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United Airlines will buy 15 planes from Boom Supersonic
- gilga 5y agoSo this is basically just a LOI?
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- antipaul 5y agoHow exactly is it net zero emissions?
- aero-glide2 5y agoFuel from carbon-capture or biofuels. Looks like something they intend to do in the future, not necessarily the first prototype. More details here : https://blog.boomsupersonic.com/booms-principles-of-sustainability-2f4a7b638f48 https://blog.boomsupersonic.com/booms-principles-of-sustaina...
- realreality 5y agoWe’ve known for a long time that biofuels are an unsustainable scam. https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748703574604574500013927534676 https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748703574604574500...
- gumby 5y agoThey claim the new Rolls Royce engines will run on biofuel. It's left as an exercise for the reader to figure out how to make biofuels net zero.
- isis777 5y agoUse 1x fossil fuels to create 1.1x biofuels. Sell biofuels to companies wanting to pander to their woke audience. look how great we are!!
- shawn-butler 5y agohttps://blog.boomsupersonic.com/q-a-with-booms-sustainability-advisor-dr-lourdes-maurice-c4efa00b7567 https://blog.boomsupersonic.com/q-a-with-booms-sustainabilit... A lot of fluff but I would guess a good place to start to learn more
- mekkkkkk 5y agoAmazing how the only piece of tangible information in that post was how Boom promises to adhere to standards and regulation when it comes to noise levels.
- hannob 5y agoLots of marketing and gullible fanboys of course.
- mekkkkkk 5y agoI suspect that the "net" qualifier is doing a lot of important work in that statement. Maybe they are planting a gazillion trees, do carbon capture or regrow coral reefs. Could mean anything really. Plant enough trees and you'll theoretically have "net zero emissions" from lighting a lake of crude on fire.
- afavour 5y agoProblems with supersonic (?): - Noise means you can't do US domestic - Concorde didn't have the range for Pacific - Costs didn't work for Atlantic routes - And airlines want lots of identical planes, not one special one for one route Which ones has Boom solved? https://twitter.com/benedictevans/status/1400425028022308874 https://twitter.com/benedictevans/status/1400425028022308874
- varjag 5y agoThe first one (or at least aspires to).
- nemetroid 5y agoDo they? The FAQ suggests that they are not aiming to do supersonic flight over land: > Won’t the sonic boom be loud? > Overture flights will focus on 500+ primarily transoceanic routes that benefit from supersonic speeds—such as New York to London or San Francisco to Tokyo. Overture won't generate a sonic boom over land cruising at subsonic speeds.
- andi999 5y agoSo what are the other 497+ possible routes (new York Paris also works) ? I read somewhere that after a Concorde test flight to Singapore, India complaint strongly and stopped the airway.
- lumost 5y agoBoom's premise is that they can reduce the sonic booms to acceptable levels while making incremental progress on fuel and maintenance costs. Airlines are likely expecting that business trips flying coach are going to radically diminish. Offering a super-premium fast flight for the remaining business travelers who must travel but have a reduced tolerance for it is a smart move.
- whoisjuan 5y agoBut isn’t Boom selling a vision for affordable supersonic flights? What you’re suggesting about “super-premium” flights doesn’t map to what’s being publicly said about Boom or the fundamental principles of commercial flying. As a matter of fact, the Concorde ultimately failed for those very same niche-economy reasons. What’s your source for saying that business trips flying coach will diminish?
- tantalor 5y agoRecent video that talks a bit about Boom: > Supersonic Planes are Coming Back (And This Time, They Might Work) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4p0fRlCHYyg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4p0fRlCHYyg
- DaiPlusPlus 5y agoThe intersection of "HN readers" and "Wendover youtube subscribers" is surprisingly large. I also suspect we also all watch Technology Connections, Techmoan, LGR, Map Men, HAI, and Periscope Films...
- parthdesai 5y agoB1M if you're into construction
- wp381640 5y agoI never knew I was so into construction until I started watching it
- DaiPlusPlus 5y agoFor similar material, consider Road Guy Rob: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqdUXv9yQiIhspWPYgp8_XA https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqdUXv9yQiIhspWPYgp8_XA
- bemmu 5y agoThanks for the channel tips. I was able to find them all except for HAI. Link?
- throwaway2037 5y agoMaybe Half as Interesting (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuCkxoKLYO_EQ2GeFtbM_bw https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuCkxoKLYO_EQ2GeFtbM_bw) ?
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- swyx 5y agoone of the most inspiring startups to come out of YC. i used to despair at YC just churning out more and more b2b software bc that is understandably the problem they know well (i think a YC partner famously said "you can get to series B just selling to YC alums"). But to actually do this in the world of atoms and get market validation... bravo. lets hope they keep a pristine safety record, of course.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- picodguyo 5y agoConsidering they're already being skewered on SNL, I have to imagine a rebranding is in the cards. https://youtu.be/3c6MqOB4n9o?t=14 https://youtu.be/3c6MqOB4n9o?t=14
- chitowneats 5y agoI have serious doubts that SNL is culturally relevant enough in 2021 to trigger a rebranding exercise for this company.
- picodguyo 5y agoIt's not that SNL is some strong influencer, it's just indicative that the current name will be an easy punchline and feed into existing fears.
- chitowneats 5y agoThe joke isn't funny. Just like the rest of SNL. Boom will be fine. Seriously. Did any of you think "explosion" before "sonic boom" when hearing of this company for the first time? If so, would that actually influence your perception of the safety of their planes?
- meepmorp 5y agoIt's not SNL's influence, it's the fact that the brand has filtered into mainstream entertainment as the butt of a joke. Think of it as a signal of a larger problem.
- redler 5y agoI'd say it depends on whether they're successful. "iPad" was widely skewered as a branding choice in popular media, and we see how that turned out.
- Turing_Machine 5y agoSNL also famously made fun of Smucker's Jelly, but they're still doing $8 billion in annual sales nonetheless. ("Smucker's" sounds like the Yiddish "schmuck", derived from the German word for "ornament" or "jewelry". It's a slang term for male genitalia)
- jshmrsn 5y agoWow, that’s a pretty big boost in credibility if the terms of the deal are firm. As far as I know XB-1 is still preparing for its first test flight. So my assumption is that this deal is a commitment to buy if (and that’s a big IF), Overture actually comes into existence with adequate specs. Hopefully there’s some immediate money in the deal as well. https://youtu.be/kraWrYS6CsE https://youtu.be/kraWrYS6CsE
- awestley 5y agoTerrible, terrible name..
- QuesnayJr 5y agoMaybe this is excessively YOLO of me, but I would be more likely to fly a plane called Boom, not less.
- nemetroid 5y agoThe problem is not the association to "plane explodes", but to "sonic boom", one of the major reasons why supersonic aircraft never became popular.
- EForEndeavour 5y agoIt's a given that this is the entire point of the name: "Boom Supersonic" is just a cool-sounding (depending on your taste) play on "supersonic boom." It's not like the inconvenience of supersonic booms was some secret negative connotation that whoever named Boom Supersonic didn't know about.
- nemetroid 5y agoI agree, and it is a memorable name for this reason, which has probably helped them so far. Still doesn't seem like a good idea to me, though.
- bemmu 5y agoBut it's not bland. You instantly remember it, makes you more likely to talk about the company if only to remark on the name, and I'd imagine it leads to more press coverage as well.
- nerdponx 5y agoHow do they plan to deal with the sonic boom problem that relegated the Concorde to ocean-crossing routes? Or will this also be relegated to ocean-crossing routes? What's the market for this? The Concorde was extremely expensive to operate and extremely expensive to fly on. Are they predicting lots of wealthy people looking for fast international travel between North America and East Asia? > “The world’s first purchase agreement for net-zero carbon supersonic aircraft marks a significant step toward our mission to create a more accessible world,” Scholl said in a statement. > Part of what made buying supersonic jets appealing to United is Boom’s plan to power the planes with engines that will run on sustainable aviation fuel. How does a net-zero carbon aircraft work? What is "sustainable" in this context? Carbon credits?
- quux 5y agoNot sure about other countries but under current US laws it wouldn't be able to fly supersonically over land. Boom has been trying to get the laws to be a limit on noise heard on the ground rather than speed but that's going to take a long time to change if ever. If the boom plane or similar is a success and airlines started lobbying for change then maybe something could happen.
- aero-glide2 5y agoRight now, its relegated to ocean crossing routes. They will be using synthetic fuels.
- aetherson 5y agoSo I was interested in how well Boom was doing in keeping to its timeline, and found an article from two years ago: https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/01/supersonic-passenger-jet-firm-raises-100-million-aims-for-2019-test-flights/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/01/supersonic-passenger... Some side-by-side comparisons: 2019 article: "Boom envisions its Overture airliner traveling at Mach 2.2." 2021 article: "a plane that could fly at Mach 1.7" 2019 article: "Its planes could be ready for commercial service in the mid-2020s". 2021 article: "It is targeting the start of passenger service in 2029." The 2019 article also says that Boom is constructing a 1/3rd scale version of Overture that could be making test flights later in 2019. This article from October 2020 says that the 1/3rd scale vehicle was "rolled out" in 2020 and could be ready for test flights in Q3 2021. https://www.forbes.com/sites/erictegler/2020/10/26/boom-supersonics-one-third-scale-prototype-is-as-much-investment-vehicle-as-test-vehicle/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/erictegler/2020/10/26/boom-supe...
- kspacewalk2 5y agoWell, in this way at least, they are quite like Elon Musk's startups.
- qayxc 5y agoThat's to be expected - press releases focus on super-optimistic specs and timelines. After reality kicks in and unforeseen issues arise (remember 2020? me neither), plans need to be adjusted. The scale model was initially expected to fly in 2018 even [1]. I expect further delays to be realistic as well. They either going to deliver sometime in the next decade or go bankrupt/sold out within the next couple of years. [1] https://blog.wandr.me/2017/11/false-hope-boom-supersonic-travel-2018/ https://blog.wandr.me/2017/11/false-hope-boom-supersonic-tra...
- aliswe 5y ago> press releases focus on super-optimistic specs and timelines. I disagree. The job of IR communicators (employed within the company) is not to hype up a stock - its to give correct information regarding it. Every nudge up has a subsequent nudge down, and every nudge down has a subsequent nudge up. If that doesnt make sense, if a positive effect is seen upon a shares price, right after you are almost guaranteed to see a downwards correction explained by a bit of depression at the end of a mania. (stock markets are sometimes referred to as being manic depressive - iirc Warren Buffet said this amongst others). Ingvar Kamprad (founder of IKEA) famously said that entering the stock market is like peeing yourself: "first it becomes warm, warm. then it becomes cold, cold" And vice versa with dips -people seem to momentarily go "well it cant be THAT bad" and at the end of a dip the share price often goes up a little bit. And no corporation wants to have a volatile stock. They want a stable stock that big investors can put money on. That is why the IR communicators jobs are to stabilize the dtock by NOT hypeing anything up in the PRs as they know that if they do, they contribute to the stocks volatility. And this is why we have profit warnings - the IR department saying before a report goes out that "hey - the report is gonna be better than forecasted" or REVERSE profit warnings for the opposite case. (im not an expert so those terms might be reversed) In other words, profit warnings have the sole purpose of stabilizing the stock as do the whole IR depts operations. So a serious publicly noted company would not benefit from doing what you say - "press releases focus on super-optimistic specs and timelines". just my 2 cents, whatever that means.
- mc32 5y agoWonder if the big plane MFGs will be interested in buying them out or believe they have the talent to bring to market if the market proves large enough.
- audunw 5y agoGiven the fuel needed per passenger per mile, I don't think it 's reasonable to call supersonic planes sustainable, even if they use biofuels or synthetic fuels. As long as not all aviation fuel is net zero carbon emission, we shouldn't build/use planes that are unnecessarily inefficient. Also, biofuels and synthetic fuels have their own environmental impact (land use). Supersonic planes are incredibly cool, but I can't help the feeling that it's an unnecessary and harmful luxury at this point. Although, that goes for a lot of other things used by the ultra-wealthy. Maybe ban yachts first?
- isis777 5y agoCompanies will build planes for whatever the market demands. We need regulatory agencies to impose carbon taxes on fuel usage so that inefficient planes are prices accordingly.
- ErikVandeWater 5y agoI imagine it's more damaging to the environment to ground working old planes and replace them with new ones that are 20% more efficient. Grounding old planes will also result in a greater cost of air travel. With increasing nationalism around the globe, that may not be a good thing.
- samatman 5y agoI doubt the first paragraph of this. Aviation uses incredible amounts of fuel, and commercial planes are in the air more often than they are on the ground. My guess is that the embodied energy to operating energy ratio is lower for planes than for any other vehicle.
- Ajedi32 5y agoThe beauty of a market-based solution is that you don't need to worry about details like that. If you price the externalities appropriately, the market will automatically optimize for the most cost-effective, environmentally friendly solution; grounding planes in situations where that makes sense and leaving them running where it doesn't. And yes, a carbon tax would indeed result in "a greater cost of air travel". That's sort of the whole point.
- ciabattabread 5y agoThe planned routes are EWR-LHR, EWR-FRA, and SFO-NRT. United had pulled out of JFK in 2015, but just recently came back, because it turned out JFK's "prestige" factor impacted their business. EWR is a major United hub, but the idea of EWR being blessed with the "prestige" of supersonic flight is a bit funny. Although I wouldn't be surprised if it gets moved to JFK as United rebuilds their operation there. A lot can happen in 8 years.
- xxxtentachyon 5y agoJFK is also a preferable location for staging supersonic flight because you don’t need to pass over/near a massive population center on a route to northern Europe
- ciabattabread 5y agoJFK/EWR/LGA - it's the same congested airspace. Does it really make much of a difference?
- redler 5y agoFor the market this venture is targeting, JFK and perhaps even (after the construction is finally done) LGA would be preferable. Both in the city, both have Centurion lounges, etc. But LGA is a shorter field without a substantive international ops infrastructure. With the end-of-decade timeline, I suspect this will end up launching from JFK.
- secondbreakfast 5y agoLGA doesn't allow any flights from more than 1,500 miles[^0], so has to be either JFK or EWR. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LaGuardia_Airport https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LaGuardia_Airport
- redler 5y agoThe LGA perimeter rule already has holes. Denver is allowed, and the rule doesn't apply on Saturdays. With the much more airline-friendly layout post-construction, it would not be surprising if the rule is changed.
- rsynnott 5y agoReminder that Concorde, and the largely imaginary Boeing SST, had hundreds of orders. Orders do not, in themselves, guarantee a product.
- PaulWaldman 5y agoWhat are the commercials terms for deals like this? I'd image United pays some portion upfront in exchange for a discount and being amung the first to have the plane. Boom gets some cash flow without dilution and validation from an airline. If United is paying a portion upfront, is there risk factored in if Boom can't deliver?
- nradov 5y agoYes the terms are usually like that. The upfront payment is probably fairly small and not material to United. If Boom fails to deliver then United will become one more unsecured creditor in the bankruptcy case.
- notatoad 5y agoI don't know any specifics, but I'd guess that united's up-front payment is near $0, and the main benefit for boom is not the immediate cash flow but the ability to take united's order to a bank and use it to secure a loan.
- notahacker 5y agoThey won't even be able to take it to a bank, but it'll enhance their credibility with VCs. United get a bit of PR, and if Boom does work out they're at the front of the queue and have probably influenced the design a bit by the time it comes to deciding whether to actually pay.
- refurb 5y agoAgreed. These types of agreements, this early, tend to be Letters of Intent that aren’t legally binding OR a contract stating that “if Boom produces planes to agreed upon spec by 2029, United will purchase 15...” plus a bunch of out clauses.
- cududa 5y agoUnited could’ve also invested in the co as part of the deal.
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- NohatCoder 5y agoAm I the only one to suspect that this "order" is mostly a show deal? United Airlines will do anything to seem progressive, and Boom needs some credibility in order to raise more funding.
- WisNorCan 5y agoHopefully, the negative effects of extreme sound pollution on humans and animals will be considered in the trade-offs to save a few hours of flying time for the wealthy. https://www.nonoise.org/library/animals/litsyn.htm https://www.nonoise.org/library/animals/litsyn.htm
- iancmceachern 5y agoFrom what I remember they've found a way to reduce or eliminate the sonic boom issue.
- nabla9 5y agoUnfortunately no. Boom Supersonic don't plan to use low sonic boom technologies. They just rely on ICAO and FAA lowering the noise standards to allow supersonic flight.
- chrisgp 5y agoAren't all of the proposed routes for supersonic planes over oceans?
- 0zymandias 5y agoI might be missing something with your comment, but there are obviously animals that live in and around oceans. So "just" flying at super sonic speeds over oceans seems like it could be a disaster for marine life. The disruption to whales from noise pollution comes to mind
- samatman 5y agoNoise pollution in oceans is a serious concern, yes. But not transferring from the air to the ocean, the phase transition attenuates sound a great deal. It's things like propeller noise and sonar which are causing problems. A sonic boom over the ocean is not going to ruin any whale's day, short of perhaps alarming them when they come up for air.
- cozzyd 5y agoBoom strikes me as a poor name for a plane. I think NotBoom might be better.
- nacs 5y agoMy thoughts exactly. Not just for the "Boom" catastrophic-explosion aspect but also for the very-loud "Boom" sound created as the supersonic speed barrier is crossed.
- sneak 5y agoSonic booms are a continuous wavefront, not caused only once upon crossing the "supersonic speed barrier", but radiating outward continuously from the aircraft (or rather a compression point in front of the aircraft) as it travels. Everyone under the flight path of a supersonic craft gets to hear the boom as it passes over them, even though it is "already" supersonic.
- capableweb 5y agoDo airplanes usually spontaneously explode? I'd agree "Crash" would be a aweful name, but "Boom Supersonic" makes a lot of sense since most people know what kind of sound gets made once you reach supersonic speeds, while I don't remember any exploding planes really, but my memory has been off before.
- cozzyd 5y agoWhat it immediately brings to mind is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_4590 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_4590
- occams_chainsaw 5y agoI think people would more likely associate "boom" with the times planes not-so-spontaneously explode
- bencollier49 5y agoWell most aeroplanes don't spontaneously explode, but the Boom's immediate progenitor Concorde is famous for having done exactly that in Paris upon takeoff. And that was the end of that.
- verytrivial 5y agoI honestly hope VR and other telepresense stuff eats this market's lunch. It seems like an awful lot of resources to throw at the problem of people needing to read each other's social cues in person.
- bmmayer1 5y agoThere will always be a market for faster travel.
- verytrivial 5y agoAnd for people smuggling. I wasn't making an economic argument for one over the other.
- verytrivial 5y agoMoral arguments go down like lead balloons around here.
- Waterluvian 5y agoMight be an obvious question, but is there an engineering reason behind why they have the Avro Arrow / Concorde delta wing? Is that just a thing that makes physics sense for supersonic flight?
- quux 5y agoI think it's physics, yes. If you want to keep the leading edge of the wing behind the supersonic shock cone you need to have a highly swept design and a Concorde style delta wing is a good choice for lots of aerodynamic and engineering reasons.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- dr_ 5y agoIf this works out, we can probably envision a future for travel where there are different price points for different travel times. Traveling to the other side of the world? Cheapest ticket is your traditional 18-22+ hr flight. Next is your 9+ hr flight. Most expensive is the 1hr trip via a rocket ship.
- umeshunni 5y agoArguably we are already there - direct flights for $X, one-stops via Dubai on Emirates for $X * 0.75, two-stops via Manila and a city in China on China Southern for $X * 0.50.
- lormayna 5y agoIt's just a matter of cost for customer: how much a ticket for supersonic flight is going to cost? If the price is comparable with a "normal" business class, I will fly with that one: you have lot of more space to relax and 3/4 hours more are not an issue when you can sleep comfortably.
- bin_bash 5y agoThey claim “$100” eventually which screams vaporware to me. https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/boom-supersonic-four-hours-100-bucks/index.html https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/boom-supersonic-four-hour...
- failwhaleshark 5y agoYeah, that's insane. This must be a stock-market summer pump hype-fest.
- whatgoodisaroad 5y agoI think to start with, it's a matter of cost for the expense account.
- frakkingcylons 5y agoSupposedly around $5000 for a transatlantic flight, compared to $20000 on the Concorde when adjusted for inflation. https://www.flightglobal.com/business-aviation/dubai-boom-to-make-a-big-noise-at-show-about-shortening-long-haul-travel/125948.article https://www.flightglobal.com/business-aviation/dubai-boom-to...
- Anasigns 5y agoThe world’s first purchase agreement for net-zero carbon supersonic aircraft marks a significant step toward our mission to create a more accessible world.
- failwhaleshark 5y agoAerion just went out of the SSBJ business, despite having awesome tech. ): How is UA going to monetize this if Concorde isn't even (re)flying?
- alberth 5y agoI've always been surprised that no major airline has vertically integrated into owning their own plane manufacturer (e.g. United to acquire Boom as a company). Is there a regulatory reason preventing this?
- bfstein 5y agoYes – United used to be owned by Boeing. The Air Mail Act banned common ownership of manufacturers & airlines. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_United_Airlines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_United_Airlines
- pjerem 5y agoIsn't that because airline is a low margin business ? You'd need a ton of cash to own your plane manufacturer. You may have hard time to sell planes to concurrent companies so you cannot scale like Boeing or Airbus. You would be tied to this manufacturer for life and if you start to manufacture defective planes, you are on the highway to bankrupt and selling your plane manufacturer wouldn't even save you because nobody wants a defective airplane manufacturer. Sounds like a lot of risks. But those are just my thoughts, i'm far from being an expert.
- fnord77 5y agoIs their tech any better than what the concorde had 50 years ago?
- lcam84 5y agoDo we really have sustainable aviation fuel?
- pjerem 5y agoOf course not.
- aero-glide2 5y agoIts very expensive right now. Expect that to change
- jillesvangurp 5y agoThere are several viable candidates. The reason this is hard are more related to a lack of infrastructure than fundamental technical issues. Producing vast amounts of fuel and putting the infrastructure in place to get it to airports around the world is a non trivial effort. Here's a list of things that could work: - Hydrogen has been used as rocket fuel and e.g. Airbus is working on adapting jet engines to burn it. Green hydrogen generated from wind/solar would be zero carbon and sustainable. It probably would not be that cheap though. It might also be interesting in combination with fuel cells. Airbus is working on that as well. Late 2030s are apparently what they are shooting for for this. - Methane, also used as a rocket fuel (e.g. SpaceX). There have been multiple attempts to use liquid gas as aviation fuel and if you use e.g. bio gas or synthesize it, it could be sustainable. I don't think there are a lot of companies working on this for aviation but it has definitely worked in the past as a fuel. Of course fossil supplies of methane are plentiful but not very sustainable. Synthesizing it would be similarly expensive as other synthetic fuels. - Ethanol (what boom is apparently proposing to use) is also suitable as a fuel. Corn based ethanol is of course controversial (i.e. only sustainable if you don't look at the production process with too much scrutiny) but there may also be ways to synthesize it in different ways as well. Currently mixing a portion of ethanol in fuels is a popular way for oil companies to green wash their business. Therefore, there's good reason to be wary of companies promoting its use. - Kerosene could feasibly be synthesized long term (just like a lot of other carbohydrates). Technology for that exists but there are a lot of scaling issues to solve. E.g. Shell is working on that. This would obviously be great for powering legacy planes for the foreseeable future. Planes produced today could fly well into the 2050s or beyond. So there is an obvious economic incentive to make that work. IMHO hydrogen is the most obvious path as there is a growing momentum to use it in many other applications and some serious effort to product it in sustainable ways. E.g. Airbus bringing planes to production in the late 2030s could inspire a lot of airports to start investing in related infrastructure. Relative to kerosene, it would be lot less polluting. Co2 is not the only issue associated with burning kerosene. Synthetic Kerosene might be a good second option. Everything else could work but seems less obvious right now.
- mmaunder 5y agoGreat to see so much innovation in aerospace. Boom has said they're going to reduce noise, but they've also said they'll only fly supersonic over water with buffers between supersonic zones and populated areas. So the 'boom', as it were, is still a concern. I'm super interested to see how quiet their planes are at subsonic. If you ever saw the Concorde flying subsonic, it was unbelievably loud. Nothing to do with being supersonic - their engines were just obnoxiously loud. Came into Cape Town a long time ago and made the whole town rumble on final. In this blog post: https://blog.boomsupersonic.com/booms-principles-of-sustainability-2f4a7b638f48 https://blog.boomsupersonic.com/booms-principles-of-sustaina... ..Boom says: "Today’s subsonic commercial aircraft are 80% more fuel efficient than those of the 1960s, and noise footprints have shrunk up to 90% in the last 50 years. This technological progress has fueled Boom’s efforts to design a supersonic airliner that makes economic sense for airlines and their customers. " However, the innovation that enabled this is high bypass turbofan engines. Turns out if you move more air slower, it's way quieter and more fuel efficient because physics. Boom can't take advantage of this - at least directly, because they have to go supersonic. A high bypass turbofan engine is huge, by it's very nature. At supersonic speeds this presents a lot of drag. That's why I'm super curious how they plan to be quiet and fuel efficient while also being supersonic.
- aeternum 5y agoHow about some powerful noise cancelling speakers around the turbofan?
- coopsmoss 5y agoTurbofan noise is nothing compared to sonic boom noise.
- ehnto 5y agoI wonder what the result would be of using pulsejets offset in timing by 50% of eachother.
- AnimalMuppet 5y ago
- elzbardico 5y agoPlease note that in the aviation space, "ordered x planes" is a very, very elastic concept.
- mathgenius 5y agoSpacex is getting so good at making rockets, perhaps one day people will just take a ballistic trajectory across the atlantic, and arrive in 20 minutes! It's hard to imagine anyone being in such a hurry. I wonder if the spacex crew has thought about this at all.
- mmaunder 5y agoThis isn't as crazy as it sounds. Benefits: - You're confining the noise to the takeoff zone rather than the entire flight path. - You're in a vacuum (mostly in LEO) which massively reduces drag and is way more fuel efficient. - Reentry and landing require no fuel with good planning. Space Shuttle was a glider. Down sides: - Atmospheric reentry dissipates a LOT of energy over a short time which introduces risk and complexity. - You expend a lot of energy getting into orbit or your trajectory which also introduces risk and complexity - Vacuum has far greater depressurization risks than 35,000ft
- samatman 5y agoThe main downside is the G forces. Ten minutes at multiple G and an hour in free-fall sounds... fun, kinda? But it also sounds like the kind of thing most people wouldn't tolerate very well. Especially the sort of older folks who could afford it.
- noahmasur 5y agoYou mean like this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqE-ultsWt0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqE-ultsWt0
- thoughtpeddler 5y agoYes at this rate, Boom is competing more with SpaceX than traditional airplane makers. 2029? I read that as 2031-2033. By then, the ballistic approach may be commercially feasible.
- tmilard 5y agoBang! Boom
- xkjkls 5y agoAll of these purchase agreements you need to look at the conditions. Like, what are the exact terms of this purchase agreement? What dates need to be met, what price conditions need to be met, and how cheaply can those be reneged on. A huge amount of time new companies negotiate purchase agreements that have a lot of favorable terms in order to generate PR.
- nemo44x 5y agoIf a seat would be the same as first class today then I'd fly this. A 3 hour flight means I can take off at 7AM local and land in London at 3PM local and be where I'd like to be by 5:00PM local in time for a few drinks and a dinner. This would make jet-lag much easier to deal with. But if it's significantly more, then no.
- Gelob 5y agoTheirs no way united is sending them money for these yet. 2029 passenger flight LOL. We'll see if united or boom are even in business then.
- kumarvvr 5y agoHow is it that a technologically sophisticated aircraft company, that probably burns through cash or needs enough of it, produces advances in technology that have the potential to be useful downstream in other areas, advances human knowledge and experience in a multitude of areas, gets only 141 million, while a creative way to sell people ads (FB, IG, SC....) gets billions of dollars.
- asperous 5y agoValuation is based on risk and net present value of projected profits. Advertising revenue is well proven and arrives quick, while as you mentioned this endeavor has high costs, high risks, and is not likely to be profitable for a long time, decreasing present value.
- inpdx 5y agoShouldn't new plane development be shifting to ghg neutral solutions? This seems like it's moving in the wrong direction.
- parhamn 5y agoWendover Productions has a great video on the latest generation of supersonic airplanes and their comparative advantage over prior attempts like the concorde. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4p0fRlCHYyg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4p0fRlCHYyg
- galgot 5y agoMaybe good to remember that 18 airlines had once placed orders for Concorde, with only the 2 national carriers flying it in service eventually. And that The Boeing 2707 was ordered by 27 airlines before the program being canceled…
- pmastela 5y agohttps://outline.com/BFq3RL https://outline.com/BFq3RL
- nickhalfasleep 5y agoSupersonic aircraft seem like the Erie Canal to me. A much lauded technology that gets beaten by an even newer technology. Any route that could pay for supersonic travel would also take a suborbital Starship hop.
- nickik 5y agoWhat I wonder is about the engines. It seems they are not building them. And they seem to make optimistic claims about them. Say what you want about SpaceX but they developed their own engines and brought real innovation to the table. I'm a lot more skeptical about a company that seems to just wants to buy some engine.
- thedogeye 5y agowhen will they rename the damn company?!
- fblp 5y agoI think it's worth noting that united received $5 billion dollars in federal aid last year. I wonder if they'll pay any of it back or if the surplus this year is going into purchases like this?
- jaytaylor 5y agoHow will ongoing supersonic flight over the ocean impact the whales and other marine life? Presumably the Casual Transcontinental Supersonic travel market implies leaving a long tunnel of sonic boom shockwave sound across the entire ocean for each and every supersonic flight. If there's a supersonic boom in the forest but no human to hear it, might it be an issue for anything else in the forest?
- RickJWagner 5y agoIt seems like a bad idea to name an aircraft manufacturer 'Boom'.
- deeblering4 5y agoDoes anyone else think that “Boom” is a poor choice for an airplane company? Maybe the next vehicle manufacturer will call themselves “Crash”
- beardyw 5y agoI may be wrong but I seem to remember that Concorde was never asked to go into a holding pattern because it just couldn't deal with it. Am I wrong?
- drpixie 5y agoSo it's onward to 1970 ... (You all remember Concorde?)
- NoblePublius 5y agoThe planes don’t exist and probably never will exist. Boom is Silicon Valley randos trying to play SpaceX, praying that their material science investments will somehow garner government investment. Supersonic travel solves no actual problem. Airlines could invest 1/10th the cost of this program to make air travel better so that customers would demand the planes go slower.
- Tucanix 5y agoThis is not what the world needs, these planes will be extremely polluting and inefficient and carry very few people. I doubt if the US properly taxed carbon that these planes would even be considered. This is the worst idea the aviation industry has come up with in quite some time, I thought we learned better than to replicate the bad antique ideas from the past. This seems like something that could only come out of tone deaf and climate denying America. The rest of the industry is trying to improve their climate targets and innovate, this is going straight in the opposite direction. I would sign a petition to ban these planes in a heartbeat. We shape the future through investments, an investment in one thing takes potential away from another. Over a hundred years of fossil fuel investments have starved investments into for example batteries and the electrical grid, not to mention the whole thing was subsidized by the hidden cost of climate change. We as societies have failed hard to provide subsidizes and funding for these technologies, and a carbon tax at least at last reflects the real cost of fossil fuels, and creates innovation that is going to at least be useful in the future.
- peter303 5y agoI visited Boom at the Denver suburban airport facility in 2017 as part of a MIT alumni club tour. They had a 1/3 size mockup then- no passenger seats. I wasn't sure if that was the one they were going to use for flight testing or just for show. A point was most of the design was done done and verified by computer. The Concorde and many of the early military supersonics were designed by sliderule and wind tunnel models, just like Apollo spacecraft.