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Boom (YC W16) – Supersonic Passenger Airplanes
- lcfcjs 11y agoVery cool! Need this from other locations in the US :)
- themgt 11y agoSorry but is "Boom" really a good name for an aircraft company? I get it's supersonic, but my first association was an exploding airplane.
- Raphmedia 11y agoI also get that it's the sounds of the plane... but really, boom ?
- doctorcroc 11y agoI agree with you - why not choose a more "boring" name that would make passengers feel more safe?
- JorgeGT 11y agoLike air coach or air bus or something?
- AdamFernandez 11y agoI agree. Of all the options, quite possibly one of the worst names you could have picked. I'm surprised the negative associations weren't obvious to them.
- hackettma 11y agoAgreed, terrible name. Can you imagine getting on an airplane with Boom painted on the side or waiting in the Boom terminal? I like fast airplanes, but I think they need to come up with a better name.
- api 11y agoIt could work until they have an accident, at which point the double meaning will kick in hard-core... especially since the traditional airline industry will PR flak them. (Flak pun intended.)
- 13of40 11y agoYep, that headline is pretty much going to write itself.
- czinck 11y agoAnd I'm sure the TSA agents will love a bunch of people saying "boom" at the airport, although maybe if it desensitizes them to it it's a good thing.
- jonknee 11y agoYou don't say "Boeing" when you go through TSA as it is. That said, this thing will never fly.
- mikeryan 11y agoFunny I had assumed that Boom was the name of the "airline" but on second look the name seems to be both an airline and the name of the plane? Or is the 5k just a price point for selling the plane? Now I'm confused what these guys do...
- tempestn 11y agoBoom is the company making the plane. The $5000 is an estimated ticket price based on the plane's relative cost of operation compared to modern jetliners.
- NickM 11y ago"Bad" names can attract lots of attention. Perhaps they're more interested in turning heads than setting up the best possible brand connotations.
- AdamFernandez 11y agoThe best possible brand connotations are an interesting way of putting it. When you are trying to get a company off the ground (figuratively) that is experimental in nature and will require a lot of capital investment, why hinder yourself with this 'bad' name right out of the gate? There are any number of edgy names they could have picked that people didn't associate with the last thing you want to have happen on an airplane. It is just unnecessary, and not well thought out. Even if the intent was to get attention, I wonder how many people at Boom talked to the founders and said: "Are we sure about 'Boom'?"
- ElijahLynn 11y agoI didn't associate it with anything negative the first time when I saw the headline. Didn't even think about it being a bad name till I read the comment. Not sure as many people will think it is negative as you think.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- mmcclure 11y agoCase in point: Soylent
- 3327 11y agoSupersonic jet goes "Boom" on first flight. Rescue personal are looking for the test pilots.
- saganus 11y agoIf they wanted to associate with a sonic boom.. Maybe.. SonicBee or something cuter? Agreed that Boom is not a name I would immediately associate with sonic boom instead of ka-boom.
- monk_e_boy 11y agoWe used to have concord fly over our house at supersonic speeds and the BOOM BOOM was fucking annoying day in day out.
- bewo001 11y agoPlaney McPlaneface?
- mapleoin 11y agoIt gets scarier, they compare it to the Concorde based on price: Unlike Concorde, flying Boom is affordable—the same price as business class. Ok, so the Concorde had some critical engineering faults, making it cheaper definitely sounds more secure.
- robotresearcher 11y agoThe early promises for Concorde said it would be cost effective too.
- petercooper 11y agoPrior to the (2000) accident, Concorde had been arguably the safest operational passenger airliner in the world in passenger deaths-per-kilometres travelled with zero
- zokier 11y agoIsn't the deaths-per-km generally zero prior to the first accident of any airliner?
- petercooper 11y agoHow may airliners are in service for 24 years before their first fatal accident? (The 717 is up to 17 years. The A340 is almost at 24.)
- robotresearcher 11y agoThere were 14 in-service Concordes. There are hundreds of most airliners. After the single accident, the Concorde's death per passenger km record doesn't look so hot.
- kbutler 11y agoipad got a lot of bad association initially because of the feminine hygiene product. NYT, CNN, WSJ, and many tech press criticized it soundly. Nobody cares anymore.
- ghaff 11y agoI have been involved with product naming over the years and have seen firsthand the incredible effort that goes into and angst generated by the process. EVERYONE has an opinion about names! It's also my considered opinion that most of the time it doesn't really matter at the end of the day, barring something really dumb or a trademark infringement.
- jdc 11y agoMan, HN's standards for a top story and a top comment are really different, are they?
- zerr 11y agoThe comment is actually more than relevant... A lot of people have fear of flights and the name which brings negative emotions is an issue.
- jdc 11y agoWhat I find is that arguments in the comments are held to a lower standard. There's no way an original article can get away with the kind of hand-waviness we in the peanut gallery can. If someone writes an article whose primary assertion was unsupported by evidence or credible source, it's probably going to get flagged. Do it in the comments, and the hive-mind takes over. Which, now that I think about it, could be a good thing in a sense. As article authors, we write to a larger audience, indicating what they're probably going read is researched and edited. As comment readers and writers, we put down the quill-and-ink and offer insights and opinions more directly from our own experience and intuition. Quick, unadulterated thinking yields different results than the more grueling, task-oriented process of essay writing. And there's little reason to believe that these styles should be appraised one-dimensionally. Are some techniques not better suited to different circumstances? Gladwell comes to mind, as well as Kahneman in support of less calculated approaches, however I am unfamiliar with the literature (beyond the layman-acclaimed NYT bestsellers). Is there a way to test the success of on-the-fly human heuristics against their slower and more deliberate procedures? Maybe one-size-does not fit all, but surely a skilled problem-solver would choose the right instrument for the gig.
- alextgordon 11y agoPeople are only trying to help. Better now than when the press hears about it and starts taking the piss out of them.
- themgt 11y agoI upvoted your comment for the meta-irony
- ChuckMcM 11y agoWell it hasn't hurt "Bomb ba dear" :-) (that is the pronunciation I've heard for Bombardier) So no, name is probably not an issue. Getting a passenger plane to market without any other supporting business, that is much much harder than explaining the name. Not a lot of people can raise funds for 10 years of expensive runway (no pun intended).
- elchief 11y agoBomb bar dee eh
- ChuckMcM 11y agoYes. I actually also speak French (after a fashion) and recognize its actual pronunciation. But for folks who don't, their phonetics lead them astray. I've flown on a number of flights where the incorrect pronunciation was used by the flight crew in describing the safety features of the plane.
- WiseWeasel 11y ago"Bombardier" is French for 'bomber', an aircraft built to drop bombs; certainly a curious choice for a commercial aircraft supplier.
- DanBC 11y agoThe company is named after Joseph-Armand Bombardier, who built his first snow vehicle at 15. http://www.bombardier.com/en/about-us/history.html http://www.bombardier.com/en/about-us/history.html > Today’s Bombardier grew out of a young mechanic’s inventive genius and entrepreneurial spirit. Born in 1907, Joseph-Armand Bombardier builds his first “snow vehicle” at the ripe age of 15. His motivation? To help people travel across the snow-covered roads of rural Québec in Canada. > In 1937, J.-Armand achieves his first major commercial success with the launch of the seven-passenger B7 snowmobile.
- WiseWeasel 11y ago
- lordnacho 11y agoNo worse than ups being a delivery company.
- WiseWeasel 11y agoUPS's clients are the senders, so as long as it makes sense to them... Up your Packages with UPS!
- tizzdogg 11y agoEven if it's named after the sonic boom the plane makes, you would think they would be trying to minimize that association as much as possible. People dont like sonic booms. Seems like an awfully tone-deaf choice.
- jakozaur 11y agoGreat idea, but even with optimistic assumptions it will require a lot of capital. Something in order of SpaceX $100 mln to get first commercial plane.
- rdl 11y agoWe live in a world right now where interest rates are bouncing off zero and sometimes going negative. Capital is probably the least limiting factor here, assuming there's a viable plan and clear market.
- yxhuvud 11y agoThe world is only awash in capital if you can convince people you can repay them.
- Dwolb 11y ago$100M would be a steal! FYI the Dreamliner was estimated to cost more than $12B to develop.
- spaceflunky 11y ago> We're building our prototype now—and will fly late next year. Will fly late next year? Where have I heard that one before...
- jandrese 11y agoA brand new advanced composite supersonic jet flying in a year's time? Color me skeptical. There are literally millions of things that need to be designed for this, and many of them will be bleeding edge. And this is from some tiny startup? A line like that sets off some big flashing red lights for me. Either they're incompetent and have grossly underestimated the amount of work needed to complete this, or it's a scam.
- azernik 11y agoNot quite. According to [1], what they'll be flying is actually a one-third-scale prototype, which I'd imagine is a lot easier to build. And they've already been going for two years. The real issue that I'm not seeing addressed is capital. No investors listed anywhere. [1] http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-03-21/this-aerospace-company-wants-to-bring-supersonic-civilian-travel-back http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-03-21/this-aeros... EDIT: Forgot to actually include the link.
- virtuexru 11y agoI hope they have billions of dollars in the bank. Concorde production was stopped for a reason.
- api 11y agoGiven SpaceX's well documented experience, I would not trust any cost estimates from the legacy aerospace industry. It's a deeply moribund field as a result of decades of stagnation and dependence on government/military funding. Still I would be absolutely floored if they could do it for under $500mil, so what you say still applies-- maybe just not quite to the point of billionS with an S.
- acveilleux 11y agoThere's a steep difference in the acceptable safety of a space vehicle and of a commercial airliner.
- api 11y agoThere's also a steep difference in the tolerances you can permit. A rocket -- especially one with any hope of reusability -- is something that can't be built without getting very very close to the maximum tolerances possible within the bounds of physics. Look at the temperature differentials in a rocket engine for example... it involves nearly instantaneous transitions from deep cryptogenic temperatures to ones far beyond the melting point of any known material that can only be sustained with constant active cooling. The fact that we can achieve any level of reliability with a device this insane is really a testament to human ingenuity, but it doesn't give you much margin for error. Screw up just a tiny bit and the rocket is going to do what the laws of thermodynamics really want it to do: explode in every direction instead of just downward. An airliner, even a supersonic one, is more forgiving. Over-engineering goes a long way toward adding nines to your reliability. We've been doing supersonic flight with reusable craft since the 1950s, and there aren't a whole lot of unknowns remaining. That means it's mostly a manufacturing and operations optimization problem.
- 11y ago
- MattBearman 11y agoFeel like their tagline should be "We're making supersonic flight a reality. Again" :P Looks interesting though
- bscholl 11y agoGood point. It's so sad that Concorde came and went without a replacement in place. (FYI, I'm a founder at Boom).
- rdl 11y agoPretty amazing that materials science (lighter, carbon-fiber aircraft; hotter, more efficient/powerful turbines) has made this economic. Concorde never was. NYC-LON seems like the one market where this enables something fundamentally new (well, Concorde did); single-day business trips between two major business centers which were otherwise a full day apart. Transpacific flights would be nice, too, but cutting an already absurdly long flight in half doesn't make as big a difference. I personally would generally prefer an F cabin + great Ka-band Internet for 14h, vs. a coach/Concorde sized seat for 7h. I wonder how long until there's a Business Jet variant of this, or a Government/Military/Scientific version -- the operating costs of commercial aircraft tend to be much less than purpose-built government aircraft, so there's probably a mission/role for it.
- ropiku 11y agoThe issue with it is that supersonic flight (due to noise) is only allowed over non-populated areas so a business jet variant is less useful unless you spend most of your time flying over the ocean (and not coast-to-coast for instance).
- rdl 11y agoYeah, it's also super inefficient/cramped/etc. compared to a G650/BBJ/etc, so it would only really make sense as a "second" business jet in a corp/personal/royal fleet, or, more likely, part of a fleet somewhere like NetJets. It's the "entire aircraft, on demand" part on a mostly finite set of routes, not the "fly anywhere you want", with this.
- BinaryIdiot 11y ago> The issue with it is that supersonic flight (due to noise) Actually it's with the technology currently in use with supersonic flight that there is this large amount of noise. It's technically possible to reach supersonic without the boom and NASA is currently working on it with some contractors. I hope it pans out well; I would love to be able to fly between BWI and SFO in 2 hours. http://www.sciencealert.com/nasa-is-building-a-jet-that-breaks-the-speed-of-sound-without-the-supersonic-boom http://www.sciencealert.com/nasa-is-building-a-jet-that-brea...
- sremani 11y agoAs tangent, instead of focusing on NYC to London, a Mach 2.2 travel actually will make travel from Americas to Asia more comfortable. US to India and US to China routes benefit the most, and perhaps where people will be interested in paying top-dollar vs. Europe.
- danielschonfeld 11y agoI believe the problem with those was always the sonic boom created by flying at > 1 Mach. It shattered windows on the ground. Could be wrong tho
- rdl 11y agoMost of that route would be over the Pacific, so it would be fine, too (although ex-West Coast US). It might be a fuel issue on distance, but probably not. Also potentially an ETOPS range issue. However, there are three big issues with transpac: (not impossible issues, but strong reasons why NYC-LON is ideal as MVP) 1) Greater number of destination cities on each side; for transatlantic, NYC-LON really is the main market. LAX-NRT is probably the best first pass. but LAX/SFO/SEA/LAS/Texas/NY/DC could all make solid claims on being sources of traffic, and there are >10 cities in Asia which would be destinations and fairly far apart? I'd almost certainly prefer a nonstop NYC-PEK to a domestic NYC-LAX, switch to LAX-NRT supersonic, then another subsonic NRT-PEK. 2) A lot of the good cities are inland, so no supersonic for those parts of the flights. NYC-PEK or NYC-PVG (corrected) would be awesome, but there's a lot of inland there. So you're also stuck doing something suboptimal, either connecting flights or operating outside supersonic regime. 3) After a certain point, comfort is a priority over absolute speed. If it lets you accomplish a mission (meeting, etc.) in a single day, that's a new capability. if it means you get 5h of cramped sleep and then another 7h of cramped sleep on the way back, that's not really better for most missions than 8-10h of comfortable sleep in a full-sized suite for the same price. There clearly is a value in 1-4h flights from USA to China/India, but that requires more than Mach 2.2 -- maybe exoatmospheric. Another option is probably "events"; special flights to follow F1 and stuff like that. Concorde did a lot of that toward the end.
- 11y ago
- ropiku 11y agoOne issue with this is the "boom" (from their name). It only works across non-populated areas due to the noise as their sample routes show. It's going to severely limit the opportunity.
- beeboop 11y agoI would guess this mostly designed for ocean crossing flights. Their example is NYC to London, as soon as you take off from NYC you're over the ocean. By the time you accelerate to mach 1.12 and are at the appropriate altitude, you'd be far enough away from the city for the boom to not matter.
- ropiku 11y agoExactly, that's what I said. There are may across ocean routes but this means it limits its market and the routes it can run. It also makes less sense to have it as a single private jet.
- bscholl 11y agoThat's correct. We're starting with overwater supersonic because there's no regulatory barrier to launching service. You can make a much quieter sonic boom than Concorde, and eventually supersonic overland will be allowed.
- staceymakano 11y agoAnd the environmental impact is... what? Amazing that this is not a consideration, especially since we are now in emergency territory: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/mar/21/global-warming-taking-place-at-an-alarming-rate-un-climate-body-warns http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/mar/21/global-wa... It's great for you to leave SF in the morning, go to Sydney to watch the opera and be back in SF by midnight. But is the environmental impact of you doing that worth it for everyone else?
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- oddeyed 11y agoMy first thought as well. The drop in the price of oil has discouraged airlines from investing in more efficient engines for their fleet, I assume there are similar economics at play here.
- justsid 11y agoThat’s simply not true! Airplanes are developed over decades and then stays in service over decades, current low fuel prices won’t change decisions that are being made years into the future. All current in development airplanes (and I’m talking non-GA non military here), focus on increased efficiency and fuel consumption.
- jondiggsit 11y agoAbsolutely worth it. We live in the future. If you can fly half way around the world to watch an opera and be home by midnight, do it. Riding your bicycle to work isn't going to save the planet, neither is reconsidering a flight. Environmental concerns should be that of multi-national corporations and governments. The 1% flying around the world isn't killing the planet. It's industrial output from cattle and energy production for electricity (coal, nat gas, oil) and fossil fuels burned for industrial use. I'm tired of the misplaced moral imperatives. Change needs to happen on a global, industrial scale, not in your decision to eat a locally-grown kale salad. Wake up people.
- seibelj 11y agoSo are they building their own plane, and launching a new airline? Will they also sell the plane to other airlines? Or is this trying to be vertically integrated, like Apple / Tesla? Also, I echo the other sentiments here about the name, really don't want to fly on an airline named "Boom". Nor "Explode", "Kapow", or "Blast". And god forbid if one of their planes crashes during test flights, the PR nightmare that would result.
- wehadfun 11y agoBoeing tried that and it was banned.
- meritt 11y agoFastest jet in the world still doesn't solve tarmac delays at JFK.
- rdl 11y agoTEB + JATO + Boom = Profit? (TEB-LCY would actually be an interesting market for all-business-class STOL transatlantic)
- GavinMcG 11y agoThat's Teterboro Airport + Jet Assisted Takeoff, and (Teterboro-London City Airport) for those like me who aren't in the know.
- ckinnan 11y agoCorrect-- the real problem with air travel isn't the flight time but the terrible and inefficient process on the ground with security, customs, baggage claim. I'd much prefer a longer flight in a slower, less aerodynamic plane that was safer and roomier.
- rdl 11y agoI wonder if there's a market for premium private air terminals, or even entire airports.
- ghaff 11y agoRoomier classes in planes (as well as private air terminals for private planes) are all things that pretty much exist today; you just need to be willing and able to pay a huge premium for them. (Both because the costs are higher and they're priced for a less-sensitive clientele.)
- danielschonfeld 11y agoBe interesting to see how they manage to increase range and payload substantially where Concorde wasn't able to. Interesting from a tech point if they manage to build and certify a brand new supersonic airplane based on new materials. From a customer's stand point though, hardly anything new.
- jessaustin 11y agoOne advantage they might have over Concorde is that design began in the 2010s rather than the 1950s...
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- caractacus 11y agoThe photo of the engineer in what is clearly a cardboard mock-up: http://boom.aero/assets/boom-3-cd0822d52cb5c9ecaac404d5cfd0982c.jpg http://boom.aero/assets/boom-3-cd0822d52cb5c9ecaac404d5cfd09... .... does not inspire confidence.
- teraflop 11y agoPresumably they're just testing the ergonomics of their seat/cockpit layout, or something along those lines. Unless you're worried that they're actually going to try to build an airplane out of cardboard, I don't see what the problem is.
- bscholl 11y agoThis is what a scrappy airplane startup looks like in the early days. The wooden mockups validate sizing and ergonomics before you lay down expensive carbon fiber.
- jerf 11y ago"Unless you're worried that they're actually going to try to build an airplane out of cardboard" I dunno. They do say "carbon fiber" a lot... and that is a description of cardboard....
- toomuchtodo 11y agoCarbon fiber is incredibly strong when engineered properly: "During the test, the wings on the 787 were flexed upward “approximately 25 feet” which equates to 150 percent of the most extreme forces the airplane is ever expected to encounter during normal operation. The test is used to demonstrate a safety margin for the design and is part of the certification process to show the airplane can withstand extreme forces."
- david-given 11y agoI don't know what a foot is any more, but here's a video of the A380 doing its wing flex test: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B74_w3Ar9nI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B74_w3Ar9nI
- hathym 11y agolooks like an investors-bait.
- Keyframe 11y agoThat's good news for ozone layer. Luckily this seems to be only a few guys, a wish, and a rendering.
- KMag 11y ago> That's good news for ozone layer. Luckily this seems to be only a few guys, a wish, and a rendering. Sorry, what connection does this have with the ozone layer? The most sense I can make of your comment is that you're concerned about CO2 emissions from supersonic flight and don't understand the difference between global warming and ozone depletion.
- mrob 11y agoThe problem is not CO2, but reactive chemicals such as nitrogen oxides released near the ozone layer, which is a particular concern with supersonic transport because of the high cruise altitude. See: http://science.sciencemag.org/content/270/5233/70 http://science.sciencemag.org/content/270/5233/70
- Keyframe 11y agomrob already provided you with an answer. There's some more info here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supersonic_transport#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supersonic_transport#History I thought it was common knowledge. We learned about ozone layer hazards (and SST was among the most destructive ones) in elementary school (7th or 8th grade, Europe) when we learned about ozone layer.
- tommynicholas 11y agoSuper smart - make good margins on a use case for the wealthy to subsidize R&D and development of scale economics, hopefully eventually get that price down so we can all use it. Hope it works! (Writing this just to pre-empt the inevitable $5,000 THIS IS ONLY RICH PEOPLE comments :) )
- bscholl 11y agoExactly. Already, this is way more affordable than private jets or Concorde. We'll keep innovating on fuel efficiency, so prices can keep coming down.
- jonknee 11y agoThe major difference here is the Concorde was real and actually flew. A few guys with a cardboard mockup of a cockpit can toss out any number for what it will cost for a ticket.
- ejcx 11y agoI'm reminded of the first half of "Web Design: The First Hundred Years"[0]. Commercial planes have not gotten faster and have in fact gotten slower. I personally agree with the sentiment of the blog post, that a 5 hour flight across the atlantic is fast enough but it's still neat to see startups getting in to this space. 0 - http://idlewords.com/talks/web_design_first_100_years.htm http://idlewords.com/talks/web_design_first_100_years.htm
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- rohit89 11y agoI don't agree. Faster travel is always better - whatever the mode of transportation. Once you hit a certain speed and price point, it will radically change the lifestyle of people. For example, the hyperloop with 30 min travel time between SF and LA would mean that people could literally live in one city and work in another city.
- robjan 11y agoThere are many reasons why Boeing and Airbus have not entered the supersonic market, the most important being that there is simply very limited appetite for supersonic travel other than for novelty purposes. It's much more economical to build big, subsonic airliners but increase the comfort and level of service.
- busterarm 11y agoThe Concorde is the most uncomfortably small aircraft that I've ever been aboard. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone over 5'9"/180lbs...though I guess that's a non-issue now (except for as a museum attraction).
- ghaff 11y agoMy dad flew it once because he got "bumped up" from First class on the flight he normally took. His reaction was more or less "meh." First on the 747 was more comfortable and arriving a few hours earlier meant he had to grab dinner in London when he arrived rather than having a nice meal in First on the plane.
- imglorp 11y agoIt seems to be a race to the bottom if anything. People like to complain but really they want cheap. The market has spoken. http://www.economist.com/blogs/gulliver/2016/02/bottom-class?fsrc=scn/fb/te/bl/ed/bottomoftheclassamericasairlinesareintroducingaclassbeloweconomy http://www.economist.com/blogs/gulliver/2016/02/bottom-class...
- nailer 11y agoShort version: NYC-LON in 3.4 hours.
- ianstormtaylor 11y agoAfter a certain point, airplane technology is no longer going to be the limiting factor, and we'll have to finally eliminate the TSA to get under 5 hours of total travel time.
- flashman 11y ago'eliminate the TSA' is a kill list phrase, I'm so sorry
- throwaway21816 11y agoI dont have a good reason to go to london but you bet your ass im going to fly on this
- ant6n 11y agoIt describes their values as something like 'fly long distance in the morning, do a bunch of meetings there, and be back before the end of the day'. Does it make sense to travel 20,000km on one day to make a bunch of meetings, spending 15,000$? I feel that better tele-presence just makes more sense.
- lnanek2 11y agoIf being there in person gives you a 2% better chance to close a million dollar deal, then it already makes sense to blow $20k on the ticket.
- ant6n 11y agoYou mean a million dollar profit deal
- ElijahLynn 11y agoThe telepresence rooms we have at our corp. are 100's of thousands for a room. And you have to have another room on the other end. If it will be a consistent meeting then it makes sense to set them up but for one off meetings at different locations then the cost is not justified. I do see a stereoscopic (3D) 360 VR future someday but we have a ways to go to get the 'presence' of that down to realism still.
- ohitsdom 11y agoHow can they discuss cost and dates when it sounds like they don't even have firm plans on the engine? The promise of Boom is very compelling and good luck to them, but it's just a dream right now. If it was as easy as the founder makes it sound, Boeing would already be doing it.
- nharada 11y agoI agree, this is an insanely hard problem to solve. There are dozens of companies with tons of capital and massive R&D budgets that haven't already done this, presumably because they either think it's too hard, the regulatory hurdles are too high, or the market is not ready. Why can this startup do what they can't?
- rohit89 11y ago...because they really want to do it? If there's one thing I've learnt, looking at what the big companies are doing/didn't do is a really bad metric for things like this. If this was a company started by Elon, perception of this company would have been totally different.
- learc83 11y agoThat's partially because Elon was already massively rich and was able to attract even more money because he was investing so much of his own.
- rurban 11y agoPeople do pay 5K for just a meeting?
- dfrey 11y agoNo, the company does.
- run4yourlives2 11y agoThis seems nice, but there's no way 6 guys in a hanger in Denver are going to build a viable supersonic passenger aircraft that meets FAA standards for mass passenger travel, is fuel efficient enough that tickets aren't $20K and somehow also turns a profit. I know "never say never", but this is about as confident a statement I or anyone with 3 minutes of reading on the airline industry can make. Margins are razor thin as it is. A much better option (IMO) would be to research a Citation/Learjet sized supersonic aircraft. If you think of the market, the rich would be much more comfortable leaving from a smaller/private terminal in their private jet, zipping to London in 4 hours, and then zipping back on their own time, than they would going through the main terminal and all that nonsense just to save 3 hours in the air. Hell, being in the air in first class is the best part of the entire trip! These guys (No connection whatsoever) http://www.aerionsupersonic.com/ http://www.aerionsupersonic.com/ have been trying to do the latter for 13 years. Thirteen. They just got their first order.
- vonklaus 11y agoI wonder if petrr theil is an investor. He uses the deprecation of the concord as an example our socoety is slowing down technologically (literally & figuratively). I have to imagine demand for international biz class flights have gone up since the concord retired given that global is a given for almost all industries. If you are an executive (even a well paid employee) it could be worth your time to do this. It is ~1200 usd for a roundtrip flight from NYC to LON. By the time these guys launch, it will likely be much more. The opportunity cost/math will be simple. I think that there is a high correlation of people who value their time > $200 that need international flights. Depending how prices shake out I could see this working. Obviously, super hard to do an airline company. sentiment: cautiously opyimistic
- artursapek 11y agoI really like how this talk summarizes the reason supersonic air travel never took off: http://idlewords.com/talks/web_design_first_100_years.htm http://idlewords.com/talks/web_design_first_100_years.htm.
- yeukhon 11y agoI have a feeling they will eventually acquired by SpaceX.
- ihunter 11y agoThere is negative chance this project gets off the ground. If the Boeing 2707, which even with heavy government funds, still failed to make it out the door I don't think these guys have a chance in hell.
- electic 11y agoBeyond the name, seeing the parts of the plane, with green garage sale price tags, sitting on a table doesn't instill confidence.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- flavio87 11y agoThis sounds awesome. However I'm a bit saddened that there is no mention of CO2 or climate change in this discussion. What about building solar planes vs just faster planes will do even more harm to the environment if people start flying more because time is now shorter?
- esaym 11y agoJust think how much C02 you'd produce if you took a ship across the ocean for days on end....
- jessaustin 11y agoLike, a sailing ship?
- diskcat 11y agoWill it use up 25% of its fuel taxiing to the runway like the concorde? Cause fuel aint cheap like it used to be.
- dalacv 11y agoHalf the comments on here are like: The plane is made of cardboard and that just doesn't make me confortable....
- kriro 11y agoNaming aside this seems to be positioned really well. 5k NYC/London in that time is quite the game changer. I like how they position it to cater to the busy executive who'd love to spend more time with their family. How can you position it so well and chose such a bad name :D Either way really excited for this even though I'm likely to fly on it 0 times.
- api_or_ipa 11y agoNo where does it mention proposed range. This is a big deal: with thirsty supersonic cruise, your fuel mass fraction will exponentially grow according to the Rocket Equation. Simply put, the more fuel you carry, the more fuel you must carry to bring that fuel along. Flying twice the distance will mean >>2x the fuel. LON-NYC might be attainable, but tran-pacific will certainly be difficult.
- snaily 11y agoThe rocket equation applies when you're continuously accelerating your fuel to ever higher speeds. The work in supersonic flight is fighting drag, which while many times larger that for subsonic does not have an appreciable weight dependency. Why would flying longer require more than proportionally additional fuel?
- api_or_ipa 11y agoMy assumption is that drag (esp lift induced) is a function of weight. The more fuel you must carry, the more drag you incur. The more drag you incur, the more fuel you must carry to over-come it. I know this is certainly true of subsonic flight. How much it affects supersonic flight it unknown to me.
- billions 11y agoThe airline industry, stagnant since the 1960's is ripe for disruption.
- hackaflocka 11y agoExcellent job of trolling us.
- akhatri_aus 11y agoIt doesn't talk about the sonic booms, which was the main problem with Concorde (and the fees resulting from it)
- bedhead 11y agoLook no farther than Bombardier, a relatively small but nonetheless very experienced company that's sadly nearly bankrupted themselves by simply trying to develop 787-like version of a regional jet. It doesn't appear like this kind of commercial aircraft development is suitable for anyone other than Boeing and Airbus.
- dankohn1 11y agoI was lucky enough to fly on Concorde in 2002, when they were offering steep discounts to get passengers back after the crash in 2000. It was clear at the time that the service was totally uneconomic. The seats were comparable to economy (although service was champagne and caviar). I'll always cherish my memories of seeing the curvature of the Earth and the windows feeling hot to the touch (as well as my Concorde cufflinks).
- esaym 11y agoLooks interesting. Anyone know what kind of tech the IT systems are built on? I'd be interested in sending a resume. I actually used to have a valid A&P mechanic's license. Always wanted to do software development for airlines but the large enterprise style environment has always turned me off.
- CiPHPerCoder 11y agoI'm not sure "Boom" is the word I want to mentally associate with aircraft.
- bscholl 11y agoHi - I'm Blake, Founder/CEO at Boom. After watching no tangible progress in supersonics since Concorde was shut down, I started Boom because I want supersonic flight in our lifetime. Not just as a private jet, but something most anyone can afford to fly. Will try to answer as many questions here as I can.
- designtofly 11y agoFrom the Bloomberg article: "Boom’s software can also run millions of computer simulations a day on its designs, so the startup doesn’t have to spend months tweaking things in wind tunnels." Can you elaborate what computer simulations this is referring to?
- bscholl 11y agoThere's computational fluid dynamics—which are very good today especially at supersonic conditions. Also, we have some design optimization tools we've built in-house which let us quickly explore many alternatives and zero-in on the best design.
- elinchrome 11y agoHow does the environmental impact per passenger compare to a modern passenger jet? Do you actually think most anyone can afford $5000 round trip to London?
- bscholl 11y agoWe have the same gas mileage (fuel per seat mile) as a lay-flat bed in business class. Since the aircraft can do nearly 3X as many trips in the same time, on net it's better. That's just the start of course—with more innovation on fuel efficiency the price and emissions both come down. $5,000 is what a business class ticket NY/London costs today, and many business travelers are able to do that routinely. This compares to up to $20k on Concorde. We will get the $5,000 way down over time—this is just the start.
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- JustSomeNobody 11y ago$5000.00 and I can be there in 3.4 hours. $900 if I decide to go slow. Hmmm... I'm not that impatient. But then, I'm not that rich either, so maybe that's my problem.
- skywhopper 11y agoThis is cool but I would love to see research and investment going into making planes big enough and (more importantly) efficient enough just to comfortably sit in.
- titusnicolae 11y ago"""While carrying a full load, Concorde achieved 15.8 passenger miles per gallon of fuel, while the Boeing 707 reached 33.3 pm/g, the Boeing 747 46.4 pm/g""" It's like an SUV for the sky. We have to get antropogenic carbon dioxide to 0 until 2050 if we want our species to survive and people come up with less energy efficient transportation?
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- jacobush 11y agoDo you foresee any special challenges in keeping nitrous oxides emissions down?
- Animats 11y agoThere's Aerion.[1] They were going to build an 8-passenger supersonic bizjet. Top speed Mach 1.5, cruise Mach 1.4, price $120 million, first flight planned for 2021. They're still talking about where to build the factory, but they're already taking pre-orders. [1] http://www.aerionsupersonic.com/ http://www.aerionsupersonic.com/
- zevets 11y agoSince the founder is in the thread, why did they target cruise > Mach 2 and a 40 passenger size? The business jet segment makes a lot of sense for high speed flight, but this seems like more of a stretch.
- salbri 11y agoHey Blake, I'm Salim. I like what you guys are doing :) Interested in understanding more about how you plan to tackle cooling and heating when gaining altitude and hitting supersonic speeds respectively through materials different to the Aluminium used on the Concorde (you mentioned carbon fiber), which considering you're planning on reaching M3 will be important Also interested in understanding more about what you're base case assumption for affordability is / what mitigants you've put in place for any change in these assumptions (rise in oil prices, airlines being able to charge crazy amounts due to product exclusivity (clearly will be just a handful of player who have access to this engineering in our life time I imagine) etc...). Would be nice to hear a bit about what engineering thinking has gone into the cost saving..are we still looking at the same delta wing we saw previously? From what I've seen so far very cool and exciting - look forward to following your story!
- pedalpete 11y agoI didn't realize the left-right arrows in the hero show other possible routes. Are you planning on operating as an airline or selling to airlines?
- rajacombinator 11y agoI wish you the best. Would also like to see this in my lifetime, sooner than later. Calling it "Boom" seems super facepalmy though, for the obvious reasons.
- jasonlotito 11y agoI hope your company motto is "Move Fast and Break Things."
- orky56 11y agoHas the FAA given any indication on what the decibel threshold might be to potentially reverse the overland ban on supersonics? You had mentioned in another comment that the tipping point might be the feasibility and eventual popularity from going LAX/SFO - Tokyo but that in and of itself may not be enough satisfy residents and other groups.
- RangerScience 11y agoThis is perhaps the best thing about income inequality: Things with initial high cost, low volume are doable until investment dollars, etc, can reduce the cost. I'm really excited to see this! However, there's no indication as to what kind of seating you're going for. Will these be economy, premium economy (aka, US-national business), or business (aka, lie-flat) seats?
- guhcampos 11y agoIs it just me or "Boom" sounds like the worst-name-ever for an airline? I'm serious. My immediate association for "boom" is an explosion sound, not a sonic boom. I would feel just as comfortable flying an airline called "Bang", "Crash", "Kaboom", "Blast" or "OhMyGodWeAreGoingDown". Please, do rethink that name, I dream of shorter trips to Bora Bora every single day of my life (not serious now).
- rwc 11y agoIt is absolutely the worst.
- sflicht 11y agoCan you carry enough fuel to do a non-stop flight from NYC to HKG or SIN or SYD? (You give SFO-SYD as an example, so NYC-HKG should be possible I suspect.)
- sflicht 11y agoOh, I guess the issue is the boom. What about flying subsonic over populated Canada, and then (slightly shifting the conventional NYC-HKG route) head over Hudson Bay to accelerate to supersonic velocity? The return route is often done over the Pacific (because of prevailing wind patterns), so there would not necessarily be a need to sonic boom over southeast China.
- jorgecurio 11y agothis is just a PR disaster waiting to happen. who in their right minds would trust this small team to design a supersonic plane vs army of aerospace engineers at boeing and airbus? I'd rather enjoy the comfort of flying with Boeing. Track record means a lot and they have the balls to say they are working on a prototype like they are building an Android app. loool, the article highlighting arrogance of SV is real. tldr: no way I'm getting on this plane and neither should you, it looks dangerous as fuck.
- sakopov 11y agoI think what you guys are doing is amazing and the world is due for airlines like Boom. I'm also happy to see that this venture is backed by YC. This is a huge step forward. Your prices bite a little and will likely be out of range for typical travelers but I'm sure this can be worked on. Is the airplane designed completely from scratch or will you be basing your engineering work on the designs of Concorde planes in some way, shape or form?
- pinaceae 11y agodidn't YC also invest in a nuclear startup? how's that going?
- tim333 11y agoTwo of them. Helion got some VC https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/helion-energy https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/helion-energy UPower less so.
- hellyeasa 11y agoSorry, this is ridiculous, it just wont happen (not ever, just this company). From my experience in the aerospace industry, having a manned prototype aircraft of this scale fly within 2 years, supersonic no less (!!), is an impossibility. It is simply not possible, at least with any sane regard for safety. Aircraft are hard, you need an army of experienced engineers, like thousands, and hundreds of millions of dollars of capital and resources to design a 21st century aircraft. It doesn't matter if you're Elon Musk or whoever, that's the state of the art nowadays. You need to run numerous (supersonic!) wind tunnel tests of a design (each test spanning months, with year long lead time before testing, and months of analysis and design in between tests). There are only a few facilities in the world (like the 10x10 at Glenn Research Center) that can provide such wind tunnel testing. Structural and aerodynamic work will take years of iteration to meet basic design challenges. Actuators, flight computers, air data sensors, etc... need to be chosen with very careful forethought via trades with big name suppliers, and lead times for these things can be 9 months to 1.5 years easy. The engine is as important as the entire airframe its self, and there are only three engine manufacturers in the entire world that could make an engine for a plane like this. One would need to be designed from scratch from one of these manufacturers and would easily take 3-5 years! Oh, and they would need a ton of capital and thousands of engineers to do it too. This doesn't happen from a scrappy looking start up with random engine parts sitting in a room with a whiteboard. This is a joke, investing in this company is a sure way to throw away your investment. Sorry, that's the cold hard facts. Yea, spacex managed to succeed, at least so far, but look how big they are now and how long it took them to get where they are today. And I would argue that spacex's engineering challenges are easier than those needed for a 21st century supersonic jet transport. Sorry, that's just the state of aerospace engineering today. Major new aircrarft are only developed by the big boys with the experience and resources to make it happen over a 10-20 year time frame with continued but small investments in R&D, and incremental leaps in technology.
- sschueller 11y agoI sadly agree. I would love to see a supersonic business jet but the regulatory requirements alone to get a new aircraft certified takes years. Even the new Pilatus PC-24 (small business jet) announced in 2013 is not expecting to ship until 2017. The second prototype just went airborne. [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilatus_PC-24 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilatus_PC-24
- hiergiltdiestfu 11y agoMark Kelly on the advisory board, not bad. It's the only person on the team page that I've heard of.
- dandare 11y agoI would be very interested to see their YC application. Maybe an unfair competitive advantage?
- leonroy 11y agoVery interesting and relevant article about the American Concordes which never flew: http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20160321-the-american-concordes-that-never-flew http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20160321-the-american-concor...