[HN Gopher] Boom Supersonic's XB-1 prototype aces 2nd test flight
___________________________________________________________________
Boom Supersonic's XB-1 prototype aces 2nd test flight
Author : belter
Score : 105 points
Date : 2024-09-04 14:38 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.space.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.space.com)
| melling wrote:
| Maybe we'll have commercial supersonic flight in our lifetimes.
| jonwachob91 wrote:
| We've already had commercial supersonic flight in our
| lifetimes...
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concorde
| blackeyeblitzar wrote:
| Yes but there are now adults who were born after the last
| flight...
| fragmede wrote:
| They can legally drink (in the US) but I don't know that we
| would all agree that they can be called adults quite yet.
| frankfrank13 wrote:
| Retired in '03, seems likely that at least some HN readers
| could say "not in my lifetime"
| RedShift1 wrote:
| Why is the future in the past? :-(
| Ekaros wrote:
| Efficiency... Supersonic is even less green than air travel
| in general. Efficiency is quite a big issue always when
| flying is involved. Not that you can't use gliders, but
| those are not practical for general transport.
| jandrese wrote:
| It's not even the environment, just the cost of fuel made
| supersonic travel uneconomical. Saving 3 hours off of a
| flight isn't worth thousands of dollars to enough people.
| Boom's innovation is to target billionaires with
| supersonic bizjets. Personally I think their business
| model is risky, but not necessarily impossible.
| fortran77 wrote:
| I've already had them in my lifetime!
| fpoling wrote:
| Space tourism is commercial and very supersonic.
| melling wrote:
| What routes do they fly? Cost?
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Congrats to the Boom team!
| ctippett wrote:
| I'm enthusiastic about what Boom are setting out to achieve, but
| it's my understanding that the technological/engineering
| challenges to supersonic flight is just one hurdle - the other
| being the geopolitical issues that arise from negotiating flight
| paths over various country's air space.
|
| The economics of the Concorde were significantly impacted when
| India prohibited Singapore Airlines / British Airways from flying
| over Indian airspace[1].
|
| [1] https://www.heritageconcorde.com/singapore-airlines-
| concorde...
| kylehotchkiss wrote:
| Good thing the oceans don't care. The most viable routes are
| mostly oceanic. LA-Singapore could be done mostly supersonic
| and then slowed down once closer.
| ctippett wrote:
| Not that I disagree with you, but I'd argue the _most_ viable
| route would be one the Concorde already served: New York to
| London over the North Atlantic.
| dmix wrote:
| Market enviornments change though. There's probably a lot
| more people with disposable income in the higher end and
| plane travel has exploded since then. But gov controls and
| red tape on this sort of thing probably tripled, especially
| around environment/airport development+nimby
| politics/aircraft regulations, so it's probably 50/50 vs
| the 1970s-80s.
| kylehotchkiss wrote:
| I eagerly awaiting saving 500,000 Amex points and having
| a chance to fly supersonic.
| onion2k wrote:
| That's less true now than it was in the 1980s.
| zarzavat wrote:
| Concorde got a pass because it was British and even then it
| was controversial.
|
| Boom will still have to meet all noise pollution rules now
| and _in the future_. Noise rules are designed for normal
| passenger aircraft, they will not get any exceptions.
|
| I don't doubt that they can make something much quieter
| than Concorde but can they make it as quiet as subsonic
| aircraft?
| Gare wrote:
| Sure, but Concorde was hella loud even in subsonic regime.
| fortran77 wrote:
| I grew up in Cedarhurst, NY, 3 miles from Kennedy Airport.
| The Concorde at subsonic speeds was very loud. It was a
| loud, window-rattling rumble. But the worst of all were the
| 707s. They _screamed_. If I was outside when one went over
| Runway 31R/13L, I'd have to cover my ears.
| KolmogorovComp wrote:
| In the meantime we got 9/11, and all the security procedures
| that goes with it. It is nowadays much slower to fly than
| before, and that time is mostly incompressible, making the
| benefits of supersonic flight less incentive.
| happyopossum wrote:
| I fly a fair amount, and I haven't been in a situation
| where I _had_ to arrive at the airport 90 minutes before a
| flight in years - typically 1 hour is plenty of time, and
| if I weren 't optimizing for low-stress, could get away
| with 45 minutes most days for domestic flights.
|
| 90 minutes out of 17.5 hours of travel ( 16 hour flight
| from SFO to Singapore) represents a small amount of
| 'incompressible' time - cutting that 16 hour flight down to
| 8 or 10 would make a HUGE difference, especially given
| timezone/IDL issues.
| rkagerer wrote:
| Air Canada just announced today it's inreasing check-in
| cutoff time to 1hr - roughly meaning if you don't get to
| the counter at least 1hr early you're out of luck.
|
| Not sure if it impacts those who travel without luggage
| and check-in online.
|
| I contrast this to when I used to be able to (long ago)
| roll up to the airport a mere 20mins before takeoff time.
| ghaff wrote:
| >I used to be able to (long ago) roll up to the airport a
| mere 20mins before takeoff time.
|
| I worked for a guy once when I was working in downtown
| Boston for a bit and the times I traveled with him he
| would absolutely drive me crazy by not wanting to grab a
| cab to the airport until well under an hour before flight
| time.
|
| Today, I usually breeze through security in a few minutes
| with TSA Pre for early morning flights. I still arrive
| about 2 hours in advance because I find it more relaxing
| and my limo company pretty much wants that much slack
| anyway. (I rarely check luggage.)
| 0x457 wrote:
| > Not sure if it impacts those who travel without luggage
| and check-in online.
|
| If you checked in online and have no luggage, you just
| need to make in time before your boarding gate closes.
| mandevil wrote:
| Boom Overture, which does not yet exist, is supposed to
| have a range of 4,250 nm (presuming they can get their
| engines to actually exist, which is a giant question-
| mark). That means they can bring JFK-FRA into service,
| but SFO-SIN is going to be tight even on just one
| refueling stop (7340 nm but the jet stream is working
| against you the entire way- sometimes it will require a
| second refueling stop!).
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| Supersonic uses a lot more fuel. It's highly unlikely LA -
| Singapore can be done on a single tank. Adding a stop for
| refueling negates much of the time benefit.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _other being the geopolitical issues that arise from
| negotiating flight paths over various country 's air space_
|
| Overture targets ICAO Stage 5 noise levels, the most stringent
| international noise standard [1].
|
| [1] https://hmmh.com/resources/news-
| insights/blog/stage-5-aircra...
| foobarqux wrote:
| This is a lie. They write "Overture's takeoffs will blend in
| with existing long-haul fleets, resulting in a quieter
| experience for both passengers and airport communities,
| meeting or exceeding ICAO (International Civil Aviation
| Organization) requirements for all subsonic aircraft
| operating over land and at or near airports."
|
| Note that they are talking about _takeoffs_ (and presumably
| landings) only where there isn 't any sonic boom anyway, not
| cruising.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _This is a lie_
|
| Hell of a claim with zero evidence. By your logic, I could
| disprove the Sun by not observing it at night.
|
| Yes, the ICAO rules are for takeoff and landing. When
| subsonic planes are the loudest. Concorde, for example,
| couldn't have met these requirements.
|
| We don't know what Boom are targeting for in-flight noise.
| But we can guess, based on its parity with ICAO take-off
| and landing requirements, that it aims to match subsonic
| noise levels on the ground. There is strong evidence we can
| soften and disperse a high-altitude boom [1]. Whether it's
| doable by Boom is an open question.
|
| So no, it's not a lie.
|
| [1] https://www.nasa.gov/centers-and-
| facilities/langley/nasas-su...
| foobarqux wrote:
| What? I cited their own document to show that your claim
| was not about the sonic-boom noise (which is what people
| are worried about). You say yourself "we don't know what
| Boom are targeting for in-flight noise".
|
| What do you mean about "its parity with ICAO take-off and
| landing requirements"?
| ctippett wrote:
| Appreciate the reference, I wasn't familiar with the ICAO
| noise standards.
|
| If I'm reading things correctly it looks like Stage 5 caps
| out at 50dB, whereas a cursory search on the decibel levels
| for a supersonic boom comes up with 110dB.
|
| That seems like a pretty large divide! Am I missing
| something?
|
| Edit: A sibling comment appears to have addressed my
| confusion.
| foota wrote:
| My understanding is that Boom is planning to implement
| technology that prevents sonic booms as we think of them.
| 0x457 wrote:
| IIRC their goal is to deflect it upwards with their wing
| and fuselage design.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _cursory search on the decibel levels for a supersonic
| boom comes up with 110dB_
|
| Short answer is we aren't able to predict how loud a sonic
| boom will be [1]. Raw decibels produced at source is one
| thing. But you also have components like direction,
| dispersion (spatially as well as temporally) and frequency
| and how altitude and even moisture effect all that.
|
| We're making progress [2]. But the conventional wisdom is
| you need a perceived loudness on the ground that matches
| subsonic airliners to have a hope in hell of FAA approval.
| (Would note that a sonic boom in this context is not a
| physical phenomenon but summary of perceptions. There will
| always be an acoustic reaction to supersonic flight. But
| the far field effects that characterise a "boom" aren't
| inherent to supersonic flight.)
|
| [1] https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?arti
| cle=1...
|
| [2] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0376
| 04212...
| Animats wrote:
| Boom is trying to build their own engine for the full size
| aircraft. That's tough. The number of groups that have built
| a reliable high-performance jet engine is very small. China
| still has trouble doing it.
|
| The XB-1, the 1/3 scale model, uses standard General Electric
| J85 engines.[1] Old, reliable, not too expensive, and used by
| many prototypes over many decades.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Electric_J85
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Boom is trying to build their own engine for the full
| size aircraft. That 's tough_
|
| It echoes my criticism of Virgin Galactic _checks notes_
| ten years ago.
|
| That said, Boom started dancing with the DoD in '22. That's
| a deep pot of cash, and could help make up for
| inexperience.
| avn2109 wrote:
| Surely there is somebody with enough brains in the
| Pentagon to diversify their supplier base away from the
| moribund Boeing-esque incumbents, right? If they haven't
| learnt this lesson post-SpaceX, when are they going to
| figure it out?
|
| A couple billion bucks is pocket change to the DoD, they
| literally "lose" it in their couch cushions, and it could
| eventually be the difference between "viable domestic
| defense aerospace industry" and "buy threaded steel nuts
| for $9000 each, with an 18 month lead time and 5000 pages
| of paperwork."
| paxys wrote:
| Well the second one isn't really their hurdle. Its up to the
| airlines and governments to squabble with each other on flight
| routing.
| benced wrote:
| A lot of these regulations are regulation on speed not noise. I
| expect some governments will be amenable to changing their
| speed restrictions to decibel restrictions (which Boom claims
| they can comply with).
|
| If not, there's always trans-oceanic flights.
| crowcroft wrote:
| I imagine the odds are that Boom will most likely fail, but if
| wealthy investors want to pump money into supersonic flight R&D
| knowing that the risk is high, then I'm all for it. If nothing
| else it's very cool.
| HPsquared wrote:
| "Because it's cool" is an underappreciated basis for
| investment.
| lispisok wrote:
| Better than investing in blockchain or another openai wrapper
| company
| lenerdenator wrote:
| If they spin a defense product at some point they could make a
| very good case that they're a necessary company given Boeing's
| utter incompetence here of late.
| newsclues wrote:
| The technology is dual use. There is value in war,
| unfortunately.
| lenerdenator wrote:
| Ferengi Rule of Acquisition 34: War is good for business.
|
| Ferengi Rule of Acquisition 35: Peace is good for business.
| crowcroft wrote:
| If they can succeed in making anything that is good enough to
| be approved by the FAA or to be used in _anything_ then
| honestly I would say that as a massive win for them.
| gangstead wrote:
| I get a lot more enjoyment out of billionaires spending their
| money on rockets and super sonic planes than buying land in
| Hawaii and kicking native people off of it.
| m4rtink wrote:
| Silent supersonic cruise missiles!
| modeless wrote:
| Doesn't seem like it would be important for a supersonic
| missile to be silent since you wouldn't hear it before it hits
| you regardless.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| When attacking things the size of country, sensors near the
| borders can detect the sound of supersonic aircraft and
| transmit that information at the speed of _light_ to waiting
| air defense systems. Silence still has some value.
| lupusreal wrote:
| Doesn't really make sense to me. For one, it's not silent,
| just quieter than you'd normally expect from a supersonic
| aircraft. It's not stealthy; radar will see it. It can't
| fly low and still be fast, so it can't hide from radar
| behind terrain. It's much slower than ballistic missiles,
| hypersonic glide vehicles, etc.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Quiet is good. The B-2 is engineered to be low
| observability not just in radar cross section, but in
| infrared, visual, and auditory. https://www.popularmechan
| ics.com/military/aviation/a24484/b-...
|
| A high-flying stealth subsonic cruise missile can be as
| silent as the airliners you see everyday flying silently
| overhead at 30k feet. Sonic booms are dramatically less
| stealthy.
| jandrese wrote:
| What advantage does this have over ICBMs?
| office_drone wrote:
| Ballistic missiles, being ballistic, have limited accuracy.
| It's also easier to detect them (flying higher and with
| larger radar signature) and tell where they're heading.
| dingaling wrote:
| Nothing about the XB-1 design is optimised for boom reduction.
|
| The Overture airliner, with an entirely different
| configuration, will also only operate supersonically over
| oceans.
| frankfrank13 wrote:
| I still can't really wrap my head around this company:
|
| 1. How did a SWE start and raise funds for this company
|
| 2. How did he/they recruit the kind of talent you'd need to
| actually build a test plane
|
| 3. How much is left to do before a real commercial flight, and
| can they really do it?
|
| A few months ago the conversation was "if they depend on next-gen
| engines and next-gen fuel this entire company is hindering on
| tech that isn't even available yet" so as a very non-aviation
| person, what does this test flight prove? It's not the air frame,
| its not the engines, its not even the full control suite.
| Neywiny wrote:
| Unsure on funding, but this is a proof of concept. It'll show
| that the modeling, design practices, manufacturing, etc are
| working. The "meta" of the plane. For example, while as you
| point out the air frame of the final production model isn't
| being tested, they are testing the ability to model the
| stresses and strains an airframe would undergo throughout the
| speed envelope. And that's huge
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| Supersonics are limited by regulation so it's also an attempt
| to overturn the ban.
| bpodgursky wrote:
| The US is not the only country in the world, you can always
| sell internationally in countries with more flexibility.
| thefounder wrote:
| I think this is really tough especially since the US is a
| big market and usually airlines don't like to buy planes
| that only fly in specific countries.
| mandevil wrote:
| It seems unlikely that airlines are going to lead the way
| here, just due to economics I think it's going to be the
| bizjet market leading the way(1).
|
| So the obvious choice for domestic flights would be
| Russia: rich oligarchs, huge country, loose enforcement
| of laws. Unfortunately for the world that is impossible
| for the foreseeable future.
|
| The next best target is going to be transpac- IFF they
| can get sufficient range. So wealthy businessmen who have
| to do a lot of travel between Asia and North America is a
| reasonable market, so long as they can do supersonic the
| entire way. If you have to stop and refuel I suspect that
| the numbers don't work so well. If they can only do a
| translant without refueling the market is going to be
| people who want the prestige of having the coolest toys,
| and Boom is stuck trying to compete with Gulfstream G650
| on prestige.
|
| 1: R.E.G. Davies explained it best, the problem with
| commercial supersonic is that the earth is rotating. For
| commercial airlines, the killer app for selling
| "expensive but gets you there faster" flights is the
| ability to get someone to a meeting the same day versus
| having to travel the day before. If you can save an
| executive a day that is hugely valuable and worth the
| company paying a premium for. If you can't, paying extra
| for a faster flight just isn't worth that much.
|
| As a thought experiment, let's say that everything else
| is exactly the same, but at the end of the runway a Star
| Trek transporter beams the plane directly to the runway
| at the destination. So the executive wakes up in NYC at
| 5:30AM, is out of the house by 6AM, takes an hour to get
| to the airport, that's 7AM. It's an international flight
| so they need to go through extra checks, it's 8AM when
| their flight leaves for Paris. It is beamed directly to
| CDG, thanks to time zones it's now 2PM. Then it takes
| another hour to get through passport control etc. and
| it's 3PM, and another hour for ground travel in Paris and
| even without the flight taking any time at all it's
| already 4PM after waking up at 5:30AM. That's tough to
| make meetings work. (Obviously the return trip can
| achieve this meeting on day 1 effect, but a commercial
| airline you can only charge good prices for on half of
| its legs is going to be tricky to earn its money back.)
| laidoffamazon wrote:
| What about the Gulf States? Also lots of money, lots of
| ocean if they're traveling to South Asia/South East Asia,
| opportunity for subsonic to Europe, etc
| mandevil wrote:
| For bizjets, that's another good use case, thanks.
|
| I don't know how much travel there is along these routes,
| but you could probably shrink Dubai-Mumbai, say, from 3
| hours to 1 hour, and that would be handy for meetings-
| only a 1.5 hour time difference with IST. But regular
| subsonic flights can also give you meetings in a day over
| that, so I'm not sure how much extra companies would be
| willing to pay for a commercial flight along those
| routes.
| projectazorian wrote:
| Concorde was very popular with business travelers,
| though. 3-4 hours in the air is a lot easier to deal with
| than 7-8. Maybe you don't get to a formal meeting on the
| same day but it still frees up time in the evening to
| meet with local colleagues, and leaves you much more
| fresh for that meeting the day after.
| mandevil wrote:
| According to stories I heard, BA was able to turn a small
| profit on Concorde, but Air France never did(1). That was
| with each plane being given away for free (excuse me, 1
| pound/franc each) subsidized by their governments. So
| with the prices that they charged (2) and free planes
| both airlines were close to break-even in operating
| costs. Presumably Boom is planning on charging more than
| 1 dollar for these planes, which means that the prices
| are going to have to be even higher than Concorde's were
| decades ago. And that means that people are going to have
| to justify it to their company even harder.
|
| Believe me, I would love to have flown on one. I know a
| couple of guys who did, and it sounded really cool. But
| if the economic case doesn't close, then the only way
| they get sold is as toys for rich people, hoping to
| eventually trickle down to us mere mortals. Eventually.
| Maybe.
|
| 1: This is why after the crash AF decided to retire the
| Concorde, and going from having to pay half of the
| maintenance facility upkeep to paying all of it pushed BA
| from small profit into the red, hence BA following AF
| into retirement.
|
| 2: Which were high! Back as a teen in the 1990's I looked
| into it, hoping to talk my parents into flying one for a
| translant we were doing, and the cheapest ticket on a
| Concorde was like 3x more expensive than even 1st class
| on a 747. We flew steerage on a 747 instead.
| projectazorian wrote:
| Makes sense that NYC/London would be more lucrative than
| NYC/Paris, given all the finance industry travel.
|
| I think US West Coast/East Asia city pairs would be the
| real killer app for passenger supersonic, if aircraft
| range permits.
| Earw0rm wrote:
| 3-4 hours in the air is a lot easier to deal with than
| 7-8 hours on a 1960s B-707.
|
| On a Dreamliner with modern entertainment, higher cabin
| pressure, satellite internet, big windows, far better
| seats and much, much quieter engines? Meh, NBD.
| onion2k wrote:
| They don't need to do that on their own though. They just
| need customers who want a supersonic plane who are willing
| to put their backing to overturning the ban. If a few dozen
| super rich people say they'd be able to create a million
| jobs by shaving 20 minutes off a trip 'the people' will
| often listen.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _a few dozen super rich people_
|
| Overture is an airliner [1]. With a $5k price target (I'd
| guess $10k), their market is habitual business-class
| travellers. Not even the low-end private jet crowd.
|
| [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boom_Overture
| vkou wrote:
| Going after business class travelers in a world with Zoom
| and 'doing more with less' being the zeitgeist of
| corporate spending is starting to sound like doubling
| down on making gold-plated horse buggies five years after
| the first Model T rolled off the assembly line.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _business class travelers in a world with Zoom and
| 'doing more with less' being the zeitgeist of corporate
| spending_
|
| Not sure if you've flown recently, but the front cabin is
| full, increasingly of leisure travellers who can work
| remotely. (Not upgrades, either. RASM is up and growing.)
|
| Also, Zoom meetings are great for middle management and
| start-ups. But middle management wasn't being flown
| around in business anyway. If you're pitching a billion-
| dollar LP, you're flying to meet them.
| projectazorian wrote:
| > Not sure if you've flown recently, but the front cabin
| is full, increasingly of leisure travellers who can work
| remotely. (Not upgrades, either. RASM is up and growing.)
|
| It seems like US legacy carriers have gotten a lot better
| at offering discounted business class fares vs. simply
| throwing it open to upgrades and standbys when they can't
| fill the cabin with full fare pax.
|
| I suppose maintaining exclusivity is less of a concern
| these days; they've probably figured out that competing
| with Middle Eastern and Asian carriers on luxury is a
| losing battle.
|
| > Also, Zoom meetings are great for middle management and
| start-ups. But middle management wasn't being flown
| around in business anyway.
|
| Many companies still allow business class for
| transcontinental flights, for all employees. Big Tech is
| kind of an exception here from what I've heard.
|
| IMO for domestic US travel business is rarely worth the
| premium anyway vs. premium economy; I'd rather grab a
| window seat with added legroom and work (or game on my
| Steam Deck) through the flight. Business class service is
| often a distraction, and in return you get food that's
| frequently worse than what you can find in the airport.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _for domestic US travel business is rarely worth the
| premium anyway vs. premium economy_
|
| Lay flat was a game changer, for me, for transcontinental
| travel. It's easily worth the premium (or an inconvenient
| flight time.)
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _what does this test flight prove?_
|
| This? Nothing of general consequence. Once XB-1 goes
| supersonic, which Boom says it'll do later this year, we'll get
| real-world sonic-boom reduction data that could influence the
| FAA. It will also demonstrate the drag of their nose design,
| which should inform fuel-burn estimates for their airliner.
|
| Following that, the hurdle is the supercruising engine. The
| XB-1 uses afterburning J85s to go supersonic. Presumably,
| getting the FAA to flip on overland bans would unlock the
| capital needed to finish Symphony [1].
|
| [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boom_Symphony
| jauntywundrkind wrote:
| > _Development of the engine will be by Kratos subsidiary
| Florida Turbine Technologies for engine design, General
| Electric subsidiary GE Additive for additive manufacturing
| consulting, and StandardAero for maintenance._
|
| Impressively experienced folks behind the Symphony engine.
| hindsightbias wrote:
| Never heard of Kratos or FTT, they just bought a small
| turbine maker. GE Additive doesn't sound like they're doing
| any design work, just manufacturing.
|
| None of the majors were interested in making a 35K engine
| (or apparently modifying their cores with the previous 4
| engine design), it would be in a zone between large biz
| jets and commercial single-isle. The former are hundred
| million dollar iterations of existing designs, the latter
| are billion dollar developments now. As this is not a
| conventional engine, it will cost $1B to certification if
| they're lucky.
|
| I guess it's theoretically possible if KSA is funding it
| like Lucid and your expectations are way lower than Lucid.
| meepmorp wrote:
| > GE Additive doesn't sound like they're doing any design
| work, just manufacturing.
|
| Not even that; per the article it's "manufacturing
| consulting." Presumably someone else is doing the actual
| work - I'd guess FTT.
| meepmorp wrote:
| FTT definitely knows how to design and build jet engines,
| but iirc all their designs so far are small subsonic
| engines for drones and cruise missiles. I'd love to see it
| happen, but his is brand new territory for them in both
| size and performance.
|
| edit: not a Fourier transform
| dingaling wrote:
| For context, the prototype of the T-38 chase-plane that Boom
| employed went supersonic on its first flight in 1959. And
| that was a Northrop private-venture, not a government
| contract.
| Eridrus wrote:
| 1. Smart people can learn new things. Musk was also a SWE
| before starting his companies. I don't know what he
| demonstrated to convince investors, but if nobody else is
| pitching you a supersonic jet company and you think a
| supersonic jet company is a good idea, you don't have the
| option of a different founder, you have the option of the deal
| in front of you.
|
| 2. People want to work on cool stuff, if you have the cash for
| it, it's not actually that hard to find talent, particularly if
| you are working on something without a competitive hiring
| market (ie jets, not AI atm).
|
| 3. I feel pretty confident they can build a plane, there are
| many people who have worked on planes, many components are off
| the shelf, etc. The question in my mind is if they can meet
| somewhere in the middle on sonic boom reduction with regulators
| in a reasonable amount of time.
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| Well, he was an employee at Amazon in 2001, and started a
| company that was acquired by Groupon in 2012 when they had
| reams of money to throw around (hope he wasn't paid in stock!).
|
| He was a SWE at one point but it seems like his career was more
| in the executive/leadership space before starting Boom.
| josh2600 wrote:
| Lots of great founders and engineers have even less pedigree.
|
| Ultimately being a great founder requires humility to hire
| people smarter than yourself, drive to face adversity, and
| storytelling to build allies + capital.
|
| Doesn't matter if you're a high school dropout or a PhD if you
| can't rally a team to believe in a mission.
| pedalpete wrote:
| Peter Beck of Rocket Lab comes to mind (recommended read -
| Ashley Vance's When the Heaven's Went on Sale).
|
| Beck didn't attend Uni, was a tool and die maker at Fisher &
| Paykel (they make fridges and respirators).
|
| He then went on and took on the world who said "you can't
| build a rocket company in New Zealand".
| skadamat wrote:
| Even crazier is that Blake is a high school dropout who then
| went on to work closely with Bezos at Amazon as an SWE:
| https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/aug/27/boom-founde...
|
| Pretty interesting story overall
| blamazon wrote:
| 2 is pretty easy to explain in my opinion. It's not hard to
| find people who are passionate about aeronautics who want to
| build a radical new product, rather than be cog number 13482 in
| the machine of Airbus making fixtures for testing wing spars or
| whatever, but there aren't many opportunities to actually do
| that because the cost barrier is so high. But that rolls around
| to how is 1 possible, so I see your point there.
| Tade0 wrote:
| > 1. How did a SWE start and raise funds for this company
|
| Back when I was a CompSci student two of my friends did their
| dormmate's fluid dynamics project overnight in exchange for
| half a liter of _fluid dynamics_. Personally I was more into
| helping my other friend with his analog circuit assignments.
|
| What I'm getting at is that Software engineering is not
| completely removed from the rest of STEM fields.
| jimnotgym wrote:
| I get the feeling that companies like this are trying to get a
| bunch of IP together, and then get acquired by a major player
| that wants to get ahead.
| pajeets wrote:
| This seems like the ultimate strategy, not actually ever
| planning on releasing a well tested supersonic plane and
| airline but rather selling the dreams for somebody else to
| take on a highly risky and niche space.
|
| If nobody else is doing it already that just means very smart
| people have crunched numbers at those giant corporations and
| decided against it.
|
| 10 years ago I would've been excited but when I see
| outlandish valuations and startups without relevant
| experience in the very field they are going after, I assume
| bad faith
| ein0p wrote:
| Funding: money used to cost next to nothing just a few years
| ago. Recruiting: where would you rather work, at bureaucratic
| AF bean counter run Boeing with zero potential upside, or at a
| startup which even pays more? Can they do it: I think not. Not
| for any particular technical reason, but due to the higher cost
| of money, of which they still need a metric ton, and due to how
| long it all takes. Eventually they'll pivot into something they
| can actually do. Probably military.
| ARandomerDude wrote:
| Many have questioned the sanity of those investing in Boom, and
| from a commercial standpoint I agree. Every time I see the XB-1 I
| think the real hope is a military purchase, given the XB-1's
| design choices.
|
| Thus far it looks similar to an upgraded T-38 to me. The XB-1 and
| T-38 are similar (ish) sizes, have roughly the same takeoff
| weight, both use the very old/proven J85 engines, etc.
|
| If Boom can pull off the Mach 2+ supercruise concept for this
| demonstrator, they might well secure a spot as a low cost 5th gen
| fighter trainer with good export potential as a cheap
| fighter/recon platform.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _the real hope is a military purchase_
|
| This has been explicit for at least 2 years [1]. It's why I
| think their idea of an airliner (and in-house dry super-cruise
| engine) isn't just vapourware.
|
| [1] https://aviationweek.com/shownews/farnborough-
| airshow/boom-u...
| foobarqux wrote:
| It isn't just vapor-ware because the company is going to get
| acquired by the military? Or the military is going to place
| an order for jets? Why does that help make it not vapor-ware?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _company is going to get acquired by the military?_
|
| When has the U.S. military ever acquired a contractor?
|
| > _Why does that help make it not vapor-ware?_
|
| The military has money. There is obvious strategic value in
| a second supercruise turbofan, particularly one optimised
| for high thrust and efficiency.
| ianburrell wrote:
| Fighter trainer and supersonic passenger jet are very different
| niches. Fighter trainers have to be maneuverable and going
| supersonic is small part of their job. There are subsonic jet
| trainers, and most don't go that fast. Supersonic passenger jet
| needs to go faster for a long time in a straight line.
| pajeets wrote:
| Not sure if a fighter jet is easy to make, even countries like
| South Korea have taken two decades to produce the 4.5
| generation fighter jet and they still can't build their own jet
| engines, and the KF-21 is still on block 1.
|
| Avionics and radar seems to be very expensive and where fighter
| jet manufacturers can make their own to capture the margins but
| I'm questioning whether a founder with no aerospace experience
| is able to produce military jets with even more stringent
| regulation than supersonic flights
| pogopop77 wrote:
| I hope Boom can make supersonic travel commercially viable. Would
| be nice to have a faster option for long-distance travel, even
| though the cost will probably be too high for most. I'd sooner
| spend money on that vs. edge-of-space tourism (a la Virgin
| Galactic/SpaceX).
| snozolli wrote:
| Does anyone have any insight as to how much modern simulation
| software helps the process?
|
| From what little I remember of reading about the first attempts
| at supersonic flight, there were a lot of unknowns and somewhat
| counter-intuitive factors, and it was being calculated on slide
| rules. Can modern engineering and simulation software reasonably
| predict the effects of supersonic flight on a model?
| andrewla wrote:
| Blogspam for https://boomsupersonic.com/flyby/xb-1-completes-
| second-fligh..., with more details and pictures (including a
| credit for the test pilot)
| akamaka wrote:
| I counted 63 display ads on this site, whereas the article
| contains 9 sentences. That's 7 ads per sentence of content.
| bookofjoe wrote:
| I just checked and got 8 sentences. But I read fast...
| ge96 wrote:
| ubo: what ads
| pajeets wrote:
| My question is, why aren't existing airplane manufacturers and
| airlines doing supersonic?
|
| Why is it a startup without the same engineerforce or airline
| experience?
|
| Is the goal to sell another dream after dream to enough whales to
| be able to cash out on secondary like Uber and WeWorks?
|
| Seems like the most successful startups isn't actually finishing
| a product or providing forever jobs but sell enough of the half
| baked dream to enough investors to discover liquidity.
|
| That doesn't seem like a very good thing for the economy in the
| long run. Money and resources are spent with the sole purpose of
| producing a few billionaires who will park their money outside
| the economy and pay little to no taxes and have it insured by
| bailouts by the people who made it happen.
| kwhitefoot wrote:
| > why aren't existing airplane manufacturers and airlines doing
| supersonic?
|
| In my opinion it's because it's been tried already and no one,
| including Boom, has managed to figure out how to make it part
| of mass market air travel.
|
| Boom Overture will be slower than Concorde, carry only 80
| passengers, and will only be allowed to be supersonic away from
| land. The range is 4 250 nautical mile which is a little
| further than Concorde's 3 900. Perhaps that might be enough to
| tip the balance and make it profitable but it seems unlikely to
| me. Concorde carried between 90 and 120 passengers.
|
| An Airbus A340-500 has a range of 9 000 nautical miles and
| carries at least 270 passengers so it carries three times as
| many passengers the same distance in only twice the time. Which
| surely makes it more economical. But in can also carry them
| twice as far before refuelling.
|
| So it looks like Boom is only competing directly with Concorde
| and it's only selling points will be reduced fuel consumption
| and more comfort.
|
| I dare say I've missed something because a lot of smart people
| seem to think it will work.
| Animats wrote:
| Another impressive aircraft by Scaled Composites. Nice. Being
| acquired by Northrop Grumman after Rutan retired hasn't stopped
| them.
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