In fact there
| are still no other reusable rockets, seven years after
| SpaceX did it for the 1st time.
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| I didn't realize that the Concorde was a private jet.
| Also, I'm not so sure that SpaceX has managed to achieve
| reusability (launch turnaround cost) better than end-of-
| life space shuttle yet. The space shuttle did take a lot
| longer to work out the kinks than falcon 9, but it was
| also a much more complicated vehicle.
| samatman wrote:
| I would say that a brand-new rocket company making a rocket
| which can land itself would sound more implausible than what
| you're describing, if we didn't all know that it in fact has
| happened.
|
| That doesn't mean Boom is that, however.
| hef19898 wrote:
| Landing rocket boosters happened in the 70s already, and
| said rocket company benefited heavily from NASA, government
| and defence contracts and research. If Boom would have had
| access to supersonic jet research from the government,
| along with government contracts, development or production
| doesn't matter, RR wouldn't have stopped the cooperation.
|
| Edit: Reusable or VTOL rocket were tested, successfully
| landing, in the early 90s by McDonnel Douglas under the
| DC-X program. No idea where the 70s thing came from...
| signatoremo wrote:
| Which rockets landed in the 70s?
|
| Note that SpaceX didn't get any meaningful defense
| contract until they've proved themselves with Falcon 9.
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| He must either be talking about the Apollo Lunar Module
| which first landed on the Moon in the 60s (but was not
| "landing a booster", much less on earth.), or more likely
| he's talking about the Delta Clipper which was in the 90s
| (and also not a rocket booster.)
|
| Probably the latter, because there are some low-brow
| skeptics on reddit and youtube who inexplicably seem to
| think the Falcon 9 is a stolen Delta Clipper with a new
| paint job.
| hef19898 wrote:
| I kind of take ofense with the low-brow reddit sceptic
| :-) Obviously, a Falcon 9 is not a reused DC-X. The
| technologyvto land a booster was already there before, it
| wasn't invented by SpaceX and was discussed as far back
| as the 60s. SpaceX made it possible, which in itself is
| quite an achievement. That nobody else tried so is due to
| the fact that there were not enough launches to make it
| economically viable (I found a ESA study on that topic a
| couple of years ago and subsequently lost it again,
| Google and DDG fail to dig it up again ever since). And
| whether or not reusable booster _do_ make econommic sense
| or not, and just how many launches are needed to break
| even, is impossible to tell without SpaceX financials,
| they are the only ones doing it right now, which we don
| 't have.
| rockemsockem wrote:
| The reason why startups continue to make things that big
| companies don't is because your assumption that big companies
| *can* do it is wrong. They cannot due largely to
| organizational challenges and inertia in one direction or
| another. It is very rare that a large company successfully
| continues to innovate indefinitely.
| tarunkotia wrote:
| Also known as Innovator's Dilemma
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Innovator%27s_Dilemma
|
| Most established players don't want to cannibalize their
| existing market by launching a product in a niche segment.
| Sales and Marketing $$$ eat into the profits which is not
| easy to justify when you are profitable. If you are
| fighting for your survival then it's easy to reallocate
| resources to fight.
| chadash wrote:
| I agree with you, but to play devil's advocate, what if I
| changed your comment to:
|
| _Agreed. I know nothing about automotive engineering or car
| design, but the hype around Tesla always puzzled me. If this
| start up can all of a sudden make an economical electric car,
| then surely the existing automotive manufacturers could do it
| quicker and cheaper. Toyota, Mercedes, Ford, etc... already
| have existing designs from decades past that they could at
| least use as a base. They have experts in material science,
| car design, and actual resources /contracts to actually build
| one. If it made sense._
|
| Sometimes the incumbents are just too entrenched in what they
| are doing to make what out an outsider sees as an obvious
| move.
| [deleted]
| cycomanic wrote:
| The difference there is that the traditional car
| manufacturers didn't want to push EVs because that would
| have canabalized their ICE business and their competitive
| advantage (electric motors are really easy to build in
| comparison to an ICE). That's how Tesla could just zoom
| past them, they did not want EVs to be successful.
|
| The situation with supersonic flight is very different, the
| requirements and skills are very similar the ones of
| traditional plane manufacturers and supersonic flight
| wouldn't really canabalize their traditional business. I
| think they simply see that it doesn't make sense. I mean
| boom can't really explain what has fundamentally changed
| since tge concorde that supersonic flight is now
| economically viable.
| Ajedi32 wrote:
| Yeah, I hate this kind of weakly justified pessimism. Sure,
| if you just assume every new idea will fail you'll be right
| 95% of the time. But if everyone did that we'd be stuck in
| the dark ages.
|
| I applaud people and organizations that take that chance,
| innovating and trying new things even when there's a high
| chance of failure. Worst-case, they fail and other people
| can learn from their mistakes and hopefully do better next
| time. Best case, they change the world.
| rollinggoron wrote:
| I wasn't trying to be pessimistic, just trying not the
| fall for the "too good to be true" hype machine common in
| tech (e.g. new batteries with 100x the capacity are right
| around the corner, carbon nanotubes uses, etc...).
|
| Is this a new idea, though? It's not like supersonic
| commercial jets are a new thing and they haven't been
| built. The economics of building a commercially viable
| production supersonic plane is much more difficult to do
| than building a car or writing a new website to disrupt
| Facebook or Google.
|
| I 100% agree that people need to be exploring this stuff.
| That being said, I'll believe it when I see it.
| nfw2 wrote:
| you read my mind :)
| senko wrote:
| One can certainly argue that Tesla is overhyped.
| nfw2 wrote:
| Sure, but no one could argue that Tesla is a Theranos-
| like operation. Arguments can be made about whether
| Tesla's valuation is reasonable, but it's certainly a
| legitimate car manufacturer.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| I'd say tesla's "full self driving" and "autopilot"
| claims are pretty theranos like.
|
| There's zero way they don't KNOW internally that asking
| an inattentive driver to take over with no warning
| doesn't work, and that they aren't as safe as they are
| trying to spin.
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| What about the times when they announced different types
| of car models, promised delivery in a year, took pre-
| orders, and then didn't deliver (and still haven't)?
| That's pretty Theranos-y behavior.
| microtherion wrote:
| Tesla certainly delivers cars. But there are parts of it
| that are quite Theranesque, especially the self driving:
|
| * Re-sell third party products for a while ("Until our
| own offering is ready"). If the recently posted self
| parking video is to be believed, the in-house products
| are still not on par with the third party predecessors:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsb2XBAIWyA
|
| * Pre-sell your product years before it's ready.
|
| * Aggressively suppress internal and external criticism.
|
| * Avoid objective evaluations of your product.
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| You forgot "engage in lots of dubiously legal union
| busting"
| mrtksn wrote:
| Unpopular opinion but wasn't Tesla subsidised and missed
| the cost goals anyway? My impression is that Tesla
| succeeded thanks to Musks personality that made the
| customers forgive unfulfilled promises that they paid
| thousands of dollars for.
|
| Almost as if Elizabeth Holmes of Theranos imitated Musk
| instead of Steve Jobs and kicked the can down the road and
| delivered traditional but improved blood test machines and
| kept promising stuff down the road by collecting money and
| be edgy on Twitter, she could have been a hero by now.
|
| I mean, Tesla still delivered stuff that people value. Just
| not the promised ones.
|
| Tesla makes the best computerised vehicles out there and
| has built a valuable charging network, not the stated goals
| but valuable anyway.
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| I wish Tesla would cut it out with the computerized car
| bullshit and focus on making the best battery cars
| instead. They shouldn't need bullshit like _" it will be
| fiscally irresponsible to not buy our cars because it
| will be a robotaxi that pays for itself"_; it imperils
| the long-term success of the company for a short-term
| boost in sales. And it alienates anybody with a modicum
| of critical thinking.
| mrtksn wrote:
| Okay but the genius of Musk was this computerised car
| stuff and it's exactly where the traditional car
| manufacturers fail. Just recently the CEO of VW changed
| and the important part of the failure of the previous CEO
| was their shit software on their electric cars.
|
| It's not like Tesla managed to make cheap electric cars?
| They managed to make cars with good computers and this is
| something that people actually want.
|
| Essentially, Tesla made the first usable as daily driver
| electric car by promising stuff that people believed they
| want(but very hard to make) so they can collect money and
| make sales but doing stuff that people actually
| needed(within the reach of the current technology) to
| live with electric cars.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| Actually, I desperately want the software world to stay
| as far away from cars as possible. Even in a VW, I know I
| will go 100k miles with zero issues with most of the
| stuff. Someone somewhere wants to put javascript between
| me and that, and I hope they have a bad life.
| mrtksn wrote:
| I suspect you are thinking of touchscreens, not
| necessarily the computerised cars?
| mrguyorama wrote:
| No, as soon as we allow average devs (instead of people
| working on much more limited ECU software) there will be
| someone insisting they should put node into it, and run
| some part of the car on some stack that involves 3 gb of
| js dependencies, and will inevitably only work half the
| time, outside of their extremely limited testing.
|
| Car software will only be reliable as long as it doesn't
| seem prestigious to write software for cars.
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| Furthermore, before they put cell radios in cars, you
| could count on the software buried deep in your car
| working in a consistent manner. Now with over-the-air
| updates, your car can suffer a software regression at any
| time.
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| Musk didn't even contribute to the automotive technology,
| at all. It's the result of an acquisition of a company
| called "AC Propulsion".
| gamblor956 wrote:
| The existing automakers are making EVs faster and cheaper
| than Tesla did, and the EVs they are making have
| substantially greater build quality than Tesla's vehicles.
| signatoremo wrote:
| Tesla's profit margin is higher than most of automakers.
| So no, EVs made by traditional automakers are not
| cheaper. If anything that means Tesla's cars are more
| desirable because they can command a premium.
|
| Faster? What is that supposed to mean? Tesla is the
| largest EV maker by volume (not sure if I miss any
| Chinese ones).
|
| Substantial better build quality? Define substantial. Who
| decide that? Certainly not the consumers, because they
| can't get enough of Tesla cars.
| silon42 wrote:
| They can easily make a better interior on usability.
| ngcc_hk wrote:
| Or better QC.
| deepnotderp wrote:
| Agreed, SpaceX has no chance against ULA /s
| klintcho wrote:
| This argument could be made about any big SV company the past
| 30 years.
|
| - Anyone of IBM, Microsoft or Yahoo could build a better
| (quicker and cheaper) search engine than what a bunch of new
| grads from Stanford can (Google)
|
| - Anyone of the car manufacturer can build a better (quicker
| and cheaper) electric car than a software millionaire (Tesla)
|
| I don't agree with the statement, I think there are numerous
| reason people embark on ambitious project that incumbents
| "could" do, but are not doing;
|
| - An unexpected insights,
|
| - A new research breakthrough from some other field
|
| - Collecting a bunch of the most bright people coming up at
| the same time in the field (Mueller for SpaceX comes to mind
| for instance) etc.
|
| But most of the time it's just that it's not really in their
| business to do a 100 million dollar - 1 billion bet on
| something that risky, they are in the business of returning
| like 7 - 10% a year to their shareholder, not producing 5x
| returns (like the VC/startup business).
| rollinggoron wrote:
| Eh, I figured I would get this response but writing
| software e.g. your IBM, Yahoo, and Microsoft example is
| much easier and faster to do than building a cutting edge,
| physical, supersonic commercial jet. To build Google, all
| you needed was a computer, and a new approach/algorithm to
| solving web search. Software companies are much easier to
| disrupt than physical product companies.
|
| As others have pointed out the Tesla isn't a great example
| either because building a car is still 100x easier to do
| than building aircraft, let alone supersonic planes.
|
| "Unexpected Insights" and "A new research breakthrough from
| some other field" seems to be handy wavy. A supersonic jet
| breakthrough is not something that can be discovered in a
| dorm room. It requires millions in research and expensive
| materials to build and test against.
| klintcho wrote:
| I did include SpaceX as well, and I'm not sure one can
| find a better example than that, but there are others as
| well:
|
| - Cruise + other self driving car companies (obv also a
| bunch of software, maybe even software focused, but
| looking at Waymo, they developed all their own hardware,
| LIDAR tech etc.)
|
| - Commonwealth Fusion + a bunch of other fusion startups
| (obv they haven't really gotten to a product yet one
| could argue, but a bunch of breakthroughs in high powered
| electro-magnets has been made)
|
| - Heart aerospace - electric planes
|
| - Canvas construction - robotic plastering and painting
| for construction.
|
| While supersonic flight has been proven, albeit not
| economically viable, it's still something that has been
| done, and done like 40+ years ago. It's not really on the
| "fusion power"-levels of difficult. But sure, I guess on
| could argue both sides equally well :)
|
| In regards to research breakthrough, sure they were
| handwavy at least as it relates to jet engines capable to
| support supersonic flights. I don't have any sources but
| I have little doubt that jet engine / material
| breakthroughs has been made since the 80:s.
| raverbashing wrote:
| Except costs for prototyping and building a plane are (no
| kidding) 100x the costs of prototyping and building a car
|
| And that's for "easy" stuff like electric cars. Not a
| supersonic plane (which has a full bag of hurt to go with)
|
| If you don't believe me just look at the price tag of a
| brand new Cessna (which is old/proven/boring technology)
| Melatonic wrote:
| Is it possible they had some insider knowledge of engines being
| developed at one of the big manufacturers?
|
| Thinking out loud here - lets say you have a few senior
| engineers that know that GE or Boeing or RR or something is
| currently working on a smaller supersonic engine. You know you
| cannot yourselves design such an engine but if it is released
| maybe it would make sense to get a head start designing a
| product to take advantage of it?
| pbreit wrote:
| Are any of your comments defensible?
| bri3d wrote:
| Isn't there a third kind of operation, maybe a Magic Leap-style
| operation, where employees are earnestly developing against a
| goal which is fanciful but appealing to VCs? And in that case,
| what's the difference between that and the "usual" VC funded
| company?
|
| I don't really think Boom are a Theranos style operation,
| because they aren't claiming to have an operational product
| when no such item exists. A Theranos style scam would be flying
| a known-unsafe airframe, or parading their demonstrator around
| claiming "it totally has engines and is ready to fly lol! we
| just haven't tested it yet." But so far, Boom have just
| honestly said "we're delayed" instead.
|
| It's surely not a Madoff style operation as they employ staff
| who are earnestly working towards their goal, however fanciful
| it may be.
| johnbender wrote:
| As an aside Madoff Industries did employ people who earnestly
| worked outside the Ponzi scheme. I know because I met a few
| of them when I worked on a database architecture audit for
| them around 2008.
| bri3d wrote:
| "Database architecture audit for Madoff Industries" is a
| pretty good conversation starter as a resume item!
|
| This is a good point, and something that occurred to me
| after I posted - there's also a type of scam company where
| honest employees are hired to do something real, but the
| executive staff are skimming inordinate compensation for
| themselves or hiding a more nefarious project underneath,
| like a Ponzi scheme, simple money laundering, or self-
| dealing / kickback style schemes.
|
| I suppose it's possible that Boom could be one of these,
| and I don't really have enough data to say whether it is or
| not.
|
| My personal take on Boom is that it's your typical amateur,
| marketing-savvy CEO with a lofty dream who managed to
| collect funding for a project they can't execute on.
| Whether this kind of thing is a net "good" or not, I'm not
| sure, but I really don't think it's a "scam" in a mal-
| intent sort of way.
|
| If I were a VC, I wouldn't invest in an aerospace founder
| with no aerospace background, but plenty chose to, and
| their funds are at least being redistributed towards
| employees and suppliers. The whole idea of Silicon Valley
| style "innovation" VC is supposedly that their moonshot
| upsides can patch over their moonshot downsides, no?
| adolph wrote:
| Wasn't Theranos sending lab tests to other vendor and passing
| it off as their results? That would be difficult for Boom to
| pull off--send someone blindfolded on a regular commercial
| flight, reset the time on their watch and pretend supersonic
| happened.
| AustinDev wrote:
| As an aerospace engineer do you know what kind of thrust they'd
| need and why they can't just use something like the https://en.
| wikipedia.org/wiki/Pratt_%26_Whitney_J58#Specific...? My guess
| would be that the military engines are not at all designed to
| be economical on either fuel or unit cost.
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| Those haven't been made for a long time and there's nothing
| presently in use like them. Also those were turbojets; Boom
| wanted to use turbofans for fuel efficiency.
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| > _1. They are a Theranos-style operation_
|
| If they were that, they'd be lying about having their own
| engine in development that is an order of magnitude better than
| the competitions but won't show it to anybody.
| bell-cot wrote:
| That would not be a credible lie - it is too widely known how
| _very_ difficult & expensive the technology needed to
| produce any such engine is.
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| Theranos' lie wasn't credible to people in the biomedical
| technology industry. That's why Theranos had to get
| investors who knew nothing about it.
|
| If Boom's lies(or wishful thinking?) were as egregious as
| Theranos, they never would have gotten their foot in the
| door at Rolls-Royce.
| hef19898 wrote:
| They had money, those engines seemed technically possible
| given RRs history and RR delivered tests and whtnot. And
| Boom paid RR for it.
|
| Theranos could have easily found a medical lab equipment
| manufacturer to conduct some similar testing and early
| stage development.
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| > _Theranos could have easily found a medical lab
| equipment manufacturer to conduct some similar testing
| and early stage development._
|
| I don't think they could have. Siemens/etc would have
| already known that Holmes' idea of running that wide
| array of blood tests from a single drop of fingertip
| blood wouldn't have worked. One of Holmes' professors,
| Phyllis Gardner, told Holmes it wouldn't work before the
| whole scam even began. Siemens or other lab equipment
| manufacturers surely would have known it too, since they
| know what it takes to make blood testing equipment.
| rocket_surgeron wrote:
| My angle was the "charismatic and overambitious leaders who
| think that gumption and sticktoitiveness can overcome any
| problem and who aren't afraid to start lying when they find
| out that solving science and engineering problems isn't like
| the scammy adware/SEO/social network they made their first
| chunk of money on" aspect.
|
| I just can't believe people keep falling for it.
|
| I'm willing to bet most of the $100m+ they've raised went
| right into executive compensation and that their engineers
| have been making do with peanuts since the beginning.
|
| And I eagerly await the dueling Netflix/HBO documentaries to
| come.
| carabiner wrote:
| > My angle was the "charismatic and overambitious leaders
| who think that gumption and sticktoitiveness can overcome
| any problem and who aren't afraid to start lying when they
| find out that solving science and engineering problems
| isn't like the scammy adware/SEO/social network they made
| their first chunk of money on" aspect.
|
| Are you talking about SpaceX?
| rocket_surgeron wrote:
| No comment.
|
| edit: Ok comment. perhaps spacex is not the best
| comparison though. SpaceX had tremendous necessity
| driving it. The need for launch vehicles for commercial,
| scientific, and military purposes.
|
| There is no similar necessity for supersonic commercial
| aviation.
|
| A Boom customer isn't going to watch 14 test failures and
| say "well we have no other choice we gotta get people
| from ny to london in 2 hours" but there was a "we MUST be
| able to launch people and things into orbit on a US
| rocket" driving spacex.
| adolph wrote:
| Not certain about "tremendous necessity driving" SpaceX.
| At the time few would have bet that SLS and Starliner
| would become the duds they are. Maybe Atlas and Ariane
| incrementing without re-usability and costly Starliner
| would be viewed positively since there wouldn't be an
| alternative story (unless BO did better).
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| Falcon 9 flies very regularly, and the Raptor engines for
| Starship are in an advanced stage of development. The
| engines Boom needs don't exist.
|
| You're right about some of the rest of that though.
| Particularly the personality matter.
| beambot wrote:
| What lie are they telling...?
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| > _My angle was the "charismatic and overambitious leaders
| who think that gumption and sticktoitiveness can overcome
| any problem and who aren't afraid to start lying when they
| find out that solving science and engineering problems
| isn't like the scammy adware/SEO/social network they made
| their first chunk of money on" aspect._
|
| Sure, but that's underselling Theranos' scam. For Boom to
| work they would need engines that _could_ exist, but don
| 't, and they weren't lying about the engines existing.
| Theranos was claiming they _already had_ technology that
| _couldn 't_ exist.
| carabiner wrote:
| Lol you're too harsh. I was an aerospace engineer at an
| aviation startup you've probably heard of. We built a jet and
| received a type certificate, and sold ships. The company still
| went bankrupt. Boom is trying something harder, but it's not
| Theranos, or cold fusion. It's still just an engineering
| problem. They have aerospace engineers and facilities. It
| doesn't look more like a scam than SpaceX did in its early days
| when they were constantly blowing up rockets. It's just they're
| trying something very hard stretching what any manufacturing
| startup could do.
|
| 3. They're a startup in a manufacturing-oriented, highly
| regulated industry and dramatically underestimated capital
| needed.
| ghaff wrote:
| Engineering and economics problem--although properly speaking
| the former should imply the latter. Given that engineering
| isn't "We can build something that costs $X to build and
| operate but there's only a market for $X/5." That's still an
| engineering failure even if it works outside of cost
| constraints.
| leecb wrote:
| Eclipse?
| tlogan wrote:
| I have very simple way of figuring if something will succeed ir
| it is a scam.
|
| If CEO have some experience in the field then it might succeed
| (workday, salesforce, okta, etc.) If not, then it is probably a
| scam.
|
| Of course, there are exceptions but these exceptions prove the
| rule.
| Melatonic wrote:
| This article says that they are also partnering with Northrup
| Gruman to develop a "special missions" version for the
| government. So they very well could be getting a big government
| investment that so many here are saying would be necessary to
| pull this off.
|
| https://airwaysmag.com/boom-supersonic-refined-overture-desi...
| bell-cot wrote:
| My understanding is that the _only_ profitable part of being a
| modern commercial jet engine manufacturer is service contracts -
| on actually-in-service jet engines. Vs. Boom Supersonic has never
| built a plane which actually managed to take off. And even their
| 1 /3-scale "technology demonstrator" plane is 5+ years behind its
| original schedule. (And has yet to taxi along a runway, if I read
| Wikipedia right.)
|
| My guess - Boom wanted RR to sign a new money-losing or zero-
| profit R&D deal. RR wasn't interested in the "maybe, eventually,
| there _might_ be some actual profit for us " economics of that.
| ajross wrote:
| Which is to say: Boom is aimed at the wrong product. The High
| Tech part of efficient supersonic transport is the engines, not
| the airframe. If there was an off the shelf engine solution,
| they could just buy it on investor money. The dirty truth is
| that there isn't.
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| The engines are actually hard to design, though. Most
| startups (even hard tech ones) try to avoid doing the hard
| part.
| nickff wrote:
| Engine manufacturing is much more profitable, and seemingly
| challenging than airframe manufacturing. The engines they'll
| use are unlikely to be very different from those in other
| applications, so I'm not sure there's room for a new entrant.
| Keep in mind that the R&D and capital costs of becoming a
| turbine engine manufacturer are immense, and likely much
| higher than the costs to develop a new aircraft.
| ajross wrote:
| ... which is tantamount to saying that efficient supersonic
| transport won't happen because the engine is too expensive
| to design, though. And maybe that's true. But even if it is
| true it's still on Boom to make that happen somehow. Not
| all startups succeed, but those that build the wrong
| product fail at a 100% rate.
| jjk166 wrote:
| Paying a well established and experienced engine
| manufacturer to design the engine you need which is only
| one part of your product is much more economical than
| becoming an engine manufacturer yourself. By analogy, if
| an AI startup needs custom chips, that doesn't mean they
| need to nor should build their own fab and try to compete
| with TSMC.
| ajross wrote:
| That's just the "off the shelf" argument. Which has just
| fallen apart because RR doesn't have the product and
| doesn't want to build it. You're right, that if Boom
| could just buy their engine it would be better for Boom.
| Boom _can 't_ just buy their engine though, and now it
| looks like their company is going to fail because they
| decided to build the easy part and not the hard part.
| jjk166 wrote:
| Off the shelf means buying something already available
| for sale. Paying someone to develop something for you is
| the opposite.
|
| Going back to the analogy from before, you can go to
| companies which specialize in chip design and
| development, and you can pay them to design a chip that
| will meet your specifications and make it in small
| quantities. It is economical for these companies to keep
| the technical staff and equipment on hand for this highly
| specialized work, because they use them for more than
| just one AI startup's need.
|
| Perhaps an easier analogy would be legal services: every
| startup needs them at some point or another, but it
| doesn't mean every startup needs to or should build up an
| internal legal team. You hire the pros when you need
| them, and since you're not their sole source of income
| they can maintain a much better legal staff than you
| could every support internally. Even for companies where
| legal expenses are frequent, if the legal services are
| merely enabling something else then you still shouldn't
| be a law firm.
|
| Likewise, Rolls Royce has years of engine development
| experience, it has the tools to manufacture and test
| prototypes, and it has the facilities for mass production
| already, and it uses those same expertise and tools for
| many product lines serving a wide swath of the aviation
| market such that no one aircraft needs to pay for it all.
| For Boom to acquire this same capability would be orders
| of magnitude more expensive than paying RR to do it for
| them.
|
| The deal has not fallen apart because the development
| can't be done or because RR doesn't have the capability
| to do it; the deal has fallen apart because boom is
| unwilling to pay whatever price RR has named for it
| providing this service. Boom didn't decide to build the
| wrong thing, they are just unwilling to pay a required
| business expense.
| ajross wrote:
| > The deal has not fallen apart because
|
| We don't know why the deal has fallen apart. We just know
| that it has. There is no engine. No one is planning on
| developing it. No amount of argument here on HN will
| change that. Boom should have built the engine if they
| wanted the engine, instead they bet their startup on
| buying something not available for sale.
| hef19898 wrote:
| There are very valid reasons why _no_ ariframe
| manufacturer is building its own engines and vice versa.
|
| And having a civilian suoersonic turbofan engine nobody
| needs or wants doesn't get a comoany anywhere.
| macshome wrote:
| Honda builds both the engines and airframes for the
| HondaJet.
| nickff wrote:
| I think Boom will likely design and build a working
| aircraft, but they don't have the money or expertise to
| design an engine. Both GE and P&W are capable of
| designing and building the engine, the question is which
| will make the business deal with Boom. I am guessing that
| Boom either wants a cut of the service revenue, or wants
| to do most of the engine service themself.
| Denvercoder9 wrote:
| > Both GE and P&W are capable of designing and building
| the engine, the question is which will make the business
| deal with Boom.
|
| I think the bigger question is _whether_ either of them
| will make the business deal with Boom, or if they both
| deem it too risky and too expensive.
| pstuart wrote:
| The real money is in the service contracts.
| starfallg wrote:
| Yes, but the key to getting service contracts is to have
| a product that people can put into service.
| inamberclad wrote:
| Rolls Royce, and most other engine makers on this level,
| are essentially metallurgical gods.
| aardvark179 wrote:
| They rely on metallurgists, but they may not employ them
| directly. I know somebody who consulted on that sort of
| thing, and worked on developing alloys that would work at
| high temperatures and thus allow greater turbine
| efficiency, but the engine manufacturers mostly just knew
| the properties they needed, not how to get them.
| jjk166 wrote:
| Well all planes that haven't been developed yet are not in
| service, and development cycles for jet engines are always
| long. Investing in engine R&D is standard practice. While Boom
| doesn't have a fleet of aircraft at the moment, it didn't 2
| years ago either, but it does have orders. While of course
| those orders don't mean much if Boom can't ultimately deliver
| and sunk cost is not a good reason to continue a venture, the
| fact that RR entered into the agreement in the first place
| suggests they believed at some point it made business sense.
|
| Indeed, supersonic business jets are ideal for the service
| contract based market. Supersonic engines need much more
| frequent maintenance than subsonic engines, business jet owners
| are much less price sensitive than mass-market airlines, and
| its not like you can just swap in a different supersonic
| engine, operators are completely locked in.
|
| Far more likely, RR wanted Boom to use one of the supersonic
| engines it already has developed with minimal modification but
| Boom needs either heavy modification or a clean slate design to
| reduce fuel consumption (the second biggest issue for
| commercial supersonic aviation).
| nimbius wrote:
| mmm, yes, the 'legacy business model' of demonstrably competent
| business decisions at the interest of shareholders that produce
| quantifiable return on investment and further industry growth
| through innovation strikes again.
| Melatonic wrote:
| It may be that they DO actually have some talented engineers
| and some interesting IP (such as a much better engine design)
| but were hoping to also generate additional revenue or get
| bought out by a bigger company. The fact that we are also
| seeing lots of companies come out with smaller turbojet engines
| (made for retrofitting older small planes that run on regular
| style ICE engines) makes me wonder if material science or other
| advancements have gotten us to the point where we are going to
| see some big improvements in turbojet and turbofans.
| keepquestioning wrote:
| At this point I'm convinced the only way industry can actually
| produce something game-changing is if the government spends a
| huge amount of R&D on it first.
|
| On the other hand, scrappy SaaS startup could parse your logs and
| send alerts for cheaper, yes.
| MisterTea wrote:
| > is if the government spends a huge amount of R&D on it first.
|
| This is how it has always worked.
| jeffreyrogers wrote:
| Only for a few industries, mostly the ones that took off
| around WWII.
| 650REDHAIR wrote:
| Uh...
|
| DARPA, In-Q-Tel, etc...
| oivey wrote:
| Even things like semiconductors benefitted massively from
| government research and funding. They've certainly taken
| off from there, though.
|
| I'm trying to think of what industries this might not be
| the case for. Research thin industries like entertainment
| and media? Has the development of things like OLED mostly
| been by private companies? I guess finance? Seemingly if
| it involves engineering the government at least made the
| seed investment.
| jjk166 wrote:
| Just because the government has at some point invested in
| something doesn't mean it had to for it to take off. Once
| something is already going strong, it's to be expected
| that everyone who might stand to benefit will want to hop
| on the bandwagon, especially once the utility is proven.
| For example the government was not particularly involved
| with aircraft development until WW1 when it proved to be
| of considerable military importance.
|
| It's also worth noting that many developments are
| unintended spillover from other efforts. For example a
| lot of US government money went into producing high
| purity germanium, which would ultimately enable the
| development of the solid state transistor, but the
| government wasn't directly trying to produce solid state
| transistors, they instead were concerned with producing
| diodes for radars.
|
| In either case, I would not describe it as seed
| investment.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| Government funded research being basically throwing money
| into the ether and hoping some entire brand new world of
| chemistry or physics or communications or anything like
| that is the whole point of government investment.
| Research into one area providing gains in other
| unexpected areas is a direct goal of the kind of research
| the government funds.
|
| You know, like, the internet. The government wanted to
| make sure that nuking one air force base couldn't prevent
| the retaliation strike, so let's make a big network that
| is scalable, re-routable on the fly, and simple to put
| together. Creating a brand new sector of the economy and
| dominating the new sector with the likes of google and
| microsoft and apple was the exact outcome optimistic
| government employees would wish for.
| sdflhasjd wrote:
| Not sure I'd call OLED game changing in the same way the
| Internet or Jet Engines are.
| jeffreyrogers wrote:
| I don't see how that is a refutation of what I wrote. For
| every example that people can point to of how government
| funding creates innovation you can point to a private
| example too. Heavier than air flight was mostly private
| money, jet engines were mostly government. The transistor
| was mostly private (Bell Labs) the IC was mostly
| government. In terms of energy the two most important
| things in the last few decades are solar and fracking.
| Solar got a lot of government subsidies, fracking
| improvements were largely due to industry.
|
| Edit: and there are entire industries, like
| petrochemicals, where most of the advances came from
| industry.
| lacker wrote:
| I'm rooting for you, Boom. The world needs supersonic planes and
| you're so close. Good luck.
| AustinDev wrote:
| I want it to work but, the hard part is the engines and without
| a partnership it's going to be difficult to get off the ground.
| lyind wrote:
| I would like to travel like this, assuming they have wifi and
| tickets are affordable:
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/jun/15/eco-airship...
|
| Maybe they could fly fully autonomous when used as freighters.
| hef19898 wrote:
| Supersonic freight is not economical. You can get air freight
| from any airport to any other airport in the world in max. 24
| hours flight time. Customs clearance on either end alone
| takes longer than that.
| detaro wrote:
| somehow I don't think they plan for their airships to be
| supersonic.
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| The more references to 'green' and 'eco' a tech startup has
| in their proposal, the more likely it is to be smoke and
| mirrors. Not because green and ecological aren't laudable,
| but rather because they are. Proudly announcing such laudable
| goals and motivations is a cheap and easy way to build up
| wishful thinking and suspension of disbelief. It also makes
| people who see your bullshit hesitant to call you out, for
| fear of 'diluting the message.'
| it_citizen wrote:
| Genuinely asking: Of all the possible efforts that the
| aeronautic industry can make in 2022, do you think supersonic
| planes is making the top of the list of what the world need? If
| so, why?
| mchusma wrote:
| Not OP but I think advancements are not exclusive.
|
| Going faster is one of the big advancements, but probably not
| the biggest.
|
| Going 2x faster is obviously a good thing, everything else
| being equal. Costs can potentially go down as you can run 2x
| the flights per day. People enjoy flights more. The
| difference between a 2.5 hour and 5 hours flight is a lot. A
| 6 hour and 12 hour flight, a lot.
|
| Making flights cheaper is something people consistently
| prefer. The main flight costs are fuel, pilots, staff, and
| airport capacity. Electric flights are interesting for short
| hauls but are a long way away from long haul use (much
| further away than supersonic). Automating away pilots is
| something that technically is easier than driverless cars,
| but hasn't seemed to be a priority yet. Progress there would
| be helpful. Removing staff on planes is a legal requirement
| and seems harder to do for larger flights for human reasons.
| Airport capacity is probably best helped by increasing turn
| time.
|
| Honestly, the easiest way to improve the flight experience is
| to (effectively) get rid of all security on flights. Once
| planes can't be made into missiles (door locks were a good
| post 9-11 change), they are no higher risk than many other
| enclosed spaces that have no security. This would help speed
| of travel AND cost, and really means "just do less". But it's
| a political issue.
| trollied wrote:
| Just last month they were saying they'd be manufacturing the
| first aircraft in 2024. This company just looks like another huge
| investor scam at the moment.
| purim wrote:
| randtrain34 wrote:
| YC '16 https://www.ycombinator.com/library/5Q-on-starting-
| and-scali...
| purim wrote:
| [deleted]
| rocket_surgeron wrote:
| Lol the comment replying to you asking if critical comments
| from previous stories were deleted/flagged because they were a
| YC baby itself got flagged.....
| asciii wrote:
| Weird. This article states 2029 but their own site says 2024.
|
| https://boomsupersonic.com/flyby/post/its-about-time-for-a-b...
| objclxt wrote:
| > This article states 2029 but their own site says 2024.
|
| The article says they intend to _carry passengers_ in 2029,
| which isn 't incompatible with going into production in 2024
| (of course, they will do neither).
| randtrain34 wrote:
| they've raised 250m, assuming they lose money at the current
| rate of 111m in H1, wouldn't they run out of money before then?
| the_duke wrote:
| That loss if for Rolls Royce ...
| cromulent wrote:
| Supersonic is still banned over land, even if they can get the
| engines. We'll see if overseas flights are a big enough market to
| be more than a loss leader.
|
| https://www.faa.gov/newsroom/supersonic-flight (Read the last
| sentence).
| bombcar wrote:
| The semi-snide comments from the Boom side is, as the kids would
| say, "sus".
| slater wrote:
| haha right?
|
| "Boom meanwhile added, "We are appreciative of Rolls-Royce's
| work over the last few years but have mutually concluded their
| proposed engine design and legacy business model is not the
| best option for Overture's future airline operators or
| passengers."
|
| ssssssnap!
| zardo wrote:
| They should partner with a jet engine startup that has
| produced nothing but renders to match their business model.
| 650REDHAIR wrote:
| "Legacy business model" = ???
| solarkraft wrote:
| Making money
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| Specifically, making money by making products, rather
| than grifting investors.
| daniel-cussen wrote:
| Yeah everyone these days is saying
|
| "OK, first we have very nice policies generous no-
| questions refunds, get a good word going. Then traction,
| then investment. Then, revenues, it's revenues all the
| way, growth man. And then you get a good multiplier on
| _revenues_ because we can say we 're tech for some fucked
| up reason. Like coupla degrees here n there some PhD's
| (this is why there's big-name university focus, there's
| better PhD's in Georgia Tech, but it's marketing) maybe
| then we can say it. Then...liquidity event. Then just
| juggle forever."
| kylecordes wrote:
| = Actually making engines?
| topspin wrote:
| There are perhaps 3 companies on Earth that could conceivably
| provide engines for this application. RR was one of them. Where
| to now?
| cortesoft wrote:
| The answer is in the article... the remaining contenders are
| General Electric and Pratt & Whitney
| topspin wrote:
| Yeah, that's the other two.
|
| Supersonic jet engines are a rarified field. There are
| Russian "companies"... good luck getting that certified for
| Western commercial aviation.
| daniel-cussen wrote:
| Dude when the sanctions end the sanctions will really
| really end.
| topspin wrote:
| Russia couldn't get any of their civil aviation jets
| certified before the sanctions.
| nradov wrote:
| Russia got the Sukhoi Superjet 100 regional airliner
| certified in Europe in 2012 (before the sanctions).
|
| https://www.easa.europa.eu/en/newsroom-and-events/press-
| rele...
| 0x457 wrote:
| SSJ 100 was certified to operate in Europe in 2012. How
| much of SSJ 100 is Russian is another question.
|
| Irkut MC-21 had its first flight in 2017 and was supposed
| to get certified somewhere around 2025, which is pretty
| normal period, I think? Obviously, not going to happen
| now.
| hangonhn wrote:
| What about CFM or Safran?
| smachiz wrote:
| There is no engine that will make economic sense for either
| the engine manufacturer or the airline operator based on the
| technology we have.
|
| This was always a fools errand.
| guhidalg wrote:
| No engine product ready for purchase or no engine that
| could ever be built? If the former, whatever tell R&D to go
| do their job. If the latter, maybe it was a scam.
|
| Which is it?
| smachiz wrote:
| Wishful thinking, delusion or scam.
|
| There are so many foundational issues with low supersonic
| flight from a usability perspective as well (time zones
| are not your friend for some of it), that lots of routes
| can only command a premium in one direction.
|
| You have to make so many rosy assumptions to even believe
| this makes sense if someone was willing to pour billions
| into engine tech - and still maybe have no options that
| are commercially viable. It's also a nightmare from an
| environmental perspective.
| topspin wrote:
| Unless Boom can get some government to write off the
| billions needed to develop engines then it's all fiction.
| topspin wrote:
| I know. No one that understands turbofans would imagine
| otherwise. This sort of thing need sovereign government
| budgets.
| rjsw wrote:
| Safran could probably make an engine for this as well.
| topspin wrote:
| Eh. Maybe. They haven't developed a clean sheet supersonic
| turbofan since the 80's. This Boom "Overture" thing is
| going to need an entirely new design for long duration
| super-cruise; Boom needs engine people with a lot of depth.
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| Safran's M88 should be sufficient for Boom's 1/3rd scale
| demonstrator I think? Then at least they'd have something
| to show other manufacturers and investors.
| trhway wrote:
| Can they use for test demonstrator something like Mig-29
| engines - those used planes are available including in US
| just for few millions. Once they are flying, GE or RR will
| probably be more interested.
| topspin wrote:
| It's true that a lot of aircraft development has occurred
| using substitute engines while the final engines where
| still being developed. The problem for Boom isn't getting
| airborne. It's convincing one of the few outfits capable of
| this to put billions of dollars into a clean sheet engine
| design.
|
| Klimov RD-33's (the Mig-29 engine) are not super-cruise
| engines and aren't capable of demonstrating the intent of
| the Boom design. And frankly I think even a retrofit like
| that is beyond Boom's means.
| trhway wrote:
| With correct inlet design those high power military
| engines I think can be made into super cruise - it is
| just that the inlet and the compressor will not work for
| long in that regime due to heat. Again for tests/demo
| should probably be fine. Not having chops for retrofits
| like this would definitely be a total disqualifier in
| that business though.
| ajross wrote:
| Mentioned this elsewhere, but it belongs better here: If
| there's a market for a product that existing suppliers don't
| want to provide, that sounds like _exactly_ what a startup
| should be doing.
|
| Boom is wasting their time building an airframe but what they
| really need to win is an engine. They should have built the
| engine first.
| datavirtue wrote:
| Spot on. If you build a more efficient engine P&W, GE,
| Honeywell, and a few other companies would be clawing
| eachothers' eyes for the chance to buy you out.
|
| Boeing and other airframe mfgs would throw you a huge
| contract immediately if they thought you could actually
| build the engines and deliver them.
| trhway wrote:
| >If you build a more efficient engine
|
| Even if you just build an engine on-par with everybody
| else. Or even just a bit sub-par. Not everybody wants or
| able or have use case for those large top of the line
| very efficient and very expensive engines from the top
| manufacturers. You can check out the global international
| drama during the last few years around Ukrainian Motor-
| Sich engine manufacturer - one of the main engine
| manufacturers from the USSR times. There are just too few
| of those engine manufacturers, even if sub-par, around
| for the current world demand. Anybody wanna make a
| startup for the engines, initially for UAS market? It is
| going to blow up after the war as drones have been
| showing their future dominance. And just look at that
| beauty (uses the Motor-Sich engines as Turkey don't have
| their own) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baykar_Bayraktar
| _Ak%C4%B1nc%C4... .
| bombcar wrote:
| This is the main way you distinguish the grifters from the
| movers.
|
| The grifters work on the final product, the movers work on
| the first step, having a plan to make that profitable, so
| they can build toward the final product. SpaceX is probably
| the example that comes to mind, even if they did borrow
| engines.
| njarboe wrote:
| FYI, SpaceX developed all of their engines in-house[1].
| Other American rocket companies use Russian engines and
| Congress's bill forbidding that going forward has put ULA
| in a very bad place because Blue Origin's BE-4 engine
| still is not ready after more than a decade of
| development.
|
| [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_rocket_engines
| bombcar wrote:
| Ah, then it fits even better. I could have sworn someone
| had been launching on borrowed Russian engines, but maybe
| that was Boeing.
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| ULA's (Boeing/Lockheed) Atlas V has been using Russian
| RD-180 engines, and Orbital Science's Antares has used
| Russian NK-33 and RD-191 engines.
|
| None of these were borrowed though, since they're all
| single-use only. Only SpaceX lands and reuses their first
| stage boosters.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| I think the story is that Elon wanted russian engines and
| they snubbed him so he got vindictive, like he does, but
| this time in a good way.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _grifters work on the final product, the movers work on
| the first step, having a plan to make that profitable, so
| they can build toward the final product. SpaceX is
| probably the example that comes to mind_
|
| For me, it's Virgin Galactic showcasing the seats before
| they'd made it to space versus SpaceX building its
| engines and only much later unveiling spacesuit designs.
| mshockwave wrote:
| It's not like GE and P&W are bad choices given the fact that
| they made some of the best military jet engines in this
| world. While comparing fighter jet with large aircraft might
| not be fair, I think B-1B Lancer will be a good analogy in
| this case (similar size, 4-engine layout, and twice the
| takeoff weight). And B-1B Lancer use engines from GE.
| jaywalk wrote:
| They're not bad choices at all, and I'm sure Boom would
| love to work with either of them. But the question is
| whether or not GE or P&W are interested in working with
| this vaporware company.
| datavirtue wrote:
| I have recently toured the GE plants where the engines
| are assembled and developed. I have worked in the same
| office with the engineers who design and service the
| engines. No way in hell GE can do this given the amount
| of resources for this project. And I highly doubt Boom
| would like working with them at all.
|
| GE gets skittish about a project when the government has
| already given them billions to develop it.
| keepquestioning wrote:
| Couldn't SpaceX or Rocket Lab's engine be repurposed for this
| task?
| adastra22 wrote:
| Those aren't jet engines.
| keepquestioning wrote:
| It's a pity there aren't more jet engine providers.
| nradov wrote:
| Consolidation is inevitable in industries where huge
| capital investments are necessary to build a viable
| product. The only way a new manufacturer will appear is
| if a major government decides to finance it for strategic
| reasons regardless of economics.
| hef19898 wrote:
| I can think of three occasions where this happened:
| Eurofighter with the RR based Eurojet engine, Rafale with
| an engine from Snecma and the A400M with a specifically
| designed turboprop. None of these manufacturers rose to
| challenge GE, RR or Pratt and Whitney when it comes to
| mass produced turbojet or fans.
| topspin wrote:
| The last thing you want in your turbofans is a lot of
| variety. That's why everyone relies on a handful of
| producers.
| [deleted]
| bombcar wrote:
| SpaceX engines can clearly get you to supersonic speeds,
| but they're not "jets" and are much more expensive to run.
| topspin wrote:
| No.
| __m wrote:
| Boom is a competitor of SpaceX. Both plan supersonic
| international travel.
| echelon wrote:
| Jets vs rockets:
|
| Jets breathe atmospheric air for combustion because they
| operate in an atmosphere where oxygen is readily available
| for combustion. They have an air intake nozzle.
|
| Rockets carry their own oxidizer because they must. They
| only have an exhaust nozzle.
| bambax wrote:
| Yeah that struck me as odd; it's unprofessional and weak; I
| think it's a very bad sign for the future of the company.
| namirez wrote:
| Sadly Boom is doomed and it's been a writing on the wall all
| along. They never had a good engine option. The military engines
| are not safe enough and developing a new civilian engine makes
| sense only if you make hundreds of them.
|
| Their net-zero emission claim is also bogus. Their pricing model
| doesn't make much sense either unless they're willing to lose
| money for a decade or so. There is not much innovation in
| aerodynamics and shock wave shaping either. Their only innovation
| compared to Concorde is the use of composite materials which is
| just not enough to hit their targets.
| Melatonic wrote:
| Could be that they were hoping to get bought out and had made
| some actual improvements though no?
|
| I would imagine that a plane using new advances in material
| sciences for the outer skin (maybe something like Quasi
| Crystals) might have significant advantages over an older
| design like the Concorde. Heat must be a big issue at those
| speeds.
| namirez wrote:
| I don't know much about their long term business strategy but
| what bothers me is that they're vague about how they intend
| to achieve the flight mission objectives. This is very
| different than SpaceX which focused on reusable rockets and
| landing them.
|
| As for materials, the main advantage of composites is the
| strength to weight ratio but they're more challenging to work
| with compared to aluminum and titanium. Heat is one aspect
| but there are many more challenges. It's been done though for
| example B787 and A350 are mostly composite. So Boom has a
| genuine advance here over Concorde. But supersonic flight is
| inherently fuel inefficient due to wave drag so the economy
| doesn't make sense.
| phlipski wrote:
| Luckily for Boom there is a supersonic engine startup in the YC
| S22 batch!
|
| https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/velontra
| galgot wrote:
| How surprising... Developing a specific supersonic jet engine for
| this kind of plane would not be cost effective anyway, the fleet
| would be too small to worth the investment. Even starting from a
| military jet engine, the way they are run and maintained is very
| different from civilian jet engines.
| hef19898 wrote:
| Also good luck getting government approval for using a military
| engine derivate for commercial flight to Asia, or basically any
| country other than the origin of said engines. And even that
| will be difficult. Export control can be a bitch.
| AustinDev wrote:
| On the maintenance side it's night and day, I used to work
| upstairs in the hanger building but not on the floor of a base
| with f-22's and before that f-16's and they rebuild those
| engines like clock-work there is always at least one being
| rebuilt if not a few.
| ggm wrote:
| Doesn't this say more about the RR engines company than Boom?
| kurthr wrote:
| That seems like it would slow things down a bit, which is a
| problem in a higher rate world. Not sure business travel is going
| to stay on the same trajectory either.
|
| Of course weirder stuff is happening:
|
| https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/israel-ba...
|
| Banning 4 engine aircraft from Israel means no more 747
| freighters or new leisure supersonics.
| LadyCailin wrote:
| Or visits from US presidents.
| paulgb wrote:
| I would have to assume that falls under the "special permit"
| allowance.
|
| > Operation of aircraft with four engines will be allowed in
| exceptional cases and only with a special permit.
| jaywalk wrote:
| Last sentence of the article:
|
| > Operation of aircraft with four engines will be allowed in
| exceptional cases and only with a special permit.
|
| I'd imagine that Air Force One will not have any trouble
| obtaining the special permit.
| daniel-cussen wrote:
| For now. 2022. Yeah no in the future too.
| solatic wrote:
| Actually, they carved out an exception for Air Force One.
| aresant wrote:
| In 2020 COVID decimated Rolls Royce given their concentration of
| revenue associated with selling & servicing existing aero
| engines.
|
| They have yet to recover from that era which saw a ~10x decrease
| in enterprise value and record losses.
|
| That said I would interpret this news as a "cut the $!@$! R&D
| bleeding in anything that won't be generating revenue in the next
| 4 quarters" vs a reflection on the feasibility or health of
| Boom's very early but very ambitious plans.
|
| (1) https://www.barrons.com/market-data/stocks/rycey
|
| (2) https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-
| transportation/rolls-...
|
| (3) https://simpleflying.com/rolls-royce-record-loss/
| neximo64 wrote:
| That's not entirely true, in the industry it's sort of known
| Boom still has _a lot_ of work to do to get an engine made for
| those planes.
| bell-cot wrote:
| Perhaps 's/get an engine made for those planes/get a plane
| made for those engines/' ?
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