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I am not saying this is easy, but what they need to do is build one airplane, and get it to fly back and forth. That is nothing like the scalability and repeate

by bertil 11y ago

I am not saying this is easy, but what they need to do is build one airplane, and get it to fly back and forth. That is nothing like the scalability and repeated reliability that building thousands of car is asking for. I know several people (starting by my brother) who build their own plane (granted, it was a two-seater several several times louder than a grass-mower and seemingly slower, but you get the idea). One plane feels fairly doable as far as hard- to-predict financial issues go — if you have engineers who know super-sonic, and I can’t imagine having the idea without.

paulmd 11y ago
Your brother's plane is likely an ultralight or light-sport category, and regardless as a kit-built is nowhere near the certification required for commercial operation. A key requirement of kit-built or experimental aircraft is that you can't ask money to fly passengers on them. He's not even allowed to ask for gas money if you take a trip together. Commercial requirements literally start at "one aircraft that gets the wings overstressed (if not actually snapped off) during destructive testing" and the requirements continue steeply onwards from there. You can figure on having it built by FAA-certified mechanics as well. The FAA likes having a paper trail if the wings fall off (an extremely common problem with ultralight/sport aircraft built by non-certified personnel). Not OK when you're carrying passengers for hire.
- bertil 11y ago
  It was, originally but with some improvements since, and it got the wing-stress that you mention involuntarily and while in flight (my mom & his wife were watching — fun times). He got out without a scratch and improved the next one further. I can completely see the expected extra cost of having to make two prototypes — and, yes, my first reaction to the article was: “please, please, let them have a billion in VC money”. But the truth is, the success ratio of projects about “we want to make a plane that goes that fast” seems far higher than success ratios of any company. The business side sounds a lot more doable, given how many people fly those destinations and would like to do it faster.
kriro 11y ago
Sounds like the prototypical "build something that doesn't scale". I have no idea how capital intensive this is (other than...a lot) but I too think building a Boom-0 and flying it NYC-London as often as possible is the best first step. Just make sure to have the first couple of flights filled with investor types ;) You really want some innovators that spread the word. Some lawyer telling their friends how he was able to close a deal because of that flight, some top executive peddling the "home to tuck in the kids" story at the next business meeting etc.

by bertil 11y ago

paulmd 11y ago

Your brother's plane is likely an ultralight or light-sport category, and regardless as a kit-built is nowhere near the certification required for commercial operation. A key requirement of kit-built or experimental aircraft is that you can't ask money to fly passengers on them. He's not even allowed to ask for gas money if you take a trip together. Commercial requirements literally start at "one aircraft that gets the wings overstressed (if not actually snapped off) during destructive testing" and the requirements continue steeply onwards from there. You can figure on having it built by FAA-certified mechanics as well. The FAA likes having a paper trail if the wings fall off (an extremely common problem with ultralight/sport aircraft built by non-certified personnel). Not OK when you're carrying passengers for hire.

bertil 11y ago
It was, originally but with some improvements since, and it got the wing-stress that you mention involuntarily and while in flight (my mom & his wife were watching — fun times). He got out without a scratch and improved the next one further. I can completely see the expected extra cost of having to make two prototypes — and, yes, my first reaction to the article was: “please, please, let them have a billion in VC money”. But the truth is, the success ratio of projects about “we want to make a plane that goes that fast” seems far higher than success ratios of any company. The business side sounds a lot more doable, given how many people fly those destinations and would like to do it faster.

kriro 11y ago

Sounds like the prototypical "build something that doesn't scale". I have no idea how capital intensive this is (other than...a lot) but I too think building a Boom-0 and flying it NYC-London as often as possible is the best first step. Just make sure to have the first couple of flights filled with investor types ;) You really want some innovators that spread the word. Some lawyer telling their friends how he was able to close a deal because of that flight, some top executive peddling the "home to tuck in the kids" story at the next business meeting etc.