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Wasn’t TU-144 just a pissing contest entry with retrofitted engines of another aircraft? And Boeing 2707 quickly scrapped? Only Concorde ever saw the light of c

Wasn’t TU-144 just a pissing contest entry with retrofitted engines of another aircraft? And Boeing 2707 quickly scrapped? Only Concorde ever saw the light of commercial operations. It was truly limited by its technology, of that date. And post 9/11 situation sealed its fate, its had one fatality in 20 years, its already better than 747 max by that metric. There is no point in saying Supersonic is impossible, things changed a lot in last few years. Having computer monitors instead of a dedicated flight engineer with gazillion dials and Fly by wire, it can be much more optimised now. Boom just needs to make a working jet, and it would definitely revolutionise aviation again.

speedybird 5y ago
> Wasn’t TU-144 just a pissing contest entry with retrofitted engines of another aircraft? Pissing contest, maybe, but the Tu-144 was its own aircraft. The airframe was designed from day one to be exactly what it was, a supersonic airliner (and contrary to popular myth, the design was not simply stolen from the Concorde although maybe the premise was..) I'm not sure if the original Tu-144 engines, the NK-144's, were originally intended for another plane, but as far as I know the only planes they were ever put in were the Tu-144. They were later replaced by RD-36 engines, which were designed for the Tu-144. And let's not forget the Concorde's engines had a military background. They were derived from engines originally meant for the [cancelled] TSR-2. The major problem I see for Boom is social. Environmental and class/economic concerns particularly; see the public backlash against Jeff Bezos' rocket hop for instance. Not to mention, the little experiment we've been running for the past ~2 years with remote work and teleconferencing has probably reduced demand for high speed business travel.

speedybird 5y ago

> Wasn’t TU-144 just a pissing contest entry with retrofitted engines of another aircraft? Pissing contest, maybe, but the Tu-144 was its own aircraft. The airframe was designed from day one to be exactly what it was, a supersonic airliner (and contrary to popular myth, the design was not simply stolen from the Concorde although maybe the premise was..) I'm not sure if the original Tu-144 engines, the NK-144's, were originally intended for another plane, but as far as I know the only planes they were ever put in were the Tu-144. They were later replaced by RD-36 engines, which were designed for the Tu-144. And let's not forget the Concorde's engines had a military background. They were derived from engines originally meant for the [cancelled] TSR-2. The major problem I see for Boom is social. Environmental and class/economic concerns particularly; see the public backlash against Jeff Bezos' rocket hop for instance. Not to mention, the little experiment we've been running for the past ~2 years with remote work and teleconferencing has probably reduced demand for high speed business travel.