[HN Gopher] Engine makers sound downbeat on supersonic, leaving ...
___________________________________________________________________
Engine makers sound downbeat on supersonic, leaving Boom in a bind
Author : kejaed
Score : 79 points
Date : 2022-09-22 12:09 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.flightglobal.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.flightglobal.com)
| metadat wrote:
| > supersonic passenger aircraft would use 7-9 times more fuel per
| passenger, per kilometre, than subsonic jets burning fossil fuel
|
| Ick.
| stephen_g wrote:
| Yeah, that does seem like a massive drawback. Even
| hypothetically with SAF (Sustainable Aviation Fuel) from carbon
| capture that they're spruiking, that's still a huge amount of
| energy that could be used far more efficiently by not flying
| supersonic...
|
| If it was more like 3x, that might make it work on a cost
| benefit in certain cases, but physics makes fools of us all it
| seems...
| cobaltoxide wrote:
| The part of Boom's argument that makes absolutely no sense to
| me -- their argument about how they will be "sustainable"
| because they will burn SAF -- is that the same argument could
| be applied to traditional commercial subsonic jet aircraft.
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| If it costs in the same ballpark per seat as a long range private
| jet, then for nearly all city pairs under roughly 5000km it's
| difficult to find an economic justification.
|
| Especially if the plane needs long runways to takeoff.
|
| Due to the travel times others have touched on to the major
| airports in nearly all big cities.
|
| Lighter private jets have a huge advantage in travel time of
| being able to take off from the closest small airports.
|
| If it's a really long route, like Sydney to London, then it would
| start making sense. But this could not support the thousands of
| engines needed to break even on R&D costs.
| nilsbunger wrote:
| It's amazing how much of end-to-end travel time is NOT the
| plane flying. It would be much more cost-effective to optimize
| everything besides the actual flight time for almost all
| flights. Things like:
|
| * Airport-to-city travel time
|
| * Airport security time
|
| * Optimize boarding (very straightforward solutions but require
| passenger education)
|
| * Speeding up taxiing / takeoff sequencing (not sure how but
| there's gotta be a better way than what we do now)
|
| Each of those are challenging but would be more impactful (and
| more solvable?) than supersonic flight time!
| spaetzleesser wrote:
| I think having a private jet solves the first three.
| BasilPH wrote:
| > Boom's other partners include Safran Landing Systems, Collins
| Aerospace, fuel-system company Eaton and Northrop Grumman, which
| is helping with a military variant.
|
| Does anybody know more about this "military variant"?
| cwmma wrote:
| Air Force One seems to be the military use case.
| cobaltoxide wrote:
| Air Force One is gigantic: a modified 747, with offices,
| bedrooms, etc.
|
| That would not fit inside of Boom's aircraft.
| gandalfian wrote:
| Presumably if nasa makes their x-59 low boom noise plane
| technology work then everyone will jump onboard? And if not...
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_X-59_QueSST
| rayiner wrote:
| Anyone who has studied aerospace engineering in the last couple
| of decades was taught that the economics of supersonic travel are
| unworkable in an environment where fossil fuel energy costs what
| it does and is on the way out altogether. I was hoping Boom had
| cracked some constraint in that equation.
| sofixa wrote:
| The economics of supersonic travel using a plane and engine
| designed in the 1960s (which had a massively upgraded newer
| version planned in the 1970-80s which was cancelled due to lack
| of interest) are unworkable. The Concorde was designed before
| CAD, high bypass turbofans, composite materials, so it isn't
| that easy to extrapolate to today.
| rayiner wrote:
| High bypass turbofans have significance disadvantages in
| supersonic flight due to ram drag. It would require some
| additional breakthrough for that to make a difference.
|
| The other stuff is incremental efficiencies, not enough to
| fundamentally change the very challenging math of supersonic
| flight efficiency.
| greenthrow wrote:
| Modern CAD programs can't bypass the laws of physics.
|
| The faster you go in an atmosphere the more the atmosphere
| resists. It gets less and less efficient the faster you go.
| That's just how it works.
| willyt wrote:
| At the altitude they used to fly at there wasn't much air
| resistance. I think it's more the acceleration and climb
| out phases when they are using the reheat (aka
| afterburner). Cruising at ~50-60000 feet, Concorde was
| pretty efficient, comparable fuel burn to a 747 from that
| era, but the engines were super inefficient in all the
| other phases of flight. I've heard it said that it used
| more fuel to taxi to the end of the runway at Heathrow than
| a modern A320 would use to fly London to Paris. (Someone
| else can google that to see if it's true! I can't be
| bothered.)
| Ekaros wrote:
| Wheel mounted electric engines? Only turn engines on when
| close to runway the batteries can't weight more than the
| fuel.
| sofixa wrote:
| Safran showed a POC of this a couple of years ago at the
| Bourget airshow, but i have no idea why it hasn't taken
| on - their pitch was pretty good.
| LgWoodenBadger wrote:
| Or just use a tug, which everyone has everywhere, 99% of
| the way
| sofixa wrote:
| Yes, but a modern CAD program can make the design faster
| (to design) and cheaper. Turbofans with high bypass ratios
| are more efficient than the engines the Concorde used.
|
| Of course it would be less efficient than a subsonic jet,
| but they never claimed the opposite - the idea was for it
| to be faster, but not (much) more expensive than today's
| business class on subsonic jets.
| bbojan wrote:
| The faster you go the higher in the atmosphere you can fly,
| therefore reducing drag (due to air being more rarefied).
| So it's not as simple as you're thinking.
| avn2109 wrote:
| >> "The faster you go in an atmosphere the more the
| atmosphere resists."
|
| This is actually not even approximately true; like many
| aerodynamic phenomena, drag is super nonlinear in airspeed
| and not even monotonic, with a bunch of weird outcomes
| around mach 1. The first chapter of every aero textbook
| probably includes a variation of this famous chart [0],
| showing drag coefficient or sometimes drag force (estimated
| for some famous/classic airframe) as a function of mach
| number.
|
| This is why prolonged supercruise can exist for airplanes
| without giant comical fuel tanks etc.
|
| That said, your main point about CAD/physics definitely
| stands and is a good one; imho it would be unlikely to
| design and build e.g. a 10x better airplane than the
| Concorde today, even with all the fancy computers
| simulations etc.
|
| [0] https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Drag-coefficient-
| as-a-fu...
| [deleted]
| linkdink wrote:
| You're conflating drag with drag coefficient. The plot
| you linked doesn't say anything about drag. Drag is more
| strongly proportional to speed than drag coefficient.
| That type of proportionality analysis is what's usually
| in the first chapter of aero textbooks.
|
| Computers are great for marginal gains and saving labor
| costs, but they can't give a 10x improvement unless
| there's already a 9x improvement in materials and
| techniques. Small nit, but CAE is simulations, while CAD
| is just drafting.
| thinkingkong wrote:
| I havent spent much time digging into Booms plans before but
| its sort of wild that their secret weapon was just... nothing?
| We already know we have airframes that can achieve supersonic
| flight, so why wasnt the engine design the number one priority?
| sofixa wrote:
| Their secret sauce, at least according to marketing was
| composite materials and high bypass turbofans, which combined
| could make a drastically more efficient plane than the
| Concorde.
| aunty_helen wrote:
| High bypass turbofans are the "engine" part we're talking
| about no body wanting to make for them. How saucy is an
| engine that doesn't exist?
|
| And composite materials like on the A350 and 787 have been
| around, see the A350 and 787.
| sofixa wrote:
| > High bypass turbofans are the "engine" part we're
| talking about no body wanting to make for them. How saucy
| is an engine that doesn't exist?
|
| The plane doesn't exist either, it was a plan.
|
| > And composite materials like on the A350 and 787 have
| been around, see the A350 and 787
|
| Their point of comparison is the Concorde. If they can
| make a plane that is significantly cheaper than the
| Concorde, thanks to the great tech that is now mainstream
| (composites, turbofans, CAD) but wasn't back then, it can
| be similar in cost to modern day business class, while
| still being supersonic. At least that was their marketing
| pitch, i don't see it taking off without an engine.
| avn2109 wrote:
| I know nothing about Boom, but the "high bypass supersonic"
| thing raises the obvious question, how do they avoid the
| drag from the large (by definition) cross sectional area of
| the high-bypass fan?
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| They actually wanted medium-bypass engines. Low-bypass
| relative to modern airliner engines, but high-bypass
| relative to supersonic military turbofans.
| bbojan wrote:
| I'm not privy to what Boom is doing, but variable intake
| geometry easily takes care of this.
| snovv_crash wrote:
| You still have the massive frontal area though
| greenthrow wrote:
| Their secret weapon is that their product is their valuation
| and the hype surrounding it.
| ghaff wrote:
| And not just an engine design but an engine design that
| fundamentally changes the economics of commercial supersonic
| flight.
| tokai wrote:
| I thought noise was the issue with commercial supersonic
| flight not economics.
| ghaff wrote:
| Noise is an issue for overland flying (which of course
| affects the economic viability of a supersonic aircraft).
|
| But even if you assume there's a viable transatlantic
| market for supersonic flight, you probably can't charge
| all that huge a premium over business/first. If your
| premium has to be 2x to 3x, I doubt you have a market.
|
| Handwaving away noise issues with supersonic flight over
| land gets you closer to something viable. But you still
| need economics that aren't _that_ different from an all
| business-class subsonic. (And my understanding is that
| British Airways had trouble making all business work on
| the London to New York route.
| NovemberWhiskey wrote:
| > _And my understanding is that British Airways had
| trouble making all business work on the London to New
| York route._
|
| I don't know - the all-business class A318 service from
| London City to JFK ran from 2009 to 2020 and was up to
| two flights a day for a significant part of that time. I
| guess it was really Covid that killed it.
| ghaff wrote:
| Fair enough. Although that is also obviously not a run-
| of-the-mill city pair.
| xani_ wrote:
| Both. Noise limits where you can go, and that limits who
| will want the service.
| arethuza wrote:
| Maybe they could use a SABRE engine:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SABRE_(rocket_engine)
|
| Mind you, I've been hearing about that since I was at high
| school and I'm in my late 50s. :-)
| bell-cot wrote:
| Peeking at Boom's Wikipedia page - their 1/3 scale "technology
| demonstrator" test aircraft, which they originally said would
| fly in 2017, has been changed & pushed back & changed & pushed
| back... And it _still_ has not managed to even taxi down a
| runway.
|
| It doesn't much matter what is/isn't possible, or what
| could/couldn't be economical, if the company & engineers who
| _say_ they are working to develop it...are not actually capable
| of shipping even a puny nerfed toy version of their supposed
| product.
|
| My guess: the RR engineers concluded "maybe it's possible, but
| these idiots will never achieve it". Then quietly shared that
| with their colleagues at other engine makers.
| rjsw wrote:
| The guess in a thread commenting on an earlier article was
| that Boom expected RR to fund the development of a new
| engine.
|
| Haven't seen any explanation on why Boom can't just buy a few
| current fast jet engines for their demonstrator.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| Because no existing commercial engine can supercruise. It
| needs to be a new design.
| rocket_surgeron wrote:
| Boom did buy a current jet engine for the demonstrator, the
| GE J85. That engine is used on the T-38/F-5 so there are
| thousands of them on the market. The demonstrator is
| actually bad for Boom from a business analysis perspective
| because it is such an easy project that they have not been
| able to realize after hundreds of millions of dollars.
|
| The "small supersonic aircraft" which is what the XB-1 is,
| is a solved problem. "Advanced composites" is irrelevant,
| any aerospace firm can make a supersonic-capable aircraft
| out of "advanced composites". Scaled Composites build
| SpaceShipOne in three years with about a hundred people in
| a hangar.
|
| But Boom hasn't gotten the XB-1 into the air after five
| years and tons more cash.
|
| Building a new supersonic airframe: easy
|
| Building a new supersonic jet engine: hard
|
| Literally and actually with no exceptions every single
| modest-sized aerospace firm can build a supersonic
| airframe. That problem is solved. Tens, if not hundreds, of
| thousands of supersonic aircraft have been built and many
| of them are capable of carrying passengers.
|
| This is not an exaggeration. My employer isn't even in the
| supersonic aircraft business and we could build and fly a
| supersonic aircraft if some executive got a wild hair up
| his butt, in less time and money than Boom. Tiny and
| embargoed firms in a variety of foreign countries with
| small or non-existent aerospace industrial bases have done
| it.
|
| The research into the aerodynamics and stresses on
| supersonic airframes is done.
|
| Engines are hard. There are only a handful of companies
| with the expertise and cash needed to develop a supersonic
| jet engine, especially one that can super cruise.
|
| Boom is saying "yah we're gonna build a supersonic
| passenger jet, uhhh, don't worry about the engine we'll
| figure that out later, give cash please".
|
| What Boom is doing is functionally equivalent to an EV
| startup saying "Yeah we're going to design a car that can
| go 300mph (easy, individuals {Bob Dauernheim, for one} in
| garages have done it) that is powered by electric motors
| (hard) that don't exist yet and that someone else will
| design" and then getting hundreds of millions of dollars to
| design the chassis while negotiating with motor and battery
| suppliers to do the R&D into the hard bit at their own risk
| with the promise of profits from future sales to all of the
| people who want a 300mph EV.
| landemva wrote:
| Well written analysis. Add max distance limits to reduce
| market to exclude the longest routes, and you can write
| for HBR in newsstands in airports.
|
| Why does AA and UAL mess around with this company?
| https://news.aa.com/news/news-details/2022/American-
| Airlines...
| foobiekr wrote:
| Boom appears to be a scam of the Nikola/etc. genre.
| bell-cot wrote:
| Wikipedia strongly suggests that Boom already has bought
| some of these engines -
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Electric_J85 - to
| power the demonstrator.
|
| My impression is that Boom was not looking to RR for
| engines for their demonstrator, but for their full-size
| production model. Those engines would have to be carefully
| designed & optimized for economic long-haul supersonic
| operation. (Vs. existing supersonic military jet engines
| are basically cost-no-object gas-guzzling hot rods.)
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| Their intent to use GE J85s for the demonstrator is
| corroborated by the "Boom Fact Sheet" in their press kit:
| [PDF] https://boom-press-assets.s3.us-
| west-2.amazonaws.com/BoomFac...
|
| Three GE J85-15 engines for the XB-1 demonstrator.
| [deleted]
| ghaff wrote:
| I wonder if United will now take down the Boom advertising they
| have (inexplicably) scattered around various airport terminals.
| blutack wrote:
| Question for anyone with inside insight...
|
| When something like Boom announces: American
| said it too had paid a "non-refundable deposit" - it also did not
| say how much - as part of an agreement to buy up to 20 of the
| jets.
|
| Does that really mean AA paid them $1 (or a nominal amount) in
| return for the marketing impact of having AA's name mentioned in
| a few press releases?
| dylan604 wrote:
| Think of it as AA backed a Kickstarter campaign that never got
| off the ground.
| UltraViolence wrote:
| Boom is basically a scaled down Concorde when you look at it from
| a distance. They've reduced the speed somewhat to keep the fuel
| burn within certain limits, but it has the same drawbacks that
| Concorde had: a supersonic boom and enormous fuel burn per
| passenger. In this day an age of Climate Hysteria this simply
| won't fly.
|
| I foresee the failure of all supersonic airplane ventures until
| NASA comes up with a viable sonic-boom free design. Even then,
| the fuel burn could still make it unsalable.
| zionic wrote:
| Starship E2E (earth 2 earth) will make in-atmo supersonic
| pointless.
| ramesh31 wrote:
| I have a feeling most normal people will be reticent to strap
| themselves into a suborbital rocket.
| qayxc wrote:
| And don't forget the required pressure suits. You can't just
| to use simple masks like in airplanes, since cabin pressure
| loss at heights beyond 25km would make breathing using just
| oxygen masks impossible.
| Ekaros wrote:
| And would such craft be allowed to launch from your average
| airport?
| dylan604 wrote:
| Does a cruise ship launch from your average airport?
| rcMgD2BwE72F wrote:
| Isn't the point of Starship E2E to be a fast way of travel?
| dylan604 wrote:
| The only way for sub-orbital travel to make sense is for
| something like NYC->Tokyo type distances. LA->NYC makes
| no financial sense.
| zionic wrote:
| A short boat ride off the coast is all it will take to get
| form NY to Tokyo in 40 minutes or less. Worth it.
| qayxc wrote:
| A "short boat ride" you say... Current exclusion zones and
| logistical requirements suggest otherwise.
|
| Realistically, P2P using giant rockets is a nothing but a
| pipe dream. Just straight forward things like weather proof
| this. The latest F9 launch had to be scrubbed two times due
| to unfavourable weather at the launch site, for example.
|
| Now multiply that just that weather-risk by two, since the
| landing site also requires good conditions at the same
| time.
|
| Then there's the "little things" like airspace closures,
| launch permissions, boarding procedures, the requirement
| for personal pressure suits (simple masks won't do in case
| of cabin pressure loss), etc.
|
| The idea sounds so easy on paper, but there's a lot of good
| reasons that in over 60 years of crewed space flight, the
| idea hasn't even been demonstrated.
| cnlevy wrote:
| F9's fineness ratio makes it very sensitive to weather.
| Soyuz rockets can launch in blizzards. Starship should be
| weather insensitive as well.
|
| Now for the launch platform, it will have to be built
| about 30km from shore, and could be accessed by high
| speed train, the travel time would be 15-20 minutes from
| the shore
| crystaldecanter wrote:
| what's the seat-kilometre fuel burn on this compared to sub and
| supersonic jets?
| wongarsu wrote:
| If passenger density was comparable to a typical airliner, an
| intercontinental E2E flight should be roughly comparable to a
| subsonic flight. The supersonic flight would be substantially
| worse. Rockets have the advantage that they very rapidly get
| out of the dense part of the atmosphere.
|
| In reality a Starship flight would probably sell few very
| expensive seats instead; just like Boom's aircraft only has
| 50 seats. Which would make it worse than subsonic flights in
| terms of fuel used, but still competitive with supersonic.
| cnlevy wrote:
| Starship's payload volume is around 1000 m ^3, which should
| be about the same as an A380 interior volume.
|
| For a flight time between 20 (minimum) and 40 minutes
| (maximum) to anywhere on earth, this volume could
| comfortably fit 1000 passengers per flight.
|
| At 2 or 3 times the price of a regular ticket, their offer
| would be a direct competitor against business class
| tickets, if they can reduce enough the risk, and handle
| logistics of rapid reuse.
| zionic wrote:
| Should be much better, you spend most of the time coasting
| and most of your acceleration in very thin atmosphere, vs a
| plane that has to cruise down in the soup.
|
| Also, starship has more pressurized volume than a 747. You
| can fit a lot of people.
| jraines wrote:
| If you're healthy enough to withstand 3 Gs and they make
| rocketry about a million times safer
| zionic wrote:
| E2E payload weight will be much lower than typical LEO
| configs, total altitude lower. You don't need to circularize
| etc etc.
|
| This means you can spend more fuel/be less efficient overall
| for a much more comfortable acceleration profile.
|
| In terms of safety, starship will fly hundreds, perhaps
| thousands of times before people fly on them. They'll get
| there.
| foobiekr wrote:
| This is never going to happen for safety, cost and noise
| reasons. It's just more Musk fraud.
| [deleted]
| monkaiju wrote:
| I really hope supersonic passenger aviation stays dead. Its
| environmental footprint alone is completely unjustifiable.
| qayxc wrote:
| Depends. If (and that's a mighty big "if") the fuel situation
| could be sorted out in terms of being able to produce it in a
| sustainable way, the footprint would be quite minimal compared
| most other modes of transportation.
|
| You also wouldn't need to add any additional infrastructure as
| opposed to ideas like vac-trains or MAGLEV in general.
| manacit wrote:
| This company is the next Theranos, and I don't think it's even
| that bold of a statement to say.
|
| They don't have an engine for a plane that they have yet to fly,
| for a concept that has limited commercial viability in the first
| place. We will look at companies like United and American
| Airlines that signed letters of intent to purchase these as
| foolish idiots.
|
| In the day and age of remote meetings, there is nearly no alpha
| in being able to be in London three hours earlier from NYC. You
| would simply hop on a Zoom call if it were that urgent. Nobody is
| going to pay up for the cost if they are flying for leisure.
| There are limited viable routes in in the first place.
| seehafer wrote:
| > This company is the next Theranos, and I don't think it's
| even that bold of a statement to say.
|
| It's a very bold statement to say when you have no evidence
| that Boom would or even could ship an airplane that would put
| people's lives in danger.
|
| Theranos was not simply a company that made large promises that
| required leaps in technology and then lied repeatedly about
| having succeeded in making those leaps. They risked patient
| safety by providing phony blood test results. It's important
| not throw around that epithet unless it's earned.
| jpm_sd wrote:
| Yep, I think it's more accurate to call them the next Nikola
| - another vaporware effort with "superior technology"
| supposedly waiting in the wings
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > We will look at companies like United and American Airlines
| that signed letters of intent to purchase these as foolish
| idiots.
|
| Has it cost them anything at this point? A little PR bump for
| zero expense and zero consequences doesn't seem all that
| foolish.
| rippercushions wrote:
| LOIs are nearly free. They're basically securing a spot at the
| front of the line just in case Boom manages to deliver.
|
| Unlike Theranos, supersonic engines already exist and they are
| regularly used by the military. The issue is that none of the
| big boys are willing to pony up a _lot_ of money to build, test
| and certify one for civilian use unless they can definitely get
| paid for their effort.
|
| And yes, there are willing buyers who will pay ludicrous
| amounts for comfort or speed, as the increasingly elaborate
| arms race in first class (eg. multi-room suites a la Etihad's
| Residence) and the entire private jet market demonstrate. The
| Concorde was profitable towards the end of its life despite
| mind-bogglingly high fuel costs, so there's definitely a market
| if -- and it's a big if -- Boom can pull it off.
| therealbilly wrote:
| I thought Boom had a smaller plane in the works. Trying to design
| a big 4 engine plane sounds daunting to me. A smaller craft with
| two engines sounds somewhat easier. Something able to transport
| 25 people maybe.
| rjsw wrote:
| An earlier related thread:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32768166
| tomohawk wrote:
| This basically boils down to ESG. With companies like Blackrock
| owned Morningstar rating companies on that kind of criteria,
| there's no way that a company is going to put themselves in a
| position to be providing engines for this sort of thing.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| supersonic is cool, but a solution looking for a problem
| runako wrote:
| Supersonic commercial service is interesting, but it was a small
| niche that the pandemic made even smaller.
|
| Constraints on the customer base:
|
| - Absolutely must have face-to-face meetings on another continent
|
| - Rich/"important" enough to pay for business-class
| transcontinental flights
|
| - Can't do any productive work on a normal flight, so important
| to reduce flight time
|
| - Not staying for a long visit, so cutting a couple of hours from
| the flight is important (Edit: added this item)
|
| - Not rich enough to fly charter
|
| That's a tough set of criteria, especially with CFOs looking to
| cut unnecessary business travel. Zoom is a lot cheaper than
| business-class travel.
| stult wrote:
| > Not rich enough to fly charter
|
| The growing backlash against the environmental impact of
| private jets may change this calculation a bit.
| foobiekr wrote:
| The backlash only matters if you get caught. Low key charter
| is a luxury good. I've never done it, but I know a lot of
| younger co-workers who have "splurged" on chartering for
| destination vacations/weddings/etc. at $10k each or whatever.
|
| That kind of diffuse luxe stuff will not get cleaned up by
| pushback.
| UltraViolence wrote:
| A private jet (either owned, leased or rented) is a much better
| option for executive and VIP's than a supersonic one.
| thetinguy wrote:
| The Concorde made money for both Air France and British
| Airways.
| runako wrote:
| The Concord practically defines "small niche." Entirely
| possible it made money, but less money than could be made
| charging Concorde fares for First Class seats on normal
| flights.
| mandevil wrote:
| When you buy a plane for 1 pound/franc, and don't have to
| worry about paying any development or manufacturing costs,
| you should be able to make money. If you can't, it's a
| serious problem!
|
| And I'm not sure that Air France was actually making money.
| The story I heard was that AF wanted to retire their fleet
| after the accident, because they hadn't made money on it. BA
| balked because they were making money but having to pay full
| costs of fleet maintenance equipment, rather than splitting
| those with AF, changed the numbers enough that BA would have
| lost money, so the whole fleet was retired.
| sushid wrote:
| At the cost of billions incurred by France and UK though. The
| economics never looked good for Boom.
| oblak wrote:
| Yeah but doing important drug deals on zoom is a major no-no.
|
| Seriously, we know for a fact that all internet communications
| have been completely compromised for a long time. If they have
| ever been safe. It makes plenty of sense if money is no object
| and certain things have to be discussed. That said, it's a
| massive waste. I wonder what happened to Musk's idea to have
| rockets fill that niche
| markdestouches wrote:
| It has been a dumb idea from the start. In a nutshell, making
| the whole process secure to acceptable levels would slow
| things down to the point where it's the same time as a
| regular plane flight. Yet it would cost orders of magnitude
| more. Edit: I'm commenting on Musk's rocket travel proposal
| cma wrote:
| SpaceX announced the plan for cross-world rocket flights
| cheaper than a business class ticket in 2018, by 2028, and
| Musk doubled down on the timeframe in an interview in 2020.
| Boom doesnt have a chance of earning back its investment if
| it will only be able to operate for a few years before Musk
| comes through on his aggressive timeline. Passengers will
| need to be fitted for spacesuits and there is no launch abort
| system.
| nemo1618 wrote:
| Curve25519, ChaCha20, and plenty of other cryptographic
| primitives haven't been comprised (and there's a good chance
| they never will be). You can absolutely communicate over the
| internet without others reading your messages.
|
| _Metadata_ though... that 's another story.
| ghaff wrote:
| Yeah. People are obviously getting back to face-to-face
| meetings. But I'd at least like to think that jetting from NYC
| to London just to sign some documents or to shake hands on a
| deal over lunch is something we'll see less of.
|
| If you're doing a longer road tour anyway, saving a few hours
| on the transatlantic legs doesn't really buy you a whole lot.
| raverbashing wrote:
| You save more time by flying a 'private plane' (with
| checking/security lines + it will fly at your preferred time)
| than flying a commercial supersonic jet
| WJW wrote:
| Surely a supersonic private plane would be even faster than
| a subsonic private plane though?
| ghaff wrote:
| The point was that you get to bypass a lot of the usual
| airport routine with private and also have greater
| flexibility when you fly. (Though flight plans still need
| to be filed and airport runways can still be congested.)
|
| And, yes, a private supersonic would be even faster but
| then it becomes even more of a question about the size of
| the market.
| landemva wrote:
| Big schedule help is to leave when you are ready to leave
| (the plane and pilots wait for you), and avoiding the herds
| at customs and immigrations.
| wongarsu wrote:
| I assume the airlines that buy supersonic planes also have
| solutions to get the ~50 passengers/plane through check-in
| and security in no time at all.
| runako wrote:
| Oh this is absolutely another problem for supersonic time
| savings.
|
| Supersonic flight over the continents is problematic, but
| not everyone lives on a coast. So many customers will
| have to take slow planes to aggregation hubs, which can
| easily add hours to an itinerary. Edit: And the
| aggregation hubs may not all serve the same destinations.
| Could easily see SF residents having to fly commercial to
| NYC to catch a Boom to London, even though there might be
| a Boom that flies SF-Tokyo.
|
| Once you add up the fixed time costs of getting to the
| airport, security, flying to a supersonic hub, the
| percentage of time that can potentially be shaved off the
| itinerary dwindles.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| Boom unfortunately does not have the range to make it
| transpacific nonstop either. Which is kind of a shame
| because 10+ hour Asia-NA flights would be a great nut to
| crack in terms of halving travel times.
| ghaff wrote:
| Yeah, even with lie-flat seating pods, transpacific is
| just a _long_ time to be sitting, however comfortably.
| kolinko wrote:
| How long is it?
|
| I flew business multiple times, Frankfurt-SF (~14h), and
| it's a breeze if you can lie down and sleep. Not even
| boring. Jet lag is way worse than the flight itself.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| JFK - HKG is 17h30. Even SFO to HKG is 12h30, and those
| are two cities on the coast in a middle position. (I'd
| rather pick Shanghai as a comparison but there are no
| direct flights at this time due to zero COVID so the info
| is hard to get.)
|
| The longest scheduled flight right now is probably SIN to
| JFK at 18h30m. Qantas wants to do a 20h JFK-SYD route.
| ISL wrote:
| I bet early Boom clients would get luxurious treatment and
| priority. Speed is obviously important to them -- they are
| willing to pay for it.
| skrebbel wrote:
| Hmm I'm not so sure. My sister used to be a project manager at
| an Enterprise software company. She lives in NL and was put on
| a project in Prague at some point. Think 10-20 engineers
| setting up some product at the customer site, ie it was worth
| tens of millions (licenses + consultancy fees).
|
| After months of mostly living in a hotel, she got tired of it,
| told he boss she wanted to go back to basketball training in
| her home town so wanted a different project.
|
| Her boss solved it by flying her to Prague and back every week
| so she could make basketball training on Thursday nights.
|
| I think that if there was supersonic flight they'd happily have
| found her a project in New York next and foot the bill, twice a
| week, just so she could keep going to basketball training and
| still run the project in person.
| WJW wrote:
| Honestly that sounds exactly like the type of "small niche"
| of customers that GP talks about. There can't be too many
| megacorps willing to do this and I bet most project managers
| wouldn't go for it either.
|
| Btw, that sounds like the worst solution your sister could
| have agreed to. She was tired of living in a hotel but is
| willing to keep living in an hotel _and also_ fly back and
| forth between Prague and Amsterdam every week?
| skrebbel wrote:
| She'd live in the hotel 3-4 nights a week and, well, she
| did like the project itself.
| runako wrote:
| This is a dying niche (source: have worked in Enterprise
| software for 20 years, used to live on a plane like your
| sister) that is largely moving to cloud deployments run by
| remote teams (those teams may themselves be co-located). The
| other prevalent model is opening a satellite office on the
| customer's continent, so that staff can be semi-local with
| shorter commutes.
|
| And even if she was a good representative, look at the ratio:
| 10-20 engineers to 1 project manager flying supersonic. I'm
| not sure that's a great market niche.
|
| > if there was supersonic flight they'd happily have found
| her a project in New York next and foot the bill, twice a
| week
|
| I do have to laugh at this, because there are numerous
| consultants who do this now, using our current planes.
|
| Edit: Amsterdam<->NYC 4x monthly for business/first class
| (equivalent to Boom pricing) looks like it will shake out in
| the range of $30k monthly in airline tickets. Very few
| employees in a company will justify that kind of travel
| spend. (And still not fly on a corporate jet.)
| TylerE wrote:
| Transatlantic is a bit of a special case as most corporate
| jets don't have the range for that, without doing something
| extreme like going way out of their way and stopping in
| Iceland (and thus being even slower than commercial)
| fiat_fandango wrote:
| Damn, do I need an MBA to land a gig like this?
| jpm_sd wrote:
| Air travel 2x/week goes from glamorous to miserable very
| quickly.
| qayxc wrote:
| Agreed, I used to do that 15 years ago and I wouldn't do
| it again.
|
| The most miserable part isn't even the flight itself -
| it's the hassle at the airports.
| landemva wrote:
| 'Million miler' or 2M status meant something different
| twenty years ago than now. Now it means the person is
| unable to use communication tech and instead subjects
| themselves to invasive screening at airports.
|
| It was unavoidable for some people twenty years ago. Now
| it is a badge of stupid.
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| > Her boss solved it by flying her to Prague and back every
| week so she could make basketball training on Thursday
| nights.
|
| And we wonder why the planet is set to "broil."
|
| "Who cares, someone else is paying for it."
| rishav_sharan wrote:
| I am not sure if you travel cross continent a lot. I live in
| India and for me to travel to the US for work takes 24 hours of
| continuous travel over multiple flights. If I can cut it down
| to 12 hrs, that would be a game changer for me.
| runako wrote:
| This is a classic case of "supersonic is not the answer."
| Depending on the city pair, this is a ~15h nonstop on a
| commercial flight today. If an airline started serving your
| city pair, you would immediately save 9 hours.
|
| Also keep in mind that supersonic won't help beyond the
| coasts due to noise/overflight rules that would require
| flights to slow down over the continents anyway.
| kylehotchkiss wrote:
| One example of this is Los Angeles-Delhi. Probably possible
| with existing planes but would require cargo or passenger
| limits, which would make the route not profitable. No
| American airline is interested, given the connections
| available elsewhere, and Air India's (they've expressed
| interest in this pair before) habit of running routes at
| big losses will probably start to reduce now that they're
| privately owned. Airlines are perfectly happy to add more
| hops to your trip.
|
| If there was a supersonic LAX-Singapore (I doubt India
| would allow supersonic planes), at least the longest leg of
| the trip is mostly over ocean, supersonic, and the
| Singapore-DEL flight is just a normal one.
| runako wrote:
| Looks like United was running flights from SFO nonstop to
| Delhi until Russia closed their airspace to US flights.
| Looking at the list of longest nonstops, a hypothetical
| LA-Delhi, assuming usage of Russian airspace, flight
| would fit within the range of a couple of aircraft.
|
| The JFK-Singapore direct would still be hundreds of km
| longer.
| rishav_sharan wrote:
| But Supersonic is indeed AN answer. Delhi-Dubai takes 4
| hrs. and if Dubai to NY could be done in 4 hours, I would
| very much prefer to buy that ticket - even if the fare
| prices are twice that of normal business class. Dubai-NY is
| a crowded route and there are plenty of very rich
| professionals who can take it on a regular basis.
|
| And even for personal flights - considering that I have to
| travel only once a year between India and the US, I would
| very much welcome this option.
|
| The current 24 hour long journey is just too brutal, and
| often time constraints mean that I can't break the journey
| into small hops over 3-4 days. And I shudder taking my
| family with me on such trips, given how much of a stress it
| causes.
| runako wrote:
| Today's state of the art is what? a 2-hour flight from
| Delhi to Mumbai, then a 16-hour nonstop from Mumbai to
| Newark? 18 hours in the air. Versus a hypothetical 4 hour
| Delha-Dubai then 5 hour Dubai-NY for 9 hours total in the
| air.
|
| So $1,100 for today vs $7,000 for supersonic (using
| business class fares as a proxy) to save 9 hours of
| flight time. My assertion is that there's relatively few
| people on any given route who have enough money and fly
| that route enough to make this a viable niche outside of
| a very limited set of routes.
|
| > I shudder taking my family with me on such trips
|
| I hear you on that! But also the notion of spending $7k
| for each of us is somehow worse.
| zachthewf wrote:
| As you say though, the cost is all the difference. Is
| business class the correct proxy?
| runako wrote:
| Per Boom's website, they are targeting price points that
| would let businesses economically sell seats at normal
| business class fares. However, knowing airlines, I would
| be surprised if they sold tickets for less than (say)
| 1.5x the highest subsonic fare for the route.
|
| Using the example above, that would put supersonic
| flights in the range of 10x economy, which feels about
| right for airline pricing. (At least until there are tons
| of supersonic flights to push down prices.)
| foobiekr wrote:
| Even if there was a business here, it is not a good _startup
| business_.
|
| Startups, especially if any hardware is involved, mostly need
| to be companies that are leveraging an entire stack of off-the-
| shelf, on-the-market, mostly commodity components into a
| product or solution which is mostly, at least at first, a
| packaging exercise on the HW side and perhaps novel go to
| market (AAS, for example), UI/UX, etc. experience on the SW and
| solution side. Very few startups are going to work outside of
| these guide rails, and even when they do the exit/invested is
| pretty poor at this point and has been getting poorer for at
| least 20 years. You get to tweak the last 5-10% of your tech
| stack in HW and had better have something really compelling as
| a result.
|
| There's probably _business_ in SST but between the tech stack,
| the dependencies, and just plain practical business issues like
| liability/etc. not a business that you get to as a startup.
| kylehotchkiss wrote:
| > Rich/"important" enough to pay for business-class
| transcontinental flights
|
| Business class from east to west (via emirates and qatar for
| example) can sometimes (more often pre-covid) be grabbed for
| $1000 above an economy ticket. The departing US business class
| ticket costs often seem very specific to our market. A lot of
| people on HN can bump up their tickets while flying outside the
| country even just for vacations.
| MauranKilom wrote:
| That title is unusually difficult to parse, especially since you
| only realize halfway through that it's about aircraft.
| JasonFruit wrote:
| It's almost as though I'm right when I say that making nouns of
| adjectives causes confusion. If we must have nouns from
| serverless, solar, and contactless, we're damn well going to
| get supersonic, too.
| danpalmer wrote:
| It's on an airline industry news website, I think they just
| know their audience.
| MarkMc wrote:
| May I plug my Hacker News app reader? In the app the image
| associated with this title makes it immediately clear it's
| about aircraft
|
| https://mclarentimes.com/
| ape4 wrote:
| It could be about music
| dylan604 wrote:
| Or the ++ version of a hedgehog franchise
| torginus wrote:
| I think the reality is that aerospace engineering is literal
| magic - the amount of resources, facilities, time and brainpower
| is absolutely it takes to develop anything approaching modern
| military hardware in performance makes it prohibitively expensive
| to fund the development on market terms.
|
| Developing a jet engine that could allow Boom to meet its
| performance targets is a nation-state level endeavor.
| TrevorJ wrote:
| One issue they face here is that for most flights, the time
| wasters aren't what happens once you are in the seat of the
| plane. It's everything that happens before that at the airport.
| xeromal wrote:
| These would be smart to fly out of the smaller airports in an
| area like out of long beach or burbank instead of LAX.
|
| Much easier and faster experience. That's how JSX operates.
| ghaff wrote:
| Usually, I breeze through with TSA Pre but neither myself nor
| my car service likes to bank on that. (Also slowdowns on my >1
| hour drive to the airport.) To your point, even if it's not
| security, there's a certain amount of overhead and buffer for a
| lot of people going to the airport for a flight.
| newaccount2021 wrote:
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2022-09-22 23:02 UTC)