5 ms·

The Concorde was also really expensive. I was able to fly on it twice, once each direction, near the end of their operations. I only flew on it because they'd a

by KGIII 9y ago

The Concorde was also really expensive. I was able to fly on it twice, once each direction, near the end of their operations. I only flew on it because they'd announced they were shutting down and I wanted to fly supersonic before they went out of business. It was very expensive. I think it was in '03 and the price was just something like $12,000 for the two flights. It was high enough that I put it on a credit card. The prices had a lot of variation and I flew first class but they had a higher class that they called Concorde, as I recall.

kobeya 9y ago
GP was explaining why it was expensive.
martinald 9y ago
Yes, it was a premium product. But if you're a banker/lawyer going between NY and London a lot and your billable rate is $crazy, it's super good value. I think there is an enormous market for something like Concorde now, much more than there was before. The amount of super rich has increased massively (and each of them have way more money). I think you'd even see executives using it over their own private jets for the speed increase - which means tickets could be crazy expensive, as operating a jet is very pricey. I suppose it'd depend a bit on if you could get WiFi on it though. Wonder if that is possible at supersonic speeds?
- digi_owl 9y ago
  I seem to recall reading about a supersonic business jet being designed by some company or other.
  - simonh 9y ago
    There are several companies working on the idea. There’s been a lot of work done recently on advanced aerodynamic designs that would significantly reduce the sonic boom for a given size of aircraft. On smaller planes this might reduce it to levels that would be considered tolerable over populated areas. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supersonic_business_jet https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supersonic_business_jet
  - liquidise 9y ago
    Boom [1] has been on a number of HN comments, using a similar NYC <-> London model at a fixed cost. 1: https://boomsupersonic.com/ https://boomsupersonic.com/
    - Reason077 9y ago
      "Boom" is a terrible name for a company hoping to popularise supersonic transport. The "Boom" is not something they should be drawing attention to!
      - Boothroid 9y ago
        If they've minimised the boom perhaps it's genius.
- anonemouse145 9y ago
  The silver bullet: Super rich don't make airliners money. Most flights make 80+% of their revenue from business class. First class is too spacious, it's vastly less profit per area. Economy pack you in like sardines because you really do not matter. Sorry, but Concord was a bad idea and it isn't coming back. Maybe some kind of private airplane for the Elon Musks of the world who can afford to pay their own plane. But a supersonic cruiser just isn't viable. Your point about WiFi is the real killer. Why pay an order of magnitude more for faster travel, when what you really need is reliable WiFi so you can work from the plane. Then travel time is just a convenience, it doesn't stop work.
- chrispeel 9y ago
  I'm pretty sure that SpaceX's BFR in earth-to-earth configuration is targeted at the wealthy market you refer to. On the topic of WiFi, SpaceX is able to return video from the Falcon 9 on ascent and descent in many cases. So even though the very high Doppler and tracking problems involved in wireless communication to a rocket are not trivial, they're already doing it.
  - JumpCrisscross 9y ago
    > I'm pretty sure that SpaceX's BFR in earth-to-earth configuration is targeted at the wealthy market you refer to One of the challenges Virgin Galactic ran into in its sales efforts was the high co-incidence between (a) people who can pay for a super-expensive form of transport and (b) people whose Board, limited partnership or employment agreements prohibit them from doing super-risky stuff.
- mandevil 9y ago
  R.E.G. Davies worked out why this isn't as powerful as you think because the earth is round. The justification for that expensive ticket is that you can have your meeting without getting jet-lagged. So, basically, leave your house at a reasonable time, get to a meeting on the other side of the Atlantic at a reasonable time- that's worth an awful lot of money. If you have to fly out the night before anyway, what justifies the extra money versus subsonic transport? So let's imagine you live in New York and have a meeting in Paris- and let's say, for the purpose of argument, that it's actually a transporter, instantaneous travel from airport to airport. You leave your house at 6AM, get to the airport at 7AM. Its an international flight, so you need to get to the airport early, so your flight leaves at 8AM. You instantaneously arrive in Paris, but that's six hours time zone different: 2PM in Paris. Two hours to navigate through customs and the airport and it's 4PM, an hour to do ground transport to your meeting and it's already 5PM. So even with exactly zero travel time between JFK->CDG your meeting can't be conducted at normal business times. So if your meeting still requires traveling out the day before and dealing with jet lag and all the rest, there just isn't that much benefit to justify the costs. It might make sense for a business jet, so long as the costs are really not much more than a GV, or if it's primarily about prestige anyway.
  - Reason077 9y ago
    The time zones might not be ideal for JFK->CDG/LHR, but it works nicely in the other direction.
  - sgt101 9y ago
    Yes, but if you are in those jobs then 5pm is a normal meeting time and the folks in the Paris office are going to be there - like it or not. There are two real reasons this no longer works; first the international travelling class has turned out to be far greedier and care less about their lives than anyone imagined, secondly Skype.
    - mandevil 9y ago
      Two points: A) that 5PM was with transporter technology, more realistic numbers push you to starting the meeting at 7PM. B) The reason to do meetings in person versus telepresence is to build relationships in a way that phones just can't do. Starting meetings at 7PM does not improve relationships. As far as travel versus communications goes, from what I can see improving communications technology places a higher premium on travel than before, not less. Easier for senior executives to stay in touch with HQ on the go, but that ability means that relationship building is now more important.
- walshemj 9y ago
  yes its the chargeout rate that makes it cost in, at my first job we considered a charter a plane to take some senior engineers up north for ran on site experiment as our OH rate was 600% the cost of driving vs flying was substantial. All the gear would have been put in a transit and driven up by one of the technicians
- Boothroid 9y ago
  I remember reading somewhere that it was the first time humanity had chosen to take a step backwards in terms of transport speed. Definitely seems like there would be a market.
scrumper 9y ago
I did the same in '03. BA released some steeply discounted tickets with the end-of-life announcement; I think I paid $3,500 round trip (JFK-LHR leg in coach, my rationale being I could afford one way and London to New York was an hour more time on Concorde). It was also noisy and cramped. Fantastic though, it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience and a wonderful thing to have done.
danmaz74 9y ago
So, how much was the experience different from flying subsonic?
- KGIII 9y ago
  The service was truly first class, compared to other offerings at the time. It wasn't a very big aircraft and the acceleration wasn't as much as I was hoping for. The booze was free flowing and they happily served me for the whole flight. The announcements were informative and entertaining. That's pretty much it... I enjoyed it but it wasn't life altering. Was it worth it? Probably not for most. It was worth it just to have had the experience, in my case. I'd always wanted to go and they were shutting down. So, I went. At the time, I could have spent the money more wisely, but I don't regret it.
  - danmaz74 9y ago
    Thanks, interesting
- shoobedowop 9y ago
  Jet engines sound different. If you felt the window, it was warm to the touch vs. cold on a subsonic. Outside window was much smaller than subsonic. The sound of the air passing by was closer to a sizzling sound in super cruise vs. what we hear on subsonic. Take off had a noticeably faster groundspeed before rotation. 60-90 seconds (I forget, depends on airport) after departing the runway, throttles were reduced and you felt the plane slow quickly and the plane's angle of attack was reduced. This was for noise abatement and they explained this prior to takeoff so not as to alarm you. Leaving JFK on 31L included a sharp left bank as soon as wheels up to follow the shoreline and avoid populated areas. Example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8j-3003jtuY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8j-3003jtuY After leaving populated area, throttles were pushed to full and climb resumed. If all went according to flight plan, Concorde would be at .95 Mach shortly and get the OK to go supersonic. Afterburners. You felt them getting turned on to go supersonic. They were turned on in pairs - one on each side. Felt like someone was gently pushing you from behind. No turbulence - would fly above the weather. Landing was like being in a recliner. High angle of attach on the approach. Once down on all wheels, NOISE as the reversers kicked in. The delta wing didn't flex like subsonic wings do, so any bumps during climb or decent felt a bit more sharp (less bouncy/spongy? hard to find the words). Maybe it was just me. Other than that, it's the same as a regular subsonic. 10/10 would do again. Need time travel.

by KGIII 9y ago

kobeya 9y ago

GP was explaining why it was expensive.

martinald 9y ago

Yes, it was a premium product. But if you're a banker/lawyer going between NY and London a lot and your billable rate is $crazy, it's super good value. I think there is an enormous market for something like Concorde now, much more than there was before. The amount of super rich has increased massively (and each of them have way more money). I think you'd even see executives using it over their own private jets for the speed increase - which means tickets could be crazy expensive, as operating a jet is very pricey. I suppose it'd depend a bit on if you could get WiFi on it though. Wonder if that is possible at supersonic speeds?

digi_owl 9y ago
I seem to recall reading about a supersonic business jet being designed by some company or other.
- simonh 9y ago
  There are several companies working on the idea. There’s been a lot of work done recently on advanced aerodynamic designs that would significantly reduce the sonic boom for a given size of aircraft. On smaller planes this might reduce it to levels that would be considered tolerable over populated areas. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supersonic_business_jet https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supersonic_business_jet
- liquidise 9y ago
  Boom [1] has been on a number of HN comments, using a similar NYC <-> London model at a fixed cost. 1: https://boomsupersonic.com/ https://boomsupersonic.com/
  - Reason077 9y ago
    "Boom" is a terrible name for a company hoping to popularise supersonic transport. The "Boom" is not something they should be drawing attention to!
    - Boothroid 9y ago
      If they've minimised the boom perhaps it's genius.
anonemouse145 9y ago
The silver bullet: Super rich don't make airliners money. Most flights make 80+% of their revenue from business class. First class is too spacious, it's vastly less profit per area. Economy pack you in like sardines because you really do not matter. Sorry, but Concord was a bad idea and it isn't coming back. Maybe some kind of private airplane for the Elon Musks of the world who can afford to pay their own plane. But a supersonic cruiser just isn't viable. Your point about WiFi is the real killer. Why pay an order of magnitude more for faster travel, when what you really need is reliable WiFi so you can work from the plane. Then travel time is just a convenience, it doesn't stop work.
chrispeel 9y ago
I'm pretty sure that SpaceX's BFR in earth-to-earth configuration is targeted at the wealthy market you refer to. On the topic of WiFi, SpaceX is able to return video from the Falcon 9 on ascent and descent in many cases. So even though the very high Doppler and tracking problems involved in wireless communication to a rocket are not trivial, they're already doing it.
- JumpCrisscross 9y ago
  > I'm pretty sure that SpaceX's BFR in earth-to-earth configuration is targeted at the wealthy market you refer to One of the challenges Virgin Galactic ran into in its sales efforts was the high co-incidence between (a) people who can pay for a super-expensive form of transport and (b) people whose Board, limited partnership or employment agreements prohibit them from doing super-risky stuff.
mandevil 9y ago
R.E.G. Davies worked out why this isn't as powerful as you think because the earth is round. The justification for that expensive ticket is that you can have your meeting without getting jet-lagged. So, basically, leave your house at a reasonable time, get to a meeting on the other side of the Atlantic at a reasonable time- that's worth an awful lot of money. If you have to fly out the night before anyway, what justifies the extra money versus subsonic transport? So let's imagine you live in New York and have a meeting in Paris- and let's say, for the purpose of argument, that it's actually a transporter, instantaneous travel from airport to airport. You leave your house at 6AM, get to the airport at 7AM. Its an international flight, so you need to get to the airport early, so your flight leaves at 8AM. You instantaneously arrive in Paris, but that's six hours time zone different: 2PM in Paris. Two hours to navigate through customs and the airport and it's 4PM, an hour to do ground transport to your meeting and it's already 5PM. So even with exactly zero travel time between JFK->CDG your meeting can't be conducted at normal business times. So if your meeting still requires traveling out the day before and dealing with jet lag and all the rest, there just isn't that much benefit to justify the costs. It might make sense for a business jet, so long as the costs are really not much more than a GV, or if it's primarily about prestige anyway.
- Reason077 9y ago
  The time zones might not be ideal for JFK->CDG/LHR, but it works nicely in the other direction.
- sgt101 9y ago
  Yes, but if you are in those jobs then 5pm is a normal meeting time and the folks in the Paris office are going to be there - like it or not. There are two real reasons this no longer works; first the international travelling class has turned out to be far greedier and care less about their lives than anyone imagined, secondly Skype.
  - mandevil 9y ago
    Two points: A) that 5PM was with transporter technology, more realistic numbers push you to starting the meeting at 7PM. B) The reason to do meetings in person versus telepresence is to build relationships in a way that phones just can't do. Starting meetings at 7PM does not improve relationships. As far as travel versus communications goes, from what I can see improving communications technology places a higher premium on travel than before, not less. Easier for senior executives to stay in touch with HQ on the go, but that ability means that relationship building is now more important.
walshemj 9y ago
yes its the chargeout rate that makes it cost in, at my first job we considered a charter a plane to take some senior engineers up north for ran on site experiment as our OH rate was 600% the cost of driving vs flying was substantial. All the gear would have been put in a transit and driven up by one of the technicians
Boothroid 9y ago
I remember reading somewhere that it was the first time humanity had chosen to take a step backwards in terms of transport speed. Definitely seems like there would be a market.

scrumper 9y ago

I did the same in '03. BA released some steeply discounted tickets with the end-of-life announcement; I think I paid $3,500 round trip (JFK-LHR leg in coach, my rationale being I could afford one way and London to New York was an hour more time on Concorde). It was also noisy and cramped. Fantastic though, it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience and a wonderful thing to have done.

danmaz74 9y ago

So, how much was the experience different from flying subsonic?

KGIII 9y ago
The service was truly first class, compared to other offerings at the time. It wasn't a very big aircraft and the acceleration wasn't as much as I was hoping for. The booze was free flowing and they happily served me for the whole flight. The announcements were informative and entertaining. That's pretty much it... I enjoyed it but it wasn't life altering. Was it worth it? Probably not for most. It was worth it just to have had the experience, in my case. I'd always wanted to go and they were shutting down. So, I went. At the time, I could have spent the money more wisely, but I don't regret it.
- danmaz74 9y ago
  Thanks, interesting
shoobedowop 9y ago
Jet engines sound different. If you felt the window, it was warm to the touch vs. cold on a subsonic. Outside window was much smaller than subsonic. The sound of the air passing by was closer to a sizzling sound in super cruise vs. what we hear on subsonic. Take off had a noticeably faster groundspeed before rotation. 60-90 seconds (I forget, depends on airport) after departing the runway, throttles were reduced and you felt the plane slow quickly and the plane's angle of attack was reduced. This was for noise abatement and they explained this prior to takeoff so not as to alarm you. Leaving JFK on 31L included a sharp left bank as soon as wheels up to follow the shoreline and avoid populated areas. Example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8j-3003jtuY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8j-3003jtuY After leaving populated area, throttles were pushed to full and climb resumed. If all went according to flight plan, Concorde would be at .95 Mach shortly and get the OK to go supersonic. Afterburners. You felt them getting turned on to go supersonic. They were turned on in pairs - one on each side. Felt like someone was gently pushing you from behind. No turbulence - would fly above the weather. Landing was like being in a recliner. High angle of attach on the approach. Once down on all wheels, NOISE as the reversers kicked in. The delta wing didn't flex like subsonic wings do, so any bumps during climb or decent felt a bit more sharp (less bouncy/spongy? hard to find the words). Maybe it was just me. Other than that, it's the same as a regular subsonic. 10/10 would do again. Need time travel.