5 ms·

Is that nearly enough money to do what they intend? Edit: To be clear — I find the prospect of affordable supersonic flight super exciting. But, knowing 0 abou

Is that nearly enough money to do what they intend? Edit: To be clear — I find the prospect of affordable supersonic flight super exciting. But, knowing 0 about the aviation industry, what's the secret sauce that makes this believable (e.g. budget at least one order of magnitude lower than competing products)?

ghaff 8y ago
No? Not directly comparable but perhaps useful as an indicator of general magnitude, the Boeing 787 had a development cost of $16 billion. Assuming it costs 1/10th as much, that's still over $1 billion.
- nradov 8y ago
  An industry analyst estimated that it costs about $400M to develop a subsonic light business jet. A supersonic aircraft would cost more due to greater technical risk. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-honda-jet/honda-faces-long-haul-to-recoup-jet-costs-idUSKBN16Y0CD https://www.reuters.com/article/us-honda-jet/honda-faces-lon... But $100M might suffice to build a scale model experimental technology demonstrator.
MrMember 8y ago
$141 million and 100 employees seems pretty light for what their goals are.
- probsabot18150 8y ago
  I totally disagree. It's plenty to demonstrate and build most of the technology. It will take much more money to bring it to market, but that's primarily regulations and validation of umpteen edge cases/fatigue life, and proving that you've done so to the FAA. Source/disclaimer: Aerospace engineer that builds rocket engines for a startup. As for the market... As a simple person, I probably won't ever pay that for any flight. Businesses may think it is worth it. As for comments to the effect, "physics hasn't changed since the concorde failed," no, but materials and manufacturing really have. Turbine engines have evolved a lot since then. That companies like Boeing do not build such aircraft doesn't tell you anything, any more than studying the success of Apple in embedded systems tells you whether or not there is a market for them. Perhaps a poor example since embedded systems are not a disruption, but my point is that entrenched incumbents may not pivot simply because they are doing well where they are, and all the more so in a more heavily regulated market. In short, I think it will be interesting to see how it turns out. For any aerospace startup, the hardest part is raising enough money to stay afloat and focus on their work. $100M starts to build enough momentum that they have a real shot. The question now is what they do with that shot.
  - lloyddobbler 8y ago
    > As for comments to the effect, "physics hasn't changed since the concorde failed," no, but materials and manufacturing really have. Turbine engines have evolved a lot since then. That companies like Boeing do not build such aircraft doesn't tell you anything, any more than studying the success of Apple in embedded systems tells you whether or not there is a market for them. Perhaps a poor example since embedded systems are not a disruption, but my point is that entrenched incumbents may not pivot simply because they are doing well where they are, and all the more so in a more heavily regulated market. This. So much this. The specious argument about physics really irks me. - Time between the first commercial air travel (1914) and when Concorde began development (1962): 48 years - Time between when Concorde began development and today: 57 years Translation: Concorde's tech is OLD. Think of how much aviation technology advanced in the 48 years between the first commercial passenger flight and Concorde beginning development. Now think about how much it inevitably has advanced in the 57 years since Concorde's technology was developed. The founders of Boom have openly stated that they intend to build a more fuel-efficient aircraft, leveraging technological advances to provide exponential increases in efficiency. If they can't do that, the economics don't work out - plain and simple. But they're making a pretty good case that they can to date, and this funding will help them further demonstrate that their plans have promise. As an aviation geek, I personally hope they succeed.
danielvf 8y ago
It should be enough to get one prototype aircraft flying. After that, they would need raise or finance more.
- larkeith 8y ago
  The prototype is also 1/3 scale, which should help.
notahacker 8y ago
$100m is the sticker price for one Boeing 737, an evolutionary design with research and manufacturing costs amortised over an order book of thousands This is money to keep Boom afloat to the next raise, but that's not exactly unusual in SV startups which are a lot less capital intensive than aerospace
- motivated_gear 8y ago
  How a company begins to how it gets to sell products for $100m is fascinating. Boeing built their first plane soley because they had bought another plane, subsequently crashed it and then posited that it would be faster to build a brand new plane instead of waiting for parts. They sold a couple to the navy who then said "Yeah we'll take 50". Obviously Boom is doing something orders of magnitude more technically complex than a simple bi-plane but maybe, if they're scrappy enough, they can pull it off. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing#History
  - reaperducer 8y ago
    They sold a couple to the navy who then said "Yeah we'll take 50" I wonder if Boom could get a boost by convincing it that the Boom jet can be useful. Certainly not for troop transport, but maybe it can be used to move field commanders around quickly in times of crisis.
    - donarb 8y ago
      Fighter jets can already do that should there ever be a need.
    - njarboe 8y ago
      "Certainly not for troop transport" For special ops I could definitely see such purchases. Just not at a large scale.
  - notahacker 8y ago
    Aviation has moved on a bit since Boeing was founded over 100 years ago, and their client base is looking for any potential vendor to be the precise opposite of "scrappy". To put things into perspective, nearly all airlines outside Russia and China find proven, modern, thoroughly-tested and performant airframes from state-funded Russian and Chinese conglomerates with very attractive pricing and financing a bit too "scrappy" in terms of the available ongoing support for operations to even consider. A new entrant is going to need to spend $20bn+ to get a single aircraft ready, and they they're going to need to sell a couple of hundred to get close to breaking even. A brilliant outcome would be a gulf state liking the novelty of the concept enough to say "we'll take 50" and even that didn't translate to many further sales for the A380
ummonk 8y ago
No. It's a couple orders of magnitude too low.

ghaff 8y ago

No? Not directly comparable but perhaps useful as an indicator of general magnitude, the Boeing 787 had a development cost of $16 billion. Assuming it costs 1/10th as much, that's still over $1 billion.

nradov 8y ago
An industry analyst estimated that it costs about $400M to develop a subsonic light business jet. A supersonic aircraft would cost more due to greater technical risk. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-honda-jet/honda-faces-long-haul-to-recoup-jet-costs-idUSKBN16Y0CD https://www.reuters.com/article/us-honda-jet/honda-faces-lon... But $100M might suffice to build a scale model experimental technology demonstrator.

MrMember 8y ago

$141 million and 100 employees seems pretty light for what their goals are.

probsabot18150 8y ago
I totally disagree. It's plenty to demonstrate and build most of the technology. It will take much more money to bring it to market, but that's primarily regulations and validation of umpteen edge cases/fatigue life, and proving that you've done so to the FAA. Source/disclaimer: Aerospace engineer that builds rocket engines for a startup. As for the market... As a simple person, I probably won't ever pay that for any flight. Businesses may think it is worth it. As for comments to the effect, "physics hasn't changed since the concorde failed," no, but materials and manufacturing really have. Turbine engines have evolved a lot since then. That companies like Boeing do not build such aircraft doesn't tell you anything, any more than studying the success of Apple in embedded systems tells you whether or not there is a market for them. Perhaps a poor example since embedded systems are not a disruption, but my point is that entrenched incumbents may not pivot simply because they are doing well where they are, and all the more so in a more heavily regulated market. In short, I think it will be interesting to see how it turns out. For any aerospace startup, the hardest part is raising enough money to stay afloat and focus on their work. $100M starts to build enough momentum that they have a real shot. The question now is what they do with that shot.
- lloyddobbler 8y ago
  > As for comments to the effect, "physics hasn't changed since the concorde failed," no, but materials and manufacturing really have. Turbine engines have evolved a lot since then. That companies like Boeing do not build such aircraft doesn't tell you anything, any more than studying the success of Apple in embedded systems tells you whether or not there is a market for them. Perhaps a poor example since embedded systems are not a disruption, but my point is that entrenched incumbents may not pivot simply because they are doing well where they are, and all the more so in a more heavily regulated market. This. So much this. The specious argument about physics really irks me. - Time between the first commercial air travel (1914) and when Concorde began development (1962): 48 years - Time between when Concorde began development and today: 57 years Translation: Concorde's tech is OLD. Think of how much aviation technology advanced in the 48 years between the first commercial passenger flight and Concorde beginning development. Now think about how much it inevitably has advanced in the 57 years since Concorde's technology was developed. The founders of Boom have openly stated that they intend to build a more fuel-efficient aircraft, leveraging technological advances to provide exponential increases in efficiency. If they can't do that, the economics don't work out - plain and simple. But they're making a pretty good case that they can to date, and this funding will help them further demonstrate that their plans have promise. As an aviation geek, I personally hope they succeed.

danielvf 8y ago

It should be enough to get one prototype aircraft flying. After that, they would need raise or finance more.

larkeith 8y ago
The prototype is also 1/3 scale, which should help.

notahacker 8y ago

$100m is the sticker price for one Boeing 737, an evolutionary design with research and manufacturing costs amortised over an order book of thousands This is money to keep Boom afloat to the next raise, but that's not exactly unusual in SV startups which are a lot less capital intensive than aerospace

motivated_gear 8y ago
How a company begins to how it gets to sell products for $100m is fascinating. Boeing built their first plane soley because they had bought another plane, subsequently crashed it and then posited that it would be faster to build a brand new plane instead of waiting for parts. They sold a couple to the navy who then said "Yeah we'll take 50". Obviously Boom is doing something orders of magnitude more technically complex than a simple bi-plane but maybe, if they're scrappy enough, they can pull it off. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing#History
- reaperducer 8y ago
  They sold a couple to the navy who then said "Yeah we'll take 50" I wonder if Boom could get a boost by convincing it that the Boom jet can be useful. Certainly not for troop transport, but maybe it can be used to move field commanders around quickly in times of crisis.
  - donarb 8y ago
    Fighter jets can already do that should there ever be a need.
  - njarboe 8y ago
    "Certainly not for troop transport" For special ops I could definitely see such purchases. Just not at a large scale.
- notahacker 8y ago
  Aviation has moved on a bit since Boeing was founded over 100 years ago, and their client base is looking for any potential vendor to be the precise opposite of "scrappy". To put things into perspective, nearly all airlines outside Russia and China find proven, modern, thoroughly-tested and performant airframes from state-funded Russian and Chinese conglomerates with very attractive pricing and financing a bit too "scrappy" in terms of the available ongoing support for operations to even consider. A new entrant is going to need to spend $20bn+ to get a single aircraft ready, and they they're going to need to sell a couple of hundred to get close to breaking even. A brilliant outcome would be a gulf state liking the novelty of the concept enough to say "we'll take 50" and even that didn't translate to many further sales for the A380

ummonk 8y ago

No. It's a couple orders of magnitude too low.