[HN Gopher] Boom announces successful flight of XB-1 demonstrato...
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Boom announces successful flight of XB-1 demonstrator aircraft
Author : rbanffy
Score : 322 points
Date : 2024-03-22 17:45 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (boomsupersonic.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (boomsupersonic.com)
| lupusreal wrote:
| Site won't load, but I assume this was just a subsonic flight,
| gear down, etc? A major technical milestone for sure, but I think
| the real trick with their proposal is the economic viability of
| such a plane.
| stetrain wrote:
| Yes:
|
| > XB-1 met all of its test objectives, including safely and
| successfully achieving an altitude of 7,120 feet and speeds up
| to 238 knots (273 mph)
| kelnos wrote:
| I noticed that bit in the video -- gear down -- why is that?
| Just to avoid one possible point of failure, the gear failing
| to deploy properly for landing?
| fgblanch wrote:
| I had the same question. I guess too is a common protocol.
| Any insights on why these flights are gears down?
| pie420 wrote:
| Not an expert, but I've seen the following commented on
| other test flight videos: on initial test flights, landing
| gear is always kept down to minimize risk. If a sudden
| landing is needed, gear is already down, no risk of
| equipment getting stuck, less mental load for the pilot to
| perform emergency landing, etc. Basically, when testing,
| you want to minimize the variables being tested. When
| airworthyness is validated, then you can test landing gear
| systems.
| reso wrote:
| Yes. The bet is still that the airlines can find viable routes
| to fly with a vehicle that creates sonic booms.
| mikepurvis wrote:
| Japan Airlines is a logical customer then-- they'd be flying
| all over the Pacific where none of that matters.
| jmb99 wrote:
| Their website[0] does list Japan Airlines as a partner.
|
| [0] https://boomsupersonic.com/press-release/our-
| partnership-wit...
| mikepurvis wrote:
| Yes, that's why I mentioned it. :)
| ben7799 wrote:
| Turn off your ad blocker. For some reason it didn't load till I
| turned it off.
|
| There are no ads on the page, but there must be something
| nefarious.
| rvz wrote:
| Great company building actual difficult technologies.
|
| What engine are they using this time in their supersonic
| aircrafts? Last time I checked, Rolls-Royce abandoned Boom as
| their engine supplier.
|
| [0] https://simpleflying.com/rolls-royce-quits-boom-
| supersonic-e...
| zitterbewegung wrote:
| On their main page they referencing the following:
|
| XB-1's carbon composite and titanium fuselage is propelled by
| three General Electric J85 engines. [1]
|
| [1] https://boomsupersonic.com/xb-1
| TylerE wrote:
| In the prototype, which far from full scale.
| LarsDu88 wrote:
| Hmmm. Augmented reality display, Carbon fiber frame, supersonic
| intakes...
|
| And 3 J85-15 jet engines designed in the 1950s (?)
|
| I remember reading about these J85 engines in an issue of Popular
| Mechanics roughly 20 years ago. This engine was designed to be
| cheap and small enough to fit in a carry-on suitcase circa 1955.
| They are best known for powering the F5 "low-budget fighter" from
| 1959.
|
| Crazy that a new aircraft is launching with such new tech, but
| still rocking engines that were fundamentally designed around 10
| years after the dawn of jet aircraft.
| TotempaaltJ wrote:
| If it ain't broke...
| madmask wrote:
| It warms my heart seeing old designs still working just fine.
| KolmogorovComp wrote:
| They are not testing the engines here (which they will not be
| manufacturing anyway), but the aerodynamics and the systems.
| zitterbewegung wrote:
| Well since Rolls-Royce abandoned the project that might be why?
| This seems like more of a proof of concept of the airframe
| itself.
| phonon wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boom_Symphony aren't ready yet.
| rbanffy wrote:
| Meh... I'll take whatever supersonic passenger transport is
| offered, but Mach 1.7 is disappointing.
| jameshart wrote:
| Why did they design it to fit in a carry on suitcase?
| kube-system wrote:
| Because you have to be able to take them on the plane,
| obviously. /s
|
| But seriously I think 'fitting in a suitcase' wasn't the
| design goal, per se, but an approximate description of the
| design goals. The engine was designed to go in a missile.
| jameshart wrote:
| That's interesting actually - and a lot of 1950s era 'small
| enough to fit in a suitcase' descriptions (computers,
| nuclear warheads, jet engines...) make more sense if you
| realize they are a euphemism for 'small enough to fit in a
| missile'. Makes me wonder what 'small enough to fit in a
| cigar box' was a euphemism for.
| dsr_ wrote:
| That's a euphemism for cigar boxes; smuggled cigars get
| through borders with a little rake-off at each
| inspection. The fact that they are actual cigars on the
| top layers allows all the boxes to get past slightly bent
| but nonetheless patriotic guards.
| kube-system wrote:
| Eh, maybe. The suitcase itself is also, more simply,
| literally just something designed to be a reasonable
| amount of stuff that a human could carry. Many early
| portable PCs (e.g. Osborne) targeted a suitcase form
| factor just because it was a reasonable form factor for
| people to carry around.
|
| And the comparison is something colloquially convenient.
| "The device was the size of a suitcase" is just more
| illustrative than "the device was 50 liters in volume"
| jameshart wrote:
| Like I'm going to take advice from someone called 'kube-
| system' about container sizes :D
| kube-system wrote:
| I write all my comments FROM scratch
| pnw wrote:
| As I understand it, engine sourcing has been one of Boom's
| challenges. Rolls Royce was originally working on an engine for
| them, but cancelled it in '22. Boom announced their own engine
| design last year but I'm assuming that's not ready.
|
| Apparently newer engines aren't designed for supersonic flight
| so I'm guessing options are limited for testing this airframe.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Boom announced their own engine design last year but I 'm
| assuming that's not ready_
|
| The complexity of designing an engine is comparable to that
| of designing an airframe.
| smachiz wrote:
| maybe more so.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| If China is anything to go by, immensely more so, and you
| are not significantly helped even if you had all the
| documents and industry secrets required to design and
| build a modern engine!
| dmurray wrote:
| But supersonic engines already exist, and aircraft
| manufacturers almost universally buy instead of build when
| it comes to choosing an engine.
| jlmorton wrote:
| One of the key features of Overture is its planned use of
| e-fuels.
|
| I think this is almost crucial. Airlines are not going to
| line up to buy non-renewable, fuel-guzzling, net
| CO2-gushing supersonic jets for use over the next couple
| decades.
| dhash wrote:
| They will if its cheaper
| resolutebat wrote:
| Not if they're banned, which will almost certainly be the
| case by the time Boom is commercially available.
| willmadden wrote:
| We're banning engines now?
| mlyle wrote:
| Airlines are almost certain to face significant carbon
| regulation or carbon taxes in the next couple of decades.
| In turn, lots of engines will be effectively banned.
|
| Of course, this is nothing new: noise abatement
| effectively banned a whole lot of engines, too.
| pmontra wrote:
| We do that with the most polluting car engines.
| notahacker wrote:
| They announced they're building their own because the
| regular engine OEMs showed little interest. Even if
| required modifications to historic or military turbojets
| are minor, there's a _lot_ of expense in certifying them
| for use for a new type of passenger aircraft, and modern
| economical turbofans were not designed for supersonic
| flight...
| foldr wrote:
| Only for military applications, which have much lower
| reliability and serviceability requirements.
| sofixa wrote:
| (Almost?) exclusively on military planes which have
| different return on investment needs than commercial
| aircraft that need to be efficient first and foremost
| (ask Convair and BAC/Sud Aviation how many airlines
| valued speed over efficiency).
| foxyv wrote:
| I believe they are thinking that one is a solved problem
| (Jet Engine) and the other is a novel problem (Airframe
| with reduced supersonic noise). There has been some work
| done on the sonic boom problem, but not nearly as much as
| the jet engine problem.
|
| They will probably just iterate from an existing engine
| design rather than trying to re-invent one. Just because no
| one is manufacturing them doesn't mean the designs are not
| there to be used.
| cherryteastain wrote:
| Jet engine is a "solved" problem for like 4 Western
| companies (GE, Pratt-Whitney, Rolls-Royce, Safran) plus
| some Russian and Chinese state-owned enterprises that
| mostly do military work. These organizations guard their
| secret sauces vigorously. Designing a cutting edge jet
| engine from scratch (i.e. with competitive fuel
| efficiency) is NOT a trivial task.
| phkahler wrote:
| >> Jet engine is a "solved" problem for like 4 Western
| companies (GE, Pratt-Whitney, Rolls-Royce, Safran) plus
| some Russian and Chinese state-owned enterprises that
| mostly do military work.
|
| Time to mention Williams International
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Williams_International
|
| They're on light jets from Cirrus and Cessna. Boom
| probably needs something a bit larger - seems like an
| opportunity for a development program.
| throwup238 wrote:
| There's actually quite a few companies that make small
| turbojets especially for military purposes and up to a
| certain point, you can even DIY your own from spare parts
| (there are some Youtubers that have done that). That's
| the first tier and includes companies like Williams,
| usually producing <5,000 lbf engines.
|
| Then you have companies like Garrett/Honeywell that can
| make engines that output tens of thousands lbf like the
| TFE731 for mid-range jets and fighter jets. These can
| power big jets but not very fuel efficiently; that's the
| second tier.
|
| The next tier up is the high bypass turbofans producing
| tens of thousands lbf used for commercial aviation and
| afterburner engines for last gen fighter aircraft are a
| completely different story. The GP is right there are
| only a few players in the game. Due to scaling laws, at
| this point it becomes less about the design and more
| about the metallurgy and material science. Magic like
| single crystal alloys are critical here and are very
| closely guarded secrets because the knowledge unlocks
| everything from ICBMs to gaseous centrifuges to nuclear
| reactors.
| rgmerk wrote:
| Heh. If I were a startup I wouldn't be relying on
| Williams International to build me a novel engine:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eclipse_500
| nothercastle wrote:
| Ha jet engine that can be certified maintained and is
| efficient is barely solved by GE. That's it nobody else
| can make a modern commercial aircraft engine that isn't a
| total money pit.
| spxneo wrote:
| my spider sense is already tingling from reading this!
|
| do we know the reason for why rolls royce pulled out???
| UberFly wrote:
| "After careful consideration, Rolls-Royce has determined
| that the commercial aviation supersonic market is not
| currently a priority for us and, therefore, will not pursue
| further work on the program at this time. It has been a
| pleasure to work with the Boom team and we wish them every
| success in the future."
|
| Guess it was a cost thing. Wasn't worth their time. Not
| enough customers probably.
| mc32 wrote:
| Do they have the metallurgical expertise to manufacture their
| own engines? That would seem like a stretch... but who
| knows...
| nothercastle wrote:
| Agreed I'm sure GE development very special material
| systems
| trebligdivad wrote:
| Yeh, although on https://boomsupersonic.com/flyby/inaugural-
| first-flight-xb1-... they say 'Supersonic intakes: XB-1's
| engine intakes slow supersonic air to subsonic speeds,
| efficiently converting kinetic energy into pressure energy,
| allowing conventional jet engines to power XB-1 from takeoff
| through supersonic flight.' - so perhaps the engine design
| problem is not as tricky as it would otherwise be.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| Hermeus is starting with the engine [1].
|
| [1] https://www.hermeus.com/
| rbanffy wrote:
| Smart - if you fail to develop an airframe, you can still
| sell engines. The other way around is much more difficult.
| pandemicsyn wrote:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyKtxsdI0z8 but even they're
| using relatively old engines as the starting point. Because
| they're simple and well understood.
| kilroy123 wrote:
| Personally, I'm far more bullish on hermeus than I am Boom.
| notahacker wrote:
| They have a bigger addressable market
| dralley wrote:
| And military payloads don't complain about cramped seats,
| nor is the sticker price as much of a concern.
| llsf wrote:
| Yet still based on GE J85 turbojet
| https://www.hermeus.com/chimera
| brcmthrowaway wrote:
| Can we get LLMs to design the engine?
| WJW wrote:
| Where would the LLM get the training data? It's not as if
| supersonic jet designers commonly post easy-to-ingest
| design data online.
|
| Besides, most countries couldn't build a modern jet engine
| even if they had the exact engineering drawings of an
| existing one available. From fashioning single-crystal
| turbine blades to establishing a supply chain capable of
| the quality controls needed, the amount of hours spent is
| unreal.
| brcmthrowaway wrote:
| As a corollary to AI taking up easy jobs like CRUD apps
| and spreadsheets, will human work be pushed to making
| things like silicon chips, nuclear reactors, jet engines
| and space elevators?
| ortusdux wrote:
| Edit: I replied to the wrong comment. Hermes chose to start
| with the same engine as Boom - The J85. I'm assuming Boom
| chose it for similar reasons.
|
| I like their explanation of the choice from a recent tour:
|
| (Youtube transcript)
|
| _" So these are out of production, the J 85s. So we didn't
| work with GE at all. It was all just us working with, we were
| really working with the maintenance, repair and overhaul
| shops for them. That's really where the expertise and
| knowledge lies. These engines were, I think originally
| designed in the fifties. There's not a lot of electronics on
| board. There's no firmware we have to work through.
|
| And really, it's a pretty elegant but hydro mechanical system
| for all the controls. So really it was about understanding
| the configuration of it and you can kind of chase down all
| the different tubes and everything to understand how it
| works. And then there's a suite of documentation out there.
| So it was really on us to learn how it worked."_
|
| https://youtu.be/UyKtxsdI0z8?si=EFAcdq8OzEpVH6Vz&t=1230
| pictureofabear wrote:
| J85s are old technology. They're a turobjet, not a
| turbofan, nor do they have any electronics on board. This
| makes them highly inefficient engines. They're cheap, there
| are plenty lying around from old 4th gen fighters, and
| plenty of old guys who know how to work on them.
|
| I suspect they used these just to get the XB-1 airborne,
| making progress while they find a better engine.
| rbanffy wrote:
| > Crazy that a new aircraft is launching with such new tech,
| but still rocking engines that were fundamentally designed
| around 10 years after the dawn of jet aircraft.
|
| Their goal is to prove the design's aerodynamics WRT sonic
| boom, not the engines.
| bell-cot wrote:
| This is their 1/3-scale test/demo airplane. Spending big on
| engines for it would not make sense.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boom_XB-1
| sandworm101 wrote:
| >> Augmented reality vision system: Two nose-mounted cameras,
| digitally augmented with attitude and flight path indications,
| feed a high resolution pilot display enabling excellent runway
| visibility. This system enables improved aerodynamic efficiency
| without the weight and complexity of a movable nose.
|
| (Cough) Don't tell the passengers it is all because the pilot
| literally cannot see the runway during landing.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _because the pilot literally cannot see the runway during
| landing_
|
| ILS solved this problem for airline transport pilots [1].
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instrument_landing_system
| Gare wrote:
| To be fair, they do need an alternate with a better
| visibility. But if the computers are not working, you're
| not in for a good time in a modern airliner anyway.
| 9659 wrote:
| Maybe not a 'good time', but a safe one. Commercial
| airliners have standby instruments and a VHF radio that
| works on a battery. Which is all you need to get it on
| the ground in one piece.
| potatolicious wrote:
| ILS generally still requires manual visual approaches from
| the minimum altitude to the ground. Only ILS Cat III-C is a
| true autoland that can take the aircraft down all the way
| to the ground.
|
| Even then, aircraft certification requirements even for Cat
| III-C capable aircraft requires that pilots be able to
| conduct a visual approach because the ILS system can fail.
|
| An aircraft that has _literally no recourse_ when ILS Cat
| III-C capability goes down (either on the aircraft side or
| the airfield side) does _not_ seem like a good idea,
| especially because in this case large categories of
| emergencies are positively correlated with avionics
| failure.
|
| For example an engine failure may cause power loss to
| avionics, so your fancy AR webcam feed is _more_ likely to
| go down in that situation just when you need to make an
| emergency landing.
|
| Not impossible to overcome of course - you certainly can
| ensure your avionics have its own isolated (and multiply
| redundant) power source so that it _does_ stay up in the
| event of many kinds of emergencies, but personally I 'd
| need to really see the homework on that before I'd feel
| safe flying in that kind of setup.
| wkipling wrote:
| The category of of ILS does not dictate its autoland
| status. You can do an Autoland on nearly any ILS provided
| the FAC is aligned with the RWY.
|
| A CAT IIIB ILS will permit in most states a landing with
| a radio altitude of 0.
| philwelch wrote:
| Didn't the Concorde have a droop snoot for the same reason?
| sandworm101 wrote:
| Yes and no. Line of sight was one reason, but aerodynamics
| was another. Pointing the nose into the wind (ie slightly
| down) is more efficient during landing and takeoff. Boom is
| avoiding the concept because it would cost tens of millions
| to develop and test such a configuration.
| philwelch wrote:
| Large moving parts on an airframe seem to be avoided in
| general these days. There's a similar story with swing
| wings (which I think Boom also considered before
| ultimately rejecting).
| NegativeLatency wrote:
| Probably a good engine choice because it's plentiful, and used
| on other similar aircraft, for example their T-38 chase plane
| uses the same engine.
| B4CKlash wrote:
| High tech manufacturing at scale is often equally as
| challenging as development work. Starting with a proven design
| let's teams focus on leveling up their manufacturing
| capabilities prior to introducing the double complexity of
| manufacturing a part that just made it out of CDR.
|
| A bit of a tangent, but this is the genius of Musk's Merlin
| engine. Simple design utilizing RP9 allows the manufacturing
| staff to hit their stride before introducing the raptor
| (methalox).
| api wrote:
| Falcon 9's Merlin engine is really just based on a NASA
| reference design for a simpler low cost rocket engine. Raptor
| is new tech, but that was long after SpaceX had proven itself
| and had the capital and talent to invest in building something
| like that.
|
| It makes total sense to use flight proven engines like this off
| the shelf at first.
| HumblyTossed wrote:
| If they work, I don't understand the issue. Not everything has
| to be modern to be useful.
| FrustratedMonky wrote:
| I don't think people here understand how old a lot of the
| designs are that they use everyday.
|
| Old Design + New Materials can still be cutting edge
| sandworm101 wrote:
| While I acknowledge the cool factor, I don't like what Boom is
| doing. We should be looking at making air travel more efficient,
| reducing the energy/emissions per passenger-mile flown. We don't
| need to invent ways to make luxury travel by the rarified few
| ever more expensive and damaging.
| bowmessage wrote:
| > Overture is designed to run on up to 100% sustainable
| aviation fuel (SAF).
| jameshart wrote:
| "Designed to run on up to 100%" says nothing about what
| percentage it will in practice operate on in service.
|
| I am capable of running on a sustainable diet of 100%
| nutrient balanced meals and a strictly controlled daily
| calorie intake. In practice, I'm operating on a mixture of
| pizza and Oreos right now.
| rbanffy wrote:
| SAF is a good investment - it allows us to use the current
| airplanes while we transition the shorter distances to
| electrics. It also allows for a gradual infrastructure
| transition, because you can run a jet engine with any mix
| of kerosene and SAF.
| Someone wrote:
| And even if it runs on 100% sustainable air fuel 100% of
| the time, that fuel is better used powering more efficient
| planes.
|
| It's not as if we're having surplus production of
| sustainable air fuel, or will have it any time soon.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _not as if we're having surplus production of
| sustainable air fuel_
|
| You want to spur an industry by rationing its customers?
| apendleton wrote:
| If SAFs are to be economically viable at all, they'll almost
| certainly need to be able to run in existing, unmodified
| engines. So: all engines will be able to run on some amount
| of SAFs anywhere for 0% to 100%, as will this new engine.
| This statement has no information content whatsoever.
| mikepurvis wrote:
| Unfortunately, I think the route to more efficiency is
| funneling people to massive hub airports where widebody planes
| carry them on less frequent runs to other hubs-- but that
| results in longer boarding times, less flexible schedules, and
| more stopovers, none of which the market wants.
|
| So instead we have a bunch of smaller "commuter" jets making
| point-to-point trips, many of which are short enough that they
| really should be trains, not air travel. And that's a whole
| other issue. Sigh.
| rbanffy wrote:
| > many of which are short enough that they really should be
| trains
|
| That's a good point, but rail infrastructure is very
| expensive to build and, unlike planes, where you only need to
| build the destinations, you need to build every route.
|
| Anyway, the future of short commuter flights is electric.
| mnw21cam wrote:
| The key determinant that tells you whether trains or planes
| are more cost-efficient is population density. If you have
| two cities far apart with not much in-between, then it's
| cheaper to build a couple of airports. If you have loads of
| other cities along the route, then it'd be cheaper to build
| a railway. The former case is true for much of North
| America, and the latter for much of Western Europe and UK.
| mikepurvis wrote:
| Commonly cited but not really grounded in reality-- lots
| of places that have made rail work have very similar or
| worse density characteristics to the coastal US routes
| that should be a no-brainer:
|
| https://persquaremile.com/2011/05/27/u-s-not-dense-
| enough-fo...
| class3shock wrote:
| If you take into account cost-per-moved-amount-of-cargo
| trains are dramatically cheaper, even including
| infrastructure. The only reason we don't use/develop them
| more is social/political bs not due to choosing the ideal
| engineering solution for the problem and that solution
| being planes)
|
| As for electric flight:
|
| 1 gallon of jet fuel has like 40 kwh of energy and weighs
| like 6 lbs. A Ford Lightning has a battery capacity of 100
| kwh and that battery weighs 1,800 lbs. Electric flight
| ain't happening in a big way anytime soon with current
| battery tech.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| A supersonic passenger jet would not find much of market on
| short haul flights. They would either stick to the dense
| pockets of wealth, the biggest airports beside the biggest
| cities, or rely on feeder airports to bring passengers in.
| Either way, I don't see this saving much in actual travel
| time over the current system.
| smachiz wrote:
| It's certainly niche, but NY-LON sees ~3 million non-
| connecting passengers a year.
|
| If they can make it quiet enough to be supersonic over
| land, it's a lot more compelling. But even being supersonic
| for the atlantic crossing will shave hours off of most EU
| routes from NY.
|
| I think the bigger problem is the time changes on a lot of
| routes make EU flights pretty efficient - you don't want
| the overnight flights to be shorter really (and I wish most
| were longer).
| wolverine876 wrote:
| Maybe overnight flights should optionally let you sleep
| on the ground before/after the flight. Charge extra, you
| don't have to pay pilots or for fuel, park away from the
| gate.
|
| You would need power without the engines but you could
| hook up a generator or a feed from the airport.
| mikepurvis wrote:
| Planes run on shore power at the gate anyway.
| dmurray wrote:
| Then turn on all the lights and wake you up for the
| preflight briefing!
| wolverine876 wrote:
| I've been on redeye flights where, a few hours in, the
| pilot came on the PA, told us about something to see out
| the window, and also about the drink we could buy from
| the flight attendants - credit cards only please!
|
| Air travel is just endless indignities and discomfort.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| If planes are full, how can it be more efficient to fly my
| ~200 lbs (including lots of luggage!) from point A to B to C,
| adding extra distance and another takeoff, rather than
| directly from A to C?
|
| Are widebody planes that much more efficient?
| Zak wrote:
| The short answer seems to be no. Newer planes are much more
| efficient than older ones, but the most efficient aircraft
| and flight segment per passenger-distance are the A320 Neo
| and 737 Max making ~1000 mile flights.
|
| Fuel burn is probably not the main reason airlines use the
| routing that they do.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_economy_in_aircraft
| mikepurvis wrote:
| I'd guess that staffing and gate time are big cost
| drivers. A lot of those "how Southwest succeeded"
| articles from back in the day cited very fast gate
| turnarounds as being a key thing-- get the people off,
| get the other people on, get back in the air.
| Espressosaurus wrote:
| Agreed. For noise reasons as well, I'd like to see these kinds
| of efforts get shut down.
| rockemsockem wrote:
| NASA is working on designs to significantly reduce noise from
| breaking the sound barrier, which I'm sure will inform
| changing requirements for supersonic flight over the United
| States. Right now the regulation is a very strict "you cannot
| fly supersonic over the US", except military aircraft of
| course
| rbanffy wrote:
| > Right now the regulation is a very strict "you cannot fly
| supersonic over the US", except military aircraft of course
|
| I bet it wouldn't if Boeing or Lockheed managed to make
| their Concorde competitors.
| extraduder_ire wrote:
| I doubt it, outside of very small portions of the
| country. IIRC, the plan was to have huge airports in
| places like florida that the 2707 would land at and
| people would get on subsonic jets to connect to where
| they wanted to go. Unless sentiment changed due to people
| hearing how quiet a "sonic boom" actually is when one of
| them was cruising.
|
| Most of eurpoe also banned overland supersonic flights.
| kylehotchkiss wrote:
| Noise is a valid complaint but where these planes will really
| shine is oceanic flights, USA to Japan, Australia, Singapore
| are 3 routes mostly over ocean or uninhabited areas that
| could use the reduced travel time.
| greggroth wrote:
| I think their sights are set on military contracts (I believe
| they already have some military funding) and commercial
| aviation is a way to fund the development.
| jjk166 wrote:
| Seems a little silly, the military is exempt from the
| regulatory burden they're spending a fortune to work around
| and has extremely deep pockets. It would be much easier to
| start with military contracts and establish everything they
| need to make supersonic planes and then transition that to
| civilian supersonic planes then to try and do everything and
| then some with no revenue and an unproven business plan.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| Military supersonics just aren't that important. We don't
| have Mach 3+ planes anymore not because we forgot or some
| nonsense, but because the things we used them for we now use
| space for: Need to spy on someone? The USSR is less happy to
| shoot a satellite out of the sky (this will change soon) than
| Mr. Powers in a plane. Want to nuke someone in a few minutes?
| ICBMs are mature technology.
|
| So what are they supposedly offering the military?
| mulmen wrote:
| Powers was shot down in a subsonic U2. The mach 3+
| Blackbird family never overflew Russia.
| notahacker wrote:
| It would make a lot more sense to do that the other way
| round...
| maccaw wrote:
| Why should we make it more efficient? Why not make more energy
| from clean sources first?
| rbanffy wrote:
| That's what sustainable air fuel is. There is a lot being
| done to certify existing engines to run on it. Moving to an
| incompatible power source (such as hydrogen) isn't feasible
| because it would require scrapping the current fleets (and
| well maintained planes live longer than their pilots).
| shmatt wrote:
| Pretty much everything we use daily were introduced to "regular
| people" as a luxury product for the 0.1%. Even personal
| computers
|
| Eventually companies are able to scale things
| filleduchaos wrote:
| > Eventually companies are able to scale things
|
| Companies generally don't scale things very well beyond the
| boundaries set by physics.
| rockemsockem wrote:
| They are making air travel more efficient. More time efficient.
| That's great for everyone flying, but also great for airlines.
| The last three flights I've been on arrived significantly ahead
| of schedule and were going much faster than usual. I assume
| this was to get the pilot to the location ASAP so they can fly
| again sooner.
|
| Also how do you not see supersonic flight as just generally
| good for everyone flying? I want to sit in a plane for less
| time, always.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| >> how do you not see supersonic flight as just generally
| good for everyone flying
|
| Because it require vastly more energy (fuel) per mile than
| most any other form of travel. Because the aircraft carry
| fewer people per takeoff/landing cycle, congesting airports.
|
| Those who care about time can already travel at much greater
| speeds. Door-to-door travel times for first class, and
| especially private, are already about 1/3 to 1/2 that of the
| common economy passenger on a domestic flight. If we wanted
| to speed up the process, the easy fruit is the speed of the
| airport rather than the aircraft.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Those who care about time can already travel at much
| greater speeds_
|
| There is massive room for improvement. Consider the effect
| on global relations if crossing the world didn't cost days
| but hours. More practically, consider an economy networked
| with this travel and transport competing against one
| sticking to trains, trucks and Zoom.
| rbanffy wrote:
| I believe the cultural integration aspects of cheap,
| fast, and effortless passenger transportation cannot be
| overstated. I'd like to see more and more people
| traveling to places they wouldn't travel otherwise.
|
| It's easier to dehumanise the people you don't know, and
| much harder to do that when you have been with them.
| kibwen wrote:
| The time spent in flight is not the limiting factor on
| globe-spanning tourism. Traveling is massively expensive
| (not just the cost of transportation, but also lodging,
| food, and itinerary), and if this just makes it more
| expensive, then it doesn't help in that regard.
| notahacker wrote:
| Concorde wasn't transformational for business at a time
| when executives couldn't work and videoconference from
| anywhere in the world and stay connected to the workplace
| for the majority of their flight duration.
|
| The realistic potential of an operationally-expensive
| medium range aircraft designed for scheduled passenger
| flights isn't going to radically change trucks, trains
| and Zoom. Or business jets, for people that care enough
| about time to pay for it in thousand dollar multiples.
| Even for the small fraction who can actually afford it, a
| supersonic airliner is still going to have range
| constraints eliminating the possibility of quickly
| crossing the world, and for the transatlantic hops it
| might manage, it's the 8am JFK-LHR flight competing with
| a business jet at a time and origin/destination airports
| of the executives' choosing...
|
| (for related reasons, I'd actually be more bullish about
| the economic case for supersonic bizjets, but there have
| been quite a lot of projects studying that market that
| haven't got anywhere...)
| sandworm101 wrote:
| The supersonic biz jet fails because they all need longer
| runways. The biz jet wants to land at smaller private
| airports to avoid the hassle (security) of large
| airports. Any supersonic biz jet capable of also landing
| on a short runway ends up looking more like a fighter jet
| with some extra seats.
| brendoelfrendo wrote:
| Yeah, but Zoom (and its analogues) exist. Crossing the
| world doesn't take days OR hours; you can have a meeting
| with someone halfway around the world _right now._ I
| genuinely don 't see an economic need for very many
| people to cross intercontinental distances that quickly
| in this day and age. How often does an executive actually
| need to go from New York to London? Or LA to Shanghai? We
| already ask "could this meeting have been an email?"
| Well, companies looking to save money should also be
| asking "could this intercontinental business trip have
| been a Zoom call?" Otherwise, it's just businesses
| subsidizing their executives' luxury travel expenses.
| benced wrote:
| The existence of business class flights proves this
| wrong. You are probably right the relative demand for
| face-to-face has gone down since Concorde but the world
| has also gotten bigger and richer since. I suspect
| absolute demand is higher, particularly if they can
| deliver their promise of business-class prices (versus
| Concorde's, inflation-adjusted $20k).
| filleduchaos wrote:
| > The existence of business class flights proves this
| wrong
|
| I don't see how it does. Wanting a more comfortable
| experience than being crammed into a narrow seat for
| hours _when travel /physical presence is actually
| necessary_ doesn't somehow translate into necessary
| travel being underserved.
|
| (Specifying necessary travel because that's the GP's
| point - just because there are people who _want_ to take
| 10 minute hops between neighbouring cities or to fly out
| for meetings that could have been conducted perfectly
| well over a call doesn 't mean that the world should
| cater to their whims.)
| arcticfox wrote:
| > Door-to-door travel times for first class...are already
| about 1/3 to 1/2 that of the common economy passenger on a
| domestic flight
|
| What? is this a different first class? Because first class
| gets off the plane like 5-10 minutes faster than economy in
| my experience.
| resolutebat wrote:
| Priority check-in, priority security, priority boarding,
| priority disembarkation, priority immigration, priority
| baggage pickup, priority customs lanes all exist and
| these add up, particularly for international travel. My
| APEC card alone has saved me _hours_ more times than I
| can count.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| Travel on first class. It is a different thing,
| especially internationally. You don't wait in line for
| check-in. You don't deal with security the same way. You
| don't deal with immigration the same way. You don't wait
| around hours for your bags to come out the chute. You
| don't get bumped off of flights, nor do your bags. It
| saves hours, even on the shortest flights. When companies
| send their people first class it isn't about comfort so
| much as saving time and increasing reliability.
| benced wrote:
| It's a misleading rhetorical trick to criticize a company
| primarily focus on trans-oceanic flights by talking about
| first-class domestic flights.
| class3shock wrote:
| Not when their ticket prices and passenger volume are
| similar to first class. Go to their site and scroll down
| until you see the picture of the seating and tell me that
| isn't first class.
|
| https://boomsupersonic.com/overture
|
| You don't actually think someone making under 6 figures
| is ever going to be flying on one of these things do you?
| ghaff wrote:
| >I want to sit in a plane for less time, always.
|
| In principle, yes? I also want to sit/lay more comfortably. I
| also want to pay less money. In general, halving my in-air
| time is honestly not worth a lot.
| rbanffy wrote:
| > In general, halving my in-air time is honestly not worth
| a lot.
|
| It's a huge enabler - right now, flying to see my family in
| Brazil is a huge PITA - two airports and 12+ hours in the
| air. It's less horrid in business class, but still
| something I tend not to do more than once a year.
|
| If I had a 5-hour direct flight, it'd be a no-brainer.
| ghaff wrote:
| Maybe I'm just more accustomed to long flights, but a
| 12-hour non-stop flight in business class if I'm not
| really thinking about the cost much just isn't a material
| inhibitor for me. (And whether there are non-stop flights
| is a separate issue.) Certainly shaving off 6 hours of
| flight time wouldn't really affect my calculus much, if
| at all.
| SideburnsOfDoom wrote:
| > In general, halving my in-air time is honestly not worth
| a lot.
|
| If I have a 2 hour flight then no, it isn't. If I have a 12
| hour flight then it's worth more.
| nradov wrote:
| When scheduled commercial flights arrive ahead of time it's
| because ground delays were less than average and/or winds
| were favorable. Airlines don't control those factors and
| don't really account for them in crew scheduling. They can
| sometimes cruise at slightly higher speeds to make up a bit
| of time when running behind schedule, but this comes at the
| cost of higher fuel burn and can only save a few minutes at
| most.
| mlsu wrote:
| For a coast to coast flight, at least 30-40% of the flight
| time is spent getting to the airport earlier to de-risk the
| TSA line, or standing in the TSA line. Or, going outside to
| hail a cab to the airport, sitting in airport traffic, and
| driving to and from the airport.
|
| For a 5h flight from LAX -> JFK, approx 3-5 hours is spent
| doing these things.
|
| So, to shorten the 8-10h of an LA to NYC trip, the easiest
| possible thing to do is... build a f%@#$ train.
| Gare wrote:
| Supersonic is unusable over land anyway. This aircraft is
| designed for trans-oceanic routes, like US to Asia or
| Europe.
|
| Quite hard to build a railway over the ocean.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| >> Supersonic is unusable over land anyway.
|
| A myth created because Concord came to market before the
| American SST. Sonic booms are not the epic thunder
| crashes of Hollywood fame. The Concorde going by at
| altitude wouldn't be any louder than a truck engine
| braking on a nearby highway for a second or two.
| doctoboggan wrote:
| Many municipalities have laws against engine breaking
| because of how much noise pollution it causes, so I don't
| think your example works they way you expect. Especially
| considering this would cause that noise pollution for 10s
| of millions of people.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| Not even remotely correct. They flew supersonic aircraft
| over Oklhahoma City a thousand times and basically drove
| the city insane and had to cut testing short when it was
| obviously untenable to regularly Sonic Boom half a
| million people for commercial aviation, let alone every
| large city in America.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oklahoma_City_sonic_boom_te
| sts
|
| If I'm doing my calculations correct, their targeted
| sound pressure levels of 50-100 pascal is equivalent to
| 127-133 decibels, which is over the threshold of
| discomfort for most, and getting close to the threshold
| of pain.
| coolspot wrote:
| > their targeted sound pressure levels of 50-100 pascal
| is equivalent to 127-133 decibels
|
| At what distance from the plane?
| hermitdev wrote:
| My childhood home was in the flight path for NASA when
| they were given the Blackbird after it's official
| retirement. We also routinely had fire-retardant bombers
| flying eye level close enough you could read the tail
| numbers off with a naked eye (we were on the side of a
| mountain, bombers flew down the valley).
|
| Point is: the Blackbird, flying at altitude, sounded like
| a tree fell on the house . Big crash/thud suddenly. The
| bombers, though loud, were a steady build up until they
| passed, then quietly faded away. The Blackbird, I
| literally remember leaving the house to make sure there
| wasn't a hole in the wall or roof.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| Blackbird was a beast, literally the fastest plane out
| there and it never really slowed down. Compare shuttle,
| which came in much faster but few ever complained about
| its boom.
| Gare wrote:
| This seems bit excessive, Concorde booms were purportedly
| about 105-110 dB on the ground when cruising at altitude
| (around 60 000 ft).
|
| I've personally only experienced sonic booms from
| MiG-21s. They are not painfully loud, but surely
| startling. They are very deep and make the windows
| rattle.
| dreamcompiler wrote:
| It's no myth. I'm old enough to remember sonic booms as a
| regular occurrence. We were used to them but they were
| definitely louder than a jake brake and they disturbed a
| much larger area.
| ghaff wrote:
| I was with you until the last sentence. Your train trip
| that crosses two continental divides is still going to take
| you more than a day. Even a "spare no expense" rail project
| isn't going to make that cross-country trip palatable for
| most travelers.
| beefield wrote:
| I guess GP meant to build a train from downtown NYC to
| JFK.
| mulmen wrote:
| Another one? JFK is connected to the subway.
| darknoon wrote:
| No, it's connected to AirTrain, which is slow and
| unpredictable, which is then connected to either the A or
| the LIRR.
| mulmen wrote:
| Sorry I meant that you can use rail to get to and from
| JFK to the parts of New York served by the subway.
|
| If the claim was to build a sub-8-hour LA to NYC train
| that's obviously not going to work because of physics. If
| the claim was we need rail to LAX and JFK that's silly
| because both are already served by rail.
| screye wrote:
| It is a slow subway train that requires transfers at
| Jamaica to the airtrain and then an internal airport
| people mover. Some people need multiple transfers from
|
| WTC/Penn/14th street are centrally connected stations
| that should have a direct connection to JFK.
|
| Run an express A-C-E train from central-park, 34th, 14th,
| WTC, Atlantic, Jamaica, JFK. It should not be that hard.
| While we are at it, run an express downtown manhattan to
| Newark train/BRT too. LaGuardia is....hopeless.
| mulmen wrote:
| The upstream comment ambiguously suggested a train as a
| solution to an 8-10 hour door to door LA to NYC travel
| time. Either that means connecting the airport to the
| city by rail or the cities themselves. Sub-8-hour LA to
| NYC by train is beyond any currently known technology.
| JFK is already connected to NYC's subway by rail.
| BHSPitMonkey wrote:
| It might be palatable if it's quite a bit less expensive,
| which could be the case if we start passing externalized
| costs (e.g. offsetting the impacts of carbon emissions,
| pollution, noise, etc.) down to the consumers who use
| these services.
| 1024core wrote:
| > build a f%@#$ train.
|
| Until someone creates an incident on said train, and then
| suddenly you have to do the TSA dance at train stations
| too.
| ghaff wrote:
| Honestly, with Pre-Check, I haven't had a security check
| be a major issue in years and years anyway. I still tend
| to get there early though because--who knows what could
| happen? I certainly cut things a lot closer with early
| morning Amtrak departures than the airport.
| patall wrote:
| Most of Europe doesn't even check if you have a ticket
| before boarding a train. Some countries check tickets at
| the station, but I have never been checked for anything
| else. And there have definitely been incidents.
| rplnt wrote:
| You get through airport-like screening (metal detectors,
| baggage scan) when crossing the eurotunnel.
| class3shock wrote:
| Flying faster is fundamentally less efficient and thus worse
| for the environment.
| t0lo wrote:
| The morally negligent corporate poster is my favourite
| mainstay of this site
| lettergram wrote:
| > While I acknowledge the cool factor, I don't like what Boom
| is doing. We should be looking at making air travel more
| efficient, reducing the energy/emissions per passenger-mile
| flown. We don't need to invent ways to make luxury travel by
| the rarified few ever more expensive and damaging.
|
| Didn't they say it could run on sustainable fuel?
|
| I'm sorry, but I want to maximize my (and really all humans)
| time on this Earth, if that costs energy, that's the cost. I
| wouldn't be concerned about emissions per passenger-mile as
| that's nothing more than a rounding error in "emissions".
| You're welcome to walk / swim from San Francisco to Europe, but
| don't expect me to.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| >> Didn't they say it could run on sustainable fuel?
|
| The same can be said about my car/boat/monster truck/jet
| fighter and anything else that pumps out carbon. The average
| jet engine can be tuned to run rather well on olive oil. "Can
| run on X" is a far cry from "actually runs on X".
| jocaal wrote:
| > I'm sorry, but I want to maximize my (and really all
| humans) time on this Earth, if that costs energy, that's the
| cost
|
| But by using too much energy, you are reducing the expected
| lifespan of future generations. I can't tell if your being
| sarcastic. Tragedy of the commons.
| samatman wrote:
| There's no "we" here. You're not a part of Boom, and I daresay
| you aren't working to make commercial air travel more efficient
| either. You're kibitzing.
| moralestapia wrote:
| Thanks, I shrug whenever I read "we"s used liberally here and
| there.
| kilroy123 wrote:
| I disagree. The world badly needs new players in aviation
| shaking things up.
|
| I'm very happy to see boom existing and trying to do what
| they're doing.
|
| Plus, as someone who has done many long haul flights, I badly
| want this. (flying one in two weeks)
| spxneo wrote:
| I also disagree. As a fan of aviation, theres never enough
| experiments going on. We need to stop it with this carbon
| virtue signaling when everyone of us here would be glad to
| own a used 2017 Bombardier Global 6000
|
| I applaud Boom's efforts I just don't know if its viable
| because if Airbus isn't working on it then it probably isn't
| safe/worth the insurance upkeep.
| philwelch wrote:
| Airbus lost a bunch of money developing the A380 and are
| understandably nervous to undertake any more high risk
| development projects. This is actually a great case for an
| aviation startup. If Airbus failed to develop a modern SST
| that might bankrupt them and disrupt the entire industry,
| but if Boom fails it only destroys a nascent startup that
| no one depends upon yet.
| kylehotchkiss wrote:
| Plenty of people around the world have legitimate needs to
| travel via airplane. Think about the millions of immigrants in
| USA with family abroad. Tech to better connect the world is
| worth celebrating.
| rqtwteye wrote:
| That tech exists already. Those immigrants don't need/can't
| afford supersonic travel.
| multimoon wrote:
| That's one of the most shortsighted views I've seen in awhile.
|
| They are making air travel more efficient. Improvements in
| aircraft aerodynamics and engine efficiency to achieve
| supersonic flight can sometimes apply backwards and make a
| normal plane more efficient. We can apply some of the same
| technologies to shorten runways and reduce the sprawling layout
| airports need. There's so many places technology like this can
| go that it's insane we ever stopped researching it.
|
| Writing it off because of vague fear-mongered potential
| environmental impacts is silly. As another commenter said, you
| can swim to Europe if you'd like but I will take the supersonic
| jet personally.
| trollerator23 wrote:
| There are so many commies in HN that I have to think that's
| deliberate. That's gotta be state actors at play. CCP?
|
| Like, who the f*k cares? There are other companies working on
| that too.
| Extropy_ wrote:
| They're everywhere here. It sucks.
| jrflowers wrote:
| I've always found the best way to fight for American freedoms
| is to post "CCP?" at people that I disagree with on the
| internet. These cyber actors may be well trained but they
| cannot stand up to the rigor of my investigative methods
| anomaly_ wrote:
| 110%. The libertarian/anarchist hacker ethos is dead.
| __loam wrote:
| Boom is specifically working on efficient and affordable
| supersonic flight. This isn't the 1980s.
| foxyv wrote:
| To be honest, the best air travel is high speed rail. Replacing
| regional flights with train trips would save so much energy and
| reduce emissions monstrously. I'm not even worried about these
| supersonic flights to be honest. They are 40 planes out of over
| ten thousand in service today.
|
| Now, if Boom was working on a supersonic train? That would be
| AMAZING!
| VelesDude wrote:
| While yes this is a pessimistic take on it, the book 'Dark Age
| America' called out the problems of the original Concord and I
| think it applies to Boom as well. The authors argument being
| that Boeing pulling out of the 2707 SST project, while at the
| time was seen as a massive loss, turned out to be one of the
| smartest moves they had done in the space.
|
| Yes, super sonic flight and things like Boom are a massive
| technical achievement, there is no doubt about that. But, we
| should not conflate technical capabilities with economic
| viability. Concord was very technically viable, but it was an
| economic white elephant.
|
| This thing could see a role in the luxury space but I don't
| think we can reconcile the issue of brute forcing physics and
| cheap transport for the masses.
| switchbak wrote:
| Hermeus is ostensibly going after the super/hypersonic
| commercial transport market too, but something seems kind of
| off with that approach (to me).
|
| Their quarterhorse demo aircraft has plenty of utility in a
| variety of unmanned military roles. To such a degree that the
| civilian transport angle seems like kind of a distraction in
| this current era of military ramp-up.
|
| Maybe it's just a hedge so they can keep their toes in two
| markets simultaneously and perhaps appeal to investment via
| those different interests.
| notatoad wrote:
| >We don't need to invent ways to make luxury travel by the
| rarified few ever more expensive and damaging.
|
| you do if you're the Saudi government and you're worried about
| finding way to prop up declining demand for fossil fuels
|
| https://youtu.be/aT0r_yJafmg?si=0aPDghhuU6RUaNNY&t=780
| (obnoxious youtuber voice warning)
|
| slide 25 here:
| https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24175697-osp-opportu...
| csharpminor wrote:
| Boom (and supersonic aircraft) are a strategic investment
| priority for Saudi Arabia to sustain demand for oil. If that
| doesn't tell you everything you need to know about their impact
| on emissions I don't know what else does.
| lizardking wrote:
| Who is "we" exactly?
| futhey wrote:
| Every single other major jet manufacturer is already making air
| travel cheaper and more efficient every year. It's all airlines
| who buy from Boeing or Airbus care about. The underserved niche
| is premium and small, not scale. Commercial aircraft will get
| 1% more efficient every year with or without new companies (htt
| ps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_economy_in_aircraft#/medi...).
|
| If we start in supersonic today, and innovate at the same pace
| for 20 years, you might match the efficiency boom from the "jet
| age" and make supersonic twice as efficient as today.
| KolmogorovComp wrote:
| Any news on the powerplant-side? Which is one if not the most
| critical part of the plane for commercial success. Didn't GE
| dropped the ball a while ago? I still see them mentioned in their
| website https://boomsupersonic.com/symphony
| stavros wrote:
| Can you call it a supersonic aircraft if it hasn't broken the
| sound barrier yet? I assume they mean it's _intended_ to be
| supersonic.
| kylehotchkiss wrote:
| Probably shouldn't put the throttle to 100% on a brand new
| airplane.
| apendleton wrote:
| If you're building a submarine, you don't have to call it a
| "future submarine" until it submerges; people understand that
| if you say "I'm currently building a submarine," it has yet to
| go under water, but the thing you're building is still a
| submarine. I think that's generally true of not-yet-built or
| not-yet-used things: it's understood that if it hasn't done the
| thing yet, you're describing what it's going to be/do.
| stephenitis wrote:
| I couldn't stop thinking that the name of the company is going to
| be unfortunate, brand killing, one day if they have a incident
| bambax wrote:
| Even without incident, it's a poor choice of brand for a
| product most people associate with the deafening sound of the
| sound barrier being broken. It's what killed its predecessor.
| wrsh07 wrote:
| My understanding is the the Concorde wasn't profitable to fly
| (too large!)
|
| You can fly subsonic over land and go supersonic over oceans.
| That would make a trip to Japan much faster! And won't impact
| humans living underneath the flight path (since it won't go
| supersonic until it's over the ocean)
|
| Flights these days often aren't even traveling close to the
| speed of sound, so there's room to design a plane more
| efficient at that speed as well.
| ghaff wrote:
| >That would make a trip to Japan much faster!
|
| Assuming it has the range. Trans-Atlantic is IMO not that
| interesting. You can already get to London from the East
| Coast same day. The continent is mostly a red-eye but
| that's OK in lie-flat business class. Even comfortable
| trans-Pacific is a slog but that takes a lot of range.
| piperswe wrote:
| It seems like the plan is for flights from the East Coast
| to Asia (specifically Tokyo) to refuel at SFO before
| continuing across the Pacific.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _can fly subsonic over land and go supersonic over
| oceans_
|
| A supersonic airframe is typically inefficient at subsonic
| speeds.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| 1. If you're flying supersonically, you probably aren't
| worried about efficiency anyway.
|
| 2. If you're flying NYC-London or LAX-Tokyo, the portion
| you spend over land isn't a big contributor to the
| overall efficiency.
| wrsh07 wrote:
| I think boom is aware of this and is planning to make
| their planes efficient at 90% speed of sound
| Implicated wrote:
| > the deafening sound of the sound barrier being broken
|
| As someone who grew up hearing sonic booms all the time this
| is very puzzling to me. I keep seeing mentions of how the
| sonic boom is such a huge issue... really?
| jollyllama wrote:
| They're setting themselves up to get "Ok Boomer"'d
|
| I can't help but imagine people used to think about these
| things, but they haven't for a while. I remember checking what
| was on the in-flight radio ~8 years ago to hear "Love when you
| hit the ground, girl."
| Ekaros wrote:
| To me this just looks like civilian fighter plane... Quite far
| still to go to any real capacity even as business yet
| competitor...
| rbanffy wrote:
| It's intended to validate their design models. The next one
| will be much bigger.
| FredPret wrote:
| As a consumer, the pain-point of flying isn't that the plane is
| slow (although it'd be nice to go faster) - it's the slap-dash
| construction of the planes. I know it's safe statistically, but I
| just can't stomach entrusting my life to a system that lets
| Boeing's many ridiculous failures through the cracks.
|
| The other major issue is having to be at the airport hours early,
| and the planes can't fix that.
| jmb99 wrote:
| While the planes can't fix needing to show up at the airport
| early, business class fares (usually) help. Priority security
| and priority checkin mean that, while you can't show up 5
| minutes before your flight, you also don't need to show up 3
| hours early. And, if you do, you have a lounge to relax in with
| as much food and drink as you can swallow while you wait.
|
| I would imagine that every seat on these flights would be a
| business or first class fare (as I don't see any other way they
| can make money), and would get you all of those benefits.
| neom wrote:
| The blog post didn't really explain what an XB-1 is or what it's
| for, but the wikipedia page helps:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boom_XB-1
| justinator wrote:
| From the marketing fluff,
|
| "Supersonic intakes: XB-1's engine intakes slow supersonic air to
| subsonic speeds, efficiently converting kinetic energy into
| pressure energy, allowing conventional jet engines to power XB-1
| from takeoff through supersonic flight."
|
| I'm under the impression that's something most jet engines do.
| TylerE wrote:
| Most jets aren't supersonic at all.
| rbanffy wrote:
| I don't think the air intake speed of a subsonic plane is ever
| supersonic.
| justinator wrote:
| Most air intakes of jet engines are designed to slow
| airflow/compress the air (which was my point - my apologies
| for being oblique)
| pictureofabear wrote:
| Yes, this is what every supersonic intake does. The leading
| edge of the intake for supersonic flows is meant to create an
| oblique shockwave that reflects off the other parts of the
| intake to progressively slow the flow to subsonic speeds before
| reaching the front of the engine. Fixed intakes, like the one
| on the XB-1, are optimized for a certain speed.
|
| The gap between the intake and the fuselage diverts the dirty
| boundary layer air so that the intake is more efficient.
| class3shock wrote:
| It sounds like marketing fluff, which I think alot of their
| site is, but this is a real thing. As soon as you start flying
| faster than sound you have to do extra work on the intake for
| your engine you wouldn't otherwise need to do (put simply).
| pie420 wrote:
| This will never make it past prototype stages, unfortunately.
| Realistically, you need federal involvement to make something
| like this happen, a la concorde. I could see the US government
| getting involved for nationalism purposes if China starts
| actually building jets in large numbers to reassert US
| manufacturing supremacy.
|
| It was sexy marketing for the Concorde to travel between NYC and
| Paris/London back in the 70s-90s. Today however, with the
| emergence of the middle east as a major travel hub, would
| supersonic travel be viable there? Dubai-Singapore? Dubai-Doha?
| Dubai-Moscow? Europe to Middle east wouldn't work due to having
| to fly over europe, right?
|
| Also, is there enough luxury/high speed travel demand between
| asia and the north american west coast for something like this?
| It's nice to leave north america in the evening, sleep 8 hours,
| and arrive as the plane is landing in tokyo. Is there any demand
| to be get to Tokyo in 6-7ish hours?
|
| It seems like the people that can afford 20-30k tickets can also
| afford to fly private, and with the internet there's much less
| need to be in person for making deals. Sadly, until fuel costs
| become negligible and they can make supersonic airplanes hold
| 200+ people, i think most people would rather fly private or fly
| first class on an A380 than on a cramped Overture.
| wrsh07 wrote:
| Why assume "cramped overture"? What if overture feels like
| first class but is ~faster?
|
| I suspect fast planes are going to have an enormous amount of
| demand - people value their time. What's the most important
| part of travel? The flight cost? The lodging? The days off of
| work?
| cocostation wrote:
| The Boom website has images of the proposed Overture cabin.
| Looks like international first class.
| kwhitefoot wrote:
| If people value their time how come there was no serious
| appetite for upgrading and eventually replacing Concorde
| decades ago?
|
| After all they could have just built improved versions of
| them and had fleets of them flying across the Atlantic,
| perhaps even a larger extended range version for trans-
| Pacific routes.
|
| And if time is really the driver how come Boom Overture is
| going to be slower than Concorde?
| wrsh07 wrote:
| Because nobody did it! Airlines are absolutely brutal
| businesses. Airplane manufacturing is at least as brutal.
| Trivia question: how long did it take the Boeing _ (pick
| any make) to become profitable?
|
| It's an enormous risk to build a new airplane, to convince
| airlines to take a risk on you and buy it, for them to
| train pilots on it, etc etc etc
|
| It's a small miracle Boom has gotten as far as they have.
|
| Boom is not competing with Concorde!! You can't buy
| Concorde tickets today! Concorde was never profitable!
| wolverine876 wrote:
| > I could see the US government getting involved for
| nationalism purposes if China starts
|
| If only that inspired the US to build high-speed rail.
| Animats wrote:
| They beat Lockheed's X-59 to first flight. That was rolled out on
| January 12th, but it hasn't flown yet.
|
| There are enough billionaires now to support making supersonic
| bizjets. They will mostly be a status cymbal.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| The question always for the user is, do they want a crash or a
| ride? :)
| exogeny wrote:
| This is absolute comedy gold and I wanted you to know that I
| saw it and appreciated it.
| dangoodmanUT wrote:
| Why are the gears still down?
| mnw21cam wrote:
| For the first test flight of an aircraft, it's quite common to
| test a very limited set of parts of the aircraft, and
| retracting the gear might not be on that list. Also, if the
| gear is left down, then that's one less thing that could go
| wrong while the pilot is still getting used to an aircraft with
| a very different feel to anything they have flown before.
| jmb99 wrote:
| On the first test flight you want to minimize risk as much as
| possible - there's many, many things that can go wrong, so
| adding variables is a bad idea. Landing gear can't get stuck up
| if it's never retracted.
| class3shock wrote:
| From wiki:
|
| "On June 3, 2021, United Airlines announced they had signed an
| agreement to purchase 15 Overture aircraft with an additional 35
| options, expecting to start passenger flights by 2029.[14][15] On
| August 16, 2022, American Airlines announced an agreement to
| purchase 20 Overture aircraft with an additional 40 options.[16]"
|
| later on...
|
| "On December 13, 2022, Boom announced that it would develop its
| own turbofan engine after "Big Three" engine manufacturers Rolls-
| Royce, Pratt & Whitney and General Electric, as well as CFM and
| Safran previously declined to develop a new engine due to high
| capital costs.[29][30][31][32] Named Symphony, (see SS Engines
| below) the engine will be developed under partnership with three
| entities: Kratos subsidiary Florida Turbine Technologies for
| engine design; StandardAero for maintenance; and General Electric
| subsidiary GE Additive for consulting on printing
| components.[33]"
|
| So not only do they think they are going to finish designing,
| prototyping, testing, certifying, and moving to production an
| entirely new aircraft, they also think they are going to design a
| brand new engine, that the big three didn't think made sense and
| also get it through all those efforts? All in the next 5 years?
|
| If it doesn't come to anything, which seems likely, atleast it
| sounds like a fun way to spend lots of money.
| OrwellianChild wrote:
| One dynamic that may be at play: Designing a new engine is a
| gamble. For a company who already makes money with existing
| designs, there may be little upside on a small-volume new
| product. This is likely the reason the "Big 3" passed on
| designing an engine they don't have an off-the-shelf option
| for.
|
| Boom would probably be the primary beneficiary of such an
| engine existing, so it isn't all that surprising that they will
| have to fund the development. The second supersonic airframe
| that can use their engine would be the one to turn that R&D
| profitable for Boom (and ease the introduction of more
| supersonic airframe options).
| twobitshifter wrote:
| Also, boom could have asked for exclusive terms that they
| didn't like.
| class3shock wrote:
| I would agree that the big three didn't think they could make
| it work, be that for technical reasons, money reasons,
| limited market reasons, etc. the end result is the same.
|
| Where I would disagree is that Boom can make it work. The
| amount of specialized knowledge you need in design and
| analysis as well as test and manufacturing facilities makes
| it near impossible for an outsider get in the game. Which is
| why there aren't any in the commercial jet engine space. GE,
| PW, RR and I guess Safran is pretty much it. You can't just
| decide you are going to do the R&D yourself and pop out a new
| engine in 5 years.
| ethbr1 wrote:
| Afaik, Kratos is prototyping supersonic-class UAVs (XQ-58C
| and D) for military customers, so I'd expect this isn't
| Boom starting from zero.
| class3shock wrote:
| From Kratos's site:
|
| https://www.kratosdefense.com/products/uav/air/turbines
|
| Kratos has begun the first engine tests at its X-58 test
| facility. The newly commissioned test facility is used to
| carry out demonstrator engine development testing,
| allowing Kratos to grow its offering of low cost and
| high-performance small jet engines. The fully mobile test
| facility can accommodate fully instrumented engines up to
| 3000-lb thrust. Inlet and exhaust noise suppression is
| provided to reduce environmental impacts. All connections
| are designed to reduce test article set-up time thereby
| reducing program costs. The state-of-the-art data
| acquisition system and communications allow for high
| speed remote monitoring and real time data processing.
| Kratos is introducing several engines to support the need
| for low cost and high-performance engines for cruise
| missiles, powered munitions and UAVs.
|
| 3000-lb thrust is about an order of magnitude smaller
| than you need for a single row conventional commercial
| jet with two engines. Yes, they are ostensibly working in
| the same field but I don't think I can stress enough how
| different those two things are.
| imron wrote:
| SpaceX went from nothing to orbital spacecraft in ~6 years.
|
| Plenty of people discounted them at the time too.
|
| I'm not saying Boom will succeed, but it's not outside the
| realm of possibility if they can dedicate themselves to
| task the same way SpaceX did.
| Alupis wrote:
| There's significant differences between SpaceX and Boom
| though.
|
| SpaceX got lots of funding because of military/government
| potential. The US had no domestic capability to place
| people into orbit. SpaceX also promised cheaper satellite
| insertion.
|
| Boom promises... ultra-wealthy people a few hours shorter
| flights?
|
| Concord failed because of cost - few people could afford
| the ticker price, and even fewer actually needed to cross
| the ocean a few hours faster.
|
| There's less than zero percent chance Boom will be able
| to offer cheap "everyday joe" prices on their aircraft.
| It will fail for the same reasons as Concord...
| Dalewyn wrote:
| >Boom promises... ultra-wealthy people a few hours
| shorter flights?
|
| This along with another comment
| (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39794935) begs the
| question: Does everything here have to be a _" We Are The
| 99%"_ meme?
|
| Practically every bleeding edge advancement is only
| available to the "wealthy", it's the "wealthy" who pay
| the First Adopters Tax so eventually the technology might
| trickle down to the commons.
|
| I say "wealthy" in quotes since those concerned aren't
| even _that_ particularly richer than most people. Just
| people with slightly more surplus money in their wallet
| to throw around.
|
| I get the audience here is primarily FOSS and considers
| the very notion of money a fucking heresy, but the real
| world doesn't operate like that.
| arp242 wrote:
| It took them almost 20 years to do a manned flight
| though. And that's with professional astronauts knowingly
| taking the kind of risk you can't do with a passenger
| aircraft, unless you want to do a OceanGate.
|
| That's the tricky bit. I guess they can put something
| together in that amount of time. But making sure it's
| safe? More skeptical on that. Look at the recent woes at
| Boeing for example, and while Boeing's organisational
| issues are at fault for no small part, it does show all
| of this is tricky business. Also many other aircraft have
| had serious design issues, including Concorde.
|
| Also not convinced on the economic potential on all of
| this. There may be also issues with increased noise,
| environmental impact (possibly via regulations), and
| things like that.
| ks1723 wrote:
| I would not disagree that you can do it, but I am skeptical
| that you can do it in 5 years.
|
| Honda did develop their HF118 turbofan engine apparently
| from scratch, but it took about 8 years [1]. And for the
| actual commercialization they teamed up with GE and then it
| took another 10 years until certification of the successor
| HF120 [2].
|
| [1] scroll down on https://global.honda/en/tech/eVTOL_gas_t
| urbine_hybrid_system...
|
| [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/GE_Honda_HF120
| aeyes wrote:
| Wasn't one of the Boom selling points that their aircraft
| would use conventional engines? Now they are developing their
| own...
| hcks wrote:
| << It's never possible to innovate >> This is currently the top
| comment on news.ycombinator.com
| 1024core wrote:
| I was disappointed by the video. I was expecting more.
| timthorn wrote:
| The undercarriage didn't retract in the video. Was that just an
| artefact of the stages of flight the film came from or was the
| undercarriage fixed for the maiden flight?
| OrwellianChild wrote:
| Pure speculation on my part, but on a first flight when you're
| shaking out the fundamentals, it's safer to not retract landing
| gear in case there is a catastrophic failure in, say, your
| hydraulic system.
| pier25 wrote:
| The 0.1% have all the time in the world. Why don't they just
| travel in a super luxurious cruise or something?
| adlpz wrote:
| Supersonic flight isn't necessarily for the 0.1%, just the 1%
| (or whatever other made up number) whose price per hour times
| the travel time reductions is greater than the added cost of
| the fare.
| MostlyStable wrote:
| Time is literally the one thing you can't buy more of, and
| therefore, when you are rich enough, is the only thing that has
| real value.
| pier25 wrote:
| Right which means you can use it to enjoy quality time. Not
| hurry up to do stuff as fast as possible and stressed because
| you're running out of time.
| cbsmith wrote:
| "XB-1 met all of its test objectives, including safely and
| successfully achieving an altitude of 7,120 feet and speeds up to
| 238 knots (273 mph)."
|
| Seems just a bit shy of the speed of sound (760 mph).
| adlpz wrote:
| It's a 1/3 scale prototype so I guess through some creative
| maths the speed of sound may as well be 1/3?
| cebu wrote:
| speed of sound changes with altitude right?
| cbsmith wrote:
| Effectively, yes.
| lutorm wrote:
| First flights are basically never more than a basic
| functionality check of take-off and landing configurations.
| (Note that there were no pictures of it with the gear
| retracted, because that's also typically something you don't
| try on a first flight.)
| cbsmith wrote:
| Yes, I get it. It's just they buried the lede of how far they
| have to go.
| jtriangle wrote:
| I mean, if you trust the math, you can just YOLO it and see
| what happens. The FAA is the major hurdle there though,
| because they don't trust the math, nor do they have the
| ability to really analyze it. So how far they have to go is
| mostly up to what they can get approved for, and how long
| it'll take to provide the data the FAA needs to give them
| the go-ahead.
|
| It's fairly likely they'll find things that need changing
| along the way, which may also result in the need for
| additional regulatory oversight, so, double impossible to
| know if this will be flying at design speeds in a year or
| ten years or ever.
|
| I'm sure we'll get a HN post about it when it does however.
| jmb99 wrote:
| Just the first test flight, not a great idea to run anything at
| top speed before you've validated it won't fall apart.
| geocrasher wrote:
| Ya think? It's a test flight to make sure that the aircraft can
| take off, fly, and land. I doubt they even retracted the
| landing gear.
|
| Flight testing will slowly and very methodically expand the
| flight envelope until it meets or fails its design objectives.
| lxe wrote:
| "We need your consent to load the Youtube service!
|
| This content is not permitted to load due to trackers that are
| not disclosed to the visitor. The website owner needs to setup
| the site with their CMP to add this content to the list of
| technologies used. powered by Usercentrics Consent Management
| Platform"
|
| The internet has become an unusable joke
| zenlikethat wrote:
| The swarm of negative comments here is both disheartening and
| unwarranted. How many of you are building ad networks or chat-
| with-PDF while these folks are working on truly difficult
| problems?
|
| Flying supersonic is awesome, _actually_. Count me in for one at
| the first opportunity (25% of the cost of a Concorde ticket would
| really be something)
|
| Congratulations for a successful launch to Boom!
| Solvency wrote:
| HN lives in a closet world of
| React/Angular/Docker/Kubernetes/etc and is so thoroughly jaded
| and burnt by bland, bloated business technology apps that they
| have zero affinity or understanding of what kind of exciting
| technology is happening in other sectors.
| jerpint wrote:
| I work on chat-with-pdf and still find this awesome!
| justinclift wrote:
| What the heck is chat-with-pdf? :)
| kpennell wrote:
| gpt enabled pdf summarizers
| FrustratedMonky wrote:
| Agree. In years past the negative comments were because it was
| 'vapor', just an empty overhyped startup. But It is not just
| vapor now, they have a flying prototype.
| 7e wrote:
| It is most definitely warranted. This idea is horrific for the
| environment and sonic booms are bad for residents. It solves a
| "problem" nobody but rich elites have. This company is a zero-
| interest rate phenomenon. I wish people would work on impactful
| projects instead.
| cvalka wrote:
| This is as impactful as it gets.
| whyage wrote:
| I totally agree with you, only that Boom's hype-laden
| announcement doesn't help build confidence.
| zenlikethat wrote:
| That's the game though. Unfortunately, there's no room for
| subtlety once you get to a certain audience size, and you
| need to make as much noise and project as much confidence as
| possible to stand out. While us HNers might appreciate
| subtlety and humility, I don't think it translates very well
| to the average person.
| idlewords wrote:
| I don't find giving rich people a way to make loud banging
| noises in the sky more inspiring than building ad networks. Not
| all difficult challenges are worthy.
| et2o wrote:
| Shame on you.
|
| We will not have supersonic transport for average people
| unless outsiders do it first. There are only two meaningfully
| large manufacturers now, Airbus and Boeing.
|
| Boeing and Airbus both cannot financially afford a
| technologically promising but possible failure now. Boeing
| built the 737 MAXX because they couldn't afford a clean sheet
| update of 70-year old technology despite the savings. Airbus
| lost almost as much as the entire company was worth on the
| A380, kept afloat by EU subsidies.
|
| All new technology happens for the wealthy first - we would
| not have smartphones today if Apple was forced to price them
| at the median price of cell phones in 2004.
| tw04 wrote:
| > Boeing built the 737 MAXX because they couldn't afford a
| clean sheet update of 70-year old technology despite the
| savings.
|
| Boeing _ABSOLUTELY_ could afford a clean sheet replacement
| of the 737. They chose not to because it would have opened
| them up to competition and reduced short term profits.
| Anyone claiming otherwise is blowing smoke.
| tmiku wrote:
| I agree with your sentiment, but not the reason - instead
| of concern about competition/short-term profitability,
| Boeing has always thrown huge amounts of money into stock
| buybacks, even while development is running over budget.
| This article is a great window into the institutional rot
| at Boeing, and I think it highlights the problems caused
| by large companies' decisions being dominated by their
| own stock price:
| https://newrepublic.com/article/154944/boeing-737-max-
| invest...
| et2o wrote:
| Just wrong. Read about the 7J7. The 787 cost something
| north of 20 billion to develop. The clean sheet 737 would
| have cost much more in today's dollars. Boeing makes an
| average of less than 5% profit margin from the 1970s to
| now. It was a relatively obvious financial decision from
| Boeing's perspective.
| zarzavat wrote:
| I assume you never lived under the Concorde flight path.
|
| There will never be supersonic transport for normal people
| simply because the technology is unsuitable for use near
| people. Most people want to fly between cities and cities
| tend to be inhabited by people, hence the essential
| tension.
|
| Supersonic flight only works for a few specific flight
| paths where you are flying entirely over the ocean between
| two coastal airports. The moment you have to fly over
| people those people are going to get very angry and ban you
| from their airspace.
| zild3d wrote:
| first airplanes were also only for rich people, fortunately
| it has continued to progress and gotten more economical
| GiorgioG wrote:
| Yes - now cattle can afford to fly. Soon we'll have
| standing room "seats" and we will truly be like cattle.
| mardifoufs wrote:
| I cant imagine where we would be if people were having this
| mentality back in the early 1900s when rich people were
| trying to fly using loud, terrible airplanes. Fwiw I don't
| think super sonic travel is going to succeed any time soon,
| but it's crazy how prevalent this type of NIMBY mentality has
| become.
| gedy wrote:
| I'm sure they had mumbling nobodies back then too which the
| world passed by.
|
| Their grumbling was just more limited compared to internet
| noise.
| idlewords wrote:
| There's nothing wrong with people finding sonic booms
| annoying. Even Boom conceded this by naming itself after
| its worst externality, and pretending (in its early startup
| phase) that it was pursuing technology to make supersonic
| flight less loud.
| mulmen wrote:
| Supersonic flight over land has been banned in the US since
| the 1970s. Boom isn't going to be making "banging noises in
| the sky" anywhere you're going to hear them.
|
| This airliner will draw the kind of people who fly business
| and first class today, which will reduce demand for those
| tickets and depress prices for everyone.
| idlewords wrote:
| Boom is actively lobbying to relax those restrictions. It's
| not clear supersonic commercial flight is viable otherwise.
| zarzavat wrote:
| _Flying_ supersonic is awesome. _Living near_ people who fly
| supersonic is awful. Since there are far more people in group B
| than group A, a ban is warranted.
|
| Also, now we have the climate crisis to deal with, commercial
| supersonic flight should be consigned to the history books
| where it belongs.
| oulipo wrote:
| We need LESS planes and LESS speed to combat climate change
| Extropy_ wrote:
| This technology, like all technology, increases humanity's
| collective capacity to create solutions to problems and
| implement them. Faster travel means more time to solve
| problems. LESS planes and LESS speed make the world a worse
| place.
| oulipo wrote:
| Absolutely not, it means more URGENCY to solve problems
| because all these behaviors INCREASE the issues
| blastbking wrote:
| awesome!!!! love it
| amai wrote:
| Concorde 2.0. What could go wrong?
| photonbeam wrote:
| " XB-1 met all of its test objectives, including safely and
| successfully achieving an altitude of 7,120 feet and speeds up to
| 238 knots (273 mph)."
|
| So really a shakedown, didnt try for supersonic
| cm2187 wrote:
| I love the idea of supersonic travel, but I can't help thinking
| that when you see how many things can go wrong in an airliner,
| how much safety was the result of trial and error, and how
| Boeing's woes shows how fragile safe manufacturing can get, how
| safe will an airliner built by a startup be?
| acyou wrote:
| Not sure if there is basic/core technology development being done
| or valuable technology being generated. Is supersonic flight
| essentially just throwing a lot of jet fuel at the problem of
| wanting to get someplace fast? Are we expecting to see novel
| insights and spinoff technologies from the development of this
| plane and industry?
|
| I think there's a key, core military angle to this company, where
| their best and most stable and lucrative customers are sure to be
| nation-states. I think there is some real value to be generated
| around super-sonic technology development for missile
| applications, drone applications, fighter jet applications.
|
| I think that this company gets a lot of peoples' backs up,
| because they don't appear to have any unique insight besides
| "Rich people and nation states will pay through the nose for
| wasteful and extremely obnoxious technologies that degrade
| humanity as a whole." It's a great business, might be nice and
| profitable, great for rich people and the most developed nation
| states, might not be so great for the humanity as a whole.
| benced wrote:
| Pretty disappointing this is the top (edit: 2nd) comment. It
| asks and asserts several things that are easy to look up. I'd
| recommend reading their FAQ page:
| https://boomsupersonic.com/faq
|
| It's certainly not a guarantee that this works out but that's
| true of any speculative enterprise. Personally, I think a
| speculative world where Asia <> West Coast US is as fast as
| West Coast US <> East Coast US is pretty exciting.
| deely3 wrote:
| FAQ is mostly marketing with answers to obvious question.
| Sorry, I have a feeling that you did not read comment to
| which you replied.
| benced wrote:
| The FAQ page addresses several - not all, that's why I said
| "look up" - of the OP's objections. OP/you might disagree
| (it is marketing, like you said) but they should state and
| explain those disagreements instead of acting like Boom
| hasn't thought of them.
|
| > Not sure if there is basic/core technology development
| being done or valuable technology being generated. Is
| supersonic flight essentially just throwing a lot of jet
| fuel at the problem of wanting to get someplace fast? Are
| we expecting to see novel insights and spinoff technologies
| from the development of this plane and industry?
|
| See FAQ page entries: "Will Overture use afterburners like
| Concorde?" and "Why did it take so long to bring supersonic
| flight back after the Concorde?"
|
| > I think there's a key, core military angle to this
| company, where their best and most stable and lucrative
| customers are sure to be nation-states. I think there is
| some real value to be generated around super-sonic
| technology development for missile applications, drone
| applications, fighter jet applications.
|
| Scholl indicated Boom Supersonic had no interest in a Boom
| product becoming a weapons platform at this time. From:
| https://simpleflying.com/xb-1-first-flight/
|
| More broadly, supersonic missiles and fighter jets already
| exist.
|
| > Rich people and nation states will pay through the nose
|
| See "How much will tickets cost?" from the FAQ. Business
| class pricing seems eminently reasonable for this service.
|
| > [W]asteful and extremely obnoxious technologies that
| degrade humanity as a whole
|
| See "How is Boom dealing with the sonic boom?" and "What
| steps is Boom taking to make supersonic travel
| environmentally sustainable?"
| ethbr1 wrote:
| > _I think there 's a key, core military angle to this company,
| where their best and most stable and lucrative customers are
| sure to be nation-states._
|
| Yes, but not in the way you think.
|
| No nation-state with an aerospace engine industry has
| difficulty making military aircraft go supersonic. Or just
| buying the same thing off the shelf.
|
| However, a lot of nation states have nationalized flag carrier
| airlines, that they heavily subsidize for prestige reasons.
|
| These are the same carriers who were able to afford Concorde,
| and they're exactly who Boom will be initially selling to.
| largbae wrote:
| I know the Boeing safety reputation is a bit tarnished of late,
| but how many people are stepping on an aircraft called "Boom"?
| PBnFlash wrote:
| What is with the sudden surge of hypersonics? Surely this is
| military funding on some level?
| vpribish wrote:
| it's just supersonic, hypersonics is not involved
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