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American Airlines agrees to purchase Boom Supersonic Overture aircraft
- HPsquared 4y agoBoom is quite the name for such a speculative business. What's next, Bubble Airships Inc? (Luxury cruises, the slow route). They could also have a side business in submarine expeditions.
- makz 4y agoAnd how does it align with agenda 2030 and the goal to reduce carbon emissions?
- pythonguython 4y agoAviation makes up a rather small portion of transportation emissions. I don’t think there is much point in focusing on clean air travel when cars and trucks produce such a massive amount of carbon emissions in comparison. https://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/fast-facts-transportation-greenhouse-gas-emissions https://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/fast-facts-transportation-...
- plegresl 4y agoLots of airlines also preordered Concorde: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concorde#Sales_efforts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concorde#Sales_efforts
- flybrand 4y ago> At the time of the first flight the options list contained 74 options from 16 airlines:[44] 14 commercial aircraft were delivered of 20 total.
- alphabetting 4y agoOverture is being designed to carry 65 to 80 passengers at Mach 1.7 over water — or twice the speed of today’s fastest commercial aircraft — with a range of 4,250 nautical miles. Optimized for speed, safety and sustainability, Overture is also being designed to fly more than 600 routes around the world in as little as half the time. Flying from Miami to London in just under five hours and Los Angeles to Honolulu in three hours are among the many possibilities. Probably will be very expensive but it's exciting for future possibilities
- akmarinov 4y agoNot only very expensive, but basically coach class all the way through, even for the rich people.
- ISL 4y agoRich people value time highly. Coach-class that gets you somewhere quickly can be worth a lot more than first-class that takes twice as long.
- zionic 4y agoAlso sanity. I’ve done a 16 hour flight before, and let me say never again. I slept for half of it and the other half was still miserable.
- missedthecue 4y agoI don't think I could sleep for 8 hours on a plane
- rhino369 4y agoThe business class lay flat seats are pretty comfortable. I was able to sleep 8-9 hours on them, but was interrupted sleep. Better than nothing.
- 4y ago
- onychomys 4y ago> American has paid a non-refundable deposit on the initial 20 aircraft. Pretty glad I don't own American stock right now, because they're apparently led by madmen.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- mikeyouse 4y agoIt's phrased in such a way to give the idea that they've made a significant commitment, but it's entirely possible it was something like a 1% down payment.
- bombcar 4y agoThis is almost certainly how it was done - and even the "fully refundable" deposits airlines make with Boeing, et al are going to have "fixed non-refundable costs" even just to handle the paperwork.
- mikeyouse 4y agoRight. If you're going to place a deposit for aircraft with a startup airplane manufacturer, "refundable" only makes sense if you're willing to take warrants or something that will grant you IP when the company folds. If Boom doesn't deliver the aircraft, the company folds and goes bankrupt, it's not like the deposit funds are just held in escrow. Might as well make it "nonrefundable" to get the PR value.
- 1024core 4y agoThe free publicity alone will pay for that.
- rjmunro 4y ago"Non-refundable deposit" could be $1. In exchange they get their name mentioned in a load of press as being associated with new technology etc., so massively worth it for them. Also worth it for Boom as having "orders" from credible airlines makes them look more credible.
- bragr 4y ago>American has paid a non-refundable deposit on the initial 20 aircraft. I guess that's not nothing given how these sorts of contracts usually give the big name brand company lots of outs if the speculative company goes bust, but by bragging about it without specifying the amount, I'm guessing it's a low amount.
- flybrand 4y agoCompanies love low cost R&D that doubles as low cost marketing!
- gitfan86 4y agoAlso I'm assuming it is hard to do this kind of project internally because it seems so cool. A lot of employees would be upset if they were not allowed to take part.
- hef19898 4y agoNot that American Airlines ever was in the business of developing or building aircraft in the first place.
- atdrummond 4y agoI will say that I’ve seen plenty of “non-refundable” contracts in this industry (see Qatar’s ongoing tiff with Airbus over coating peeling issues) result in either side unilaterally cancelling delivery of airframes. It would really come down to what exactly went wrong whether or not AA could truly couldn’t claw that deposit back.
- hermitdev 4y agoI'm pretty sure it's nonrefundable from the stance of AA can't just change its mind and get its money back. If Overture fails to deliver on certain metrics, I'd be willing to bet AA has a refundable out.
- gbronner 4y agoCurious how the combination of remote work, videoconferencing, and the really luxurious business class / first class on sub-mach aircraft will compare to this. This is slower and smaller than concorde, so we'll see if the market really values speed over convenience / luxury. Boeing made the opposite decision 20 years ago when they cancelled the sonic cruiser.
- pySSK 4y agoThere is no substitute for F2F for some types of work. Everyone I know hates flying, even if it is lie-flat. If someone can reduce the pain of flying to UK/Europe and Asia by knocking a few hours off then I would definitely prefer it.
- jaywalk 4y agoWhy would you assume this aircraft wouldn't have a luxurious cabin? It looks pretty nice from the one rendering they have on the site. 1-1 seating, so direct aisle access for all. Plenty of room.
- thematrixturtle 4y agoRenders of any new aircraft always show them full of bars, gyms, bowling alleys etc, but the reality is just as many seats crammed in as they can fit, and then some.
- 4y ago
- flerchin 4y agoNot a lot to go on here. Boom projects first flight in 2026 for the Overture. They seem to be fairly close to first flight with their XB-1, but it has not flown yet. I congratulate them on getting funding, but all the hard parts are ahead. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boom_XB-1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boom_XB-1
- Rebelgecko 4y agoAwkward... The website FAQs still say "XB-1 test flights are planned for early 2022."
- brandmeyer 4y agoWay more delayed than that. Once upon a time, they were planning on test flights in 2017. Then 2018. Then 2019. Then 2020. Etc. https://interestingengineering.com/culture/boom-xb1-supersonic-test-flights https://interestingengineering.com/culture/boom-xb1-superson... https://www.denverpost.com/2017/06/20/centennial-boom-supersonic-airplane-design/ https://www.denverpost.com/2017/06/20/centennial-boom-supers... https://www.flightglobal.com/strategy/paris-boom-xb-1-schedule-slips-while-jal-eyes-overture/133222.article https://www.flightglobal.com/strategy/paris-boom-xb-1-schedu...
- 0x457 4y agoXB-1 is a prototype plane for R&D. It's target first flight now is fall 2022. Overture is a production model for commercial operations.
- hef19898 4y agoEhich measn, technically and legally, XB-1 isn't an aircraft. As pointed out elsewhere, the hard stuff is up ahead. Cudos so for BOOM for having customers signed on, something a lot of eVTOL companies only managed to do very recently.
- zionic 4y agoBy 2026, with the typical delay till 2028 they’ll face the prospect of Earth-2-Earth starship flights
- JCM9 4y agoStrong FOMO settling in. Premium transatlantic routes routes like NYC-LHR are super important to the bottom line of the big legacy carriers. If one airline has supersonic and others don’t that could be a huge blow to the others. Of course things didn’t work out that way with Concorde, which was not commercially successful and more of a spectacle than something founded in business fundamentals. But if Boom can make supersonic passenger travel economics work out it would certainly be hugely disruptive.
- moffkalast 4y agoConcorde also didn't work out for management reasons and generated most revenue right before retirement when they they finally lowered ticket prices and stopped flying them half empty like the absolute idiots they were.
- thematrixturtle 4y agoReally? I thought it was exactly the other way around: Concorde was initially underpriced, and only started making money once pricing was yanked up to what the market would bear.
- bryanlarsen 4y agoInteresting, I had heard the opposite. BA did a survey of passengers and realized that most passengers had no idea how much the tickets were worth since their employers had purchased the tickets for them. They thought their employers paid more than they actually did, so BA realized that they could considerably increase prices without losing many customers. BA raised prices and finally started turning a profit on Concorde.
- ghaff 4y agoAs I recall Concorde was something like 30% over first class. Which was very expensive at the time.
- bryanlarsen 4y ago
- HPsquared 4y agoHow is the fuel efficiency of these? They go faster, but I assume they would also fly higher where the air is thinner. Does it cancel out?
- akmarinov 4y agoAdding to the supersonic questions - how will they deal with the sonic booms? I assume they're still banned over land, which significantly adds to travel time?
- nradov 4y agoThey will deal with the sonic booms the same way that Condorde did: by flying over water.
- rflrob 4y agoThe routes they mentioned in the press release (NYC-LHR, LAX-Hawaii) are almost entirely over water.
- skellera 4y agoAs the press release says, it’s specifically designed to replace over water routes. There are many international routes (some domestic, like Hawaii) that this can handle. So it won’t be doing anything like LA->NY.
- cjrp 4y agoI wonder how noisy they are even sub-sonic. Concorde was so loud on takeoff and approach, you'd stop and look up even living ~20 miles away from Heathrow. If you tried to introduce that now, there's no way would it be accepted.
- zip1234 4y agoOld jet engines are super noisy. Modern jet engines are much much quieter.
- 4y ago
- paxys 4y agoThey agreed to purchase 20 aircraft, not the company itself. The title is a bit ambiguous.
- spatulon 4y agoSorry, I had to reword and shorten the headline from the linked page to fit within HN's title length limit.
- simonebrunozzi 4y agoQuite misleading - not that you did it intentionally, but the title "reads" as AA acquires the company, not an order for 20 aircrafts. Better title - and still within HN limits - would have been: "American Airlines to buy 20 Overture aircraft from Boom Supersonic"
- balderdash 4y agoYeah should say places order for boom aircraft
- aliswe 4y agoAgreed
- s0rce 4y agoThanks for clarifying I was confused why an airline was getting into the airliner business, this makes much more sense.
- th1s1sit 4y ago
- ZeroGravitas 4y agoI wonder if a transatlantic hop on this, with electric flight on either end can work to replace direct transatlantic flights while being faster and greener? Probably all depends on the switchovers.
- exyi 4y agoThis will be hardly greener than taking a regular aircraft.
- ZeroGravitas 4y agoIt depends really. About half the GHG impact of flights is non carbon. Is this better or worse on that account? I have no idea. But it potentially could be substantially different either way.
- skellera 4y agoIf Boom is able to come out with a new supersonic aircraft, is it possible for a startup to compete with Boeing or Airbus in subsonic aircraft? Either coming up with a new design or another innovation that can compete. Or, are those companies pretty much set with impassable moats?
- hef19898 4y agoUnless Boeing or Airbus screw up financially, which is almost impossible, the duopoly is set in stone. It will take massive government backing to change that, Airbus itself is proof of that. The only parties that do challenge the big two on single aile jets are Bombardier and Embraer, one of which was bought by Airbus and one which was almost bought by Boeing.
- bobthepanda 4y agoRight. At this point a new aircraft program is easily $15B+ of development. That kind of money is hard to come by for a new aviation company. China, Russia, and Japan have all tried breaking into the market as well without much success.
- sonthonax 4y agoWhy aren't the Chinese and Russians successful at building airliners? International politics aside, they have workable products, so why can't they break into the duopoly.
- bobthepanda 4y agoWorkable != competitive, and in an industry as cutthroat in aviation airlines want the absolute best in fuel efficiency and reliability to undercut their competitors by $5. There are other commercial aircraft manufacturers but essentially in each size segment you will only see two players. Embraer doesn‘t make any direct competitors with Airbus or Boeing, as an example.
- dkfkdkckdjzj 4y ago
- danvoell 4y agoThought it was an acquisition. Maybe change headline to “purchase aircraft from”
- pinewurst 4y agoI'm reminded of all the airline announcements at the end of the 60s announcing agreed purchases of Concorde and Boeing 2707.
- upupandup 4y agoand guess what happened at that time too: capital suddenly got very expensive and companies went under. this is the worst possible time for launch and the name will be quite poetic
- bell-cot 4y agoFrom Boom's Wikipedia page, they seem to have built zero airplanes which even attempted to take off. That includes their 1/3 scale "technology demonstrator" test plane - which was supposed to fly back in 2017. I'll guess that American's "non-refundable deposit" for the first 20 Boom aircraft was pretty small, and came out of American's marketing budget. Or was a negotiating tactic, to help American get a better price from some real aircraft manufacturer.
- zahma 4y agoOn the heels of a news headline saying they’ve cancelled another 30,000 flights through November, I’d bet you’re on to something. https://www.consumeraffairs.com/news/american-airlines-to-cut-31000-flights-from-its-november-schedule-081622.html https://www.consumeraffairs.com/news/american-airlines-to-cu...
- sktrdie 4y agoDo we really need to go somewhere so quickly? There needs to be a line somewhere where "getting to the other side of the planet in less than 12 hours is unsustainable and environmentally horrible". I've learned to appreciate slow-travel using trains and have been a supporter of electric planes for reaching further places.
- newsclues 4y agoSome people want to live and work in different places. Rather than high speed rail to get the masses into cities for work, we are getting fast planes for the wealthy to work in NYC and spend the weekend in European villas. Makes you scratch your head trying to justify this while climate change is encouraging people to eat bugs.
- sofixa 4y ago> Rather than high speed rail to get the masses into cities for work That wouldn't really work outside of some very specific cases. High speed rail (300km/h+) needs some distance to get to its cruising speed. Below that it's a waste of money. The shortest high-speed rail route i know of is Paris-Reims and it takes 40 minutes, which is decent for a commute, depending on home/work to train station distance.
- starwind 4y agoFrom SNL: Start-up airline Boom Supersonic has announced it is going to fly passengers anywhere in the world in four hours or less for just a hundred dollars. So get ready to fly fast and cheap on the only airline named after the sound of an explosion. On a personal note, this company is based out of Centennial Airport (KAPA) which is in my neighborhood
- mbg721 4y ago"We are beginning our ascent, and thank you for flying BOOM!,"
- awb 4y agoIt's the manufacturer's name, not the airline. No one says "Thank you for flying Airbus". They would still say "Thank you for flying American Airlines".
- mbg721 4y agoIt's better than saying "AA". I was going someplace on the double-A highway and needed directions, so I plugged it into Google Maps and got to hear about the "AAAAAHHH!!!!!" Highway the entire time.
- choletentent 4y agoTo the marketers at Boom, what a terrible name choice for an air plane company fellows.
- galgot 4y agoSo they went from scaled down Concorde configuration : https://www.airway.com.br/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Boom_Overure.jpg https://www.airway.com.br/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Boom_Ov... to a very scaled down Boeing 2707-300 configuration : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_2707 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_2707 (that tiny fin tho...). While reducing cruise speed to 1.7 mach. I see no visible changes to deal with the sonic booms problem. So operation would be like Concorde I suppose, subsonic (or hi-subsonic) over land and Supersonic over ocean only. Unless the super-rich manage the regulation to change. EDIT : ah yes :) "2x FASTER OVER WATER" and "20% FASTER OVER LAND"... Also : Maybe 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…
- jandrese 4y agoAnd they still have not solved the problem that ultimately sunk the Concorde. Fuel costs made it unprofitable to operate whenever the price of oil went up. The small niche of customers willing to pay a significant premium in order to save some travel hours is not big enough to sustain an entire industry of specialized mechanics, parts suppliers, pilots, etc... Basically you need a critical mass of people riding these aircraft every year before the relatively high fixed costs eat you alive, and it's very hard to get a lot of people to buy into a high priced luxury service.
- Retric 4y agoThey seem to have dramatically reduced fuel consumption, but fuel wasn't the issue for the concord the limited number of viable routes where. Going from the Concrods 3550nm range to 4250nm should help with that as it opens up several new routes and longer routes see a more significant drop in travel times.
- jandrese 4y agoFuel prices were absolutely an issue for Concorde. BA struggled immensely with the Arab oil embargo and the per-seat cost for the Concorde shot up into the stratosphere and ticket sales collapsed.
- TheDudeMan 4y ago"agreement to purchase up to 20" So, possibly zero. OK, thanks for the update.
- ds 4y agoMeaningless PR bullshit without knowing how much the down payment was. Wouldnt be surprised if American put less than 1m down, which makes this nothing more than a slightly expensive PR campaign.
- pdx_flyer 4y agoI can't roll my eyes enough.
- ChicagoBoy11 4y agoI'm surprised by this... I'd imagine that all of the BS we've added to airport procedures (under the guises of "security", mostly), would sort of help negate the typical "Concorde" case. In a universe where you still need to show up umpteen hours early for check-in, baggage, security, does having a plane that may cut a fraction of the time of the trip really seem compelling?
- vimy 4y agoSeems more alluring as a private jet.
- ChicagoBoy11 4y agoTHAT would make tons of sense to me... here the flight is a greater share of the overall flight time, so cutting into that yields a greater percentage reduction on overall travel time, which is presumably the variable you'd want to most affect.
- rocket_surgeron 4y agoGetting from curb-to-gate today is easier and faster than it was pre-9/11. That's just domestic. For international travel it has been a literal exponential decrease in hassle. Of course, this all depends on whether or not the airport you use (and it is 100% dependent on the airport itself) has deployed all of the automated systems being used to lower terminal transit times.
- simonebrunozzi 4y agoIMHO a better title would have been: "American Airlines to buy 20 Overture aircraft from Boom Supersonic" When reading the original title, I had the impression that the company was going to be acquired by AA. Instead, it's "just" an order of 20 aircrafts. Note that this is not a new move by Boom, they played this card when raising money when they pitched at YC demo day, and they're doing it again. The problem I have with this is the following: > agreement to purchase up to 20 Overture aircraft, with an option for an additional 40. American has paid a non-refundable deposit on the initial 20 aircraft It's "up to 20", and not "20", and there is a non-disclosed non-refundable deposit. If it's a, say, $10,000 per aircraft, total of $200,000 (ouch, should I say... up to $200,000?), it's a just a cheaper ad for AA, and ammo for the CEO when the board asks "where are you innovating?". Good luck to Boom, but I am unconvinced this is a viable company and a viable business.
- Rackedup 4y ago> When reading the original title, I had the impression that the company was going to be acquired by AA. Same... at least they should put an S to aircraft... but then again maybe they hit the strict character limit...
- metadat 4y agoThe plural of aircraft is still "aircraft".
- Rackedup 4y agosometimes I don't get English...
- mrcartmeneses 4y agoThe grammar is easier then German
- tankenmate 4y agoIt's an artefact of where English gets the word "craft" from. In general in English the plural of uncountable things is the same as the singular. For example, the plural of sugar is sugar (sugars in English implies a group of different types of sugar). The word craft comes to English from Germanic (kraft). The meanings of these two words (English craft vs German kraft) diverged over time. In English the word has a meaning similar to that which is made or the manner in which it is made. Whereas in German it means the means by which something is made (i.e. power, in both the physics and non-physics sense). For example Kraftwerk in German means power station. Since the "means by which" is uncountable (craft) then the plural should be the same as the singular; i.e. one craft, many craft. This also applies in English to older agglutinates like aircraft. Newer agglutinates (for example laptop) are far less likely to follow this rule; one laptop, many laptops. English, due to its muddled heritage and well intentioned but half informed linguists over the years, is a very messy language.
- panick21_ 4y agoMhh, whenever I heard about them, I looking at their current successes. Did they not promise to launch a sub-scale supersonic plane to test out everything? It has still not flown unless I have missed something. So why should I trust that their main airliner is anywhere even close to on-time.
- mmaunder 4y agoBurning more Jet-A to get less people around the world faster has got to be the most tone deaf idea this decade. I'm a pilot, I just attended Airventure, and I love the history around SR-71, Concorde and the other incredible high speed planes we've built. But this is an idea that had its time and aviation has moved on to high bypass turbofan engines, reliability, safety, fuel efficiency and reducing our environmental impact. There is so much opportunity for innovation in areas of aviation where we desperately need to innovate: Getting rid leaded avgas, moving away from fossil fuels altogether which includes fields like energy storage and electric propulsion, developing an efficient trainer to replace the piston lead-gasoline burning C172 that is so ubiquitous and makes up much of the 1500 required hours for an ATP license. So many opportunities. Aviation is ripe for innovation. This ain't it.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- mmaunder 4y agoJust want to reply to my own post here to add that most people don't realize that the Cirrus SR22 is the world's best selling single engine piston aircraft and has been for the past 20 years. And it's wholly owned by the Chinese government. I'm aware this is a different market, but I want to illustrate how we're losing our lead in some critical areas, while we focus on creating solutions looking for a problem. Incidentally, Boom is 5 minutes from my office here in Centennial, Colorado and where I fly out of KAPA. I'd like to see innovative US aerospace companies succeed, but I feel like these guys are chasing the wrong idea.
- pdx_flyer 4y agoLet us not forget that American is $36B in debt after a huge amount of borrowing to get it through COVID.
- mertnesvat 4y agoI wonder what Elon thinks about this. There was one demo from SpaceX about using their rockets for Trips where they can lower down transatlantic flights to 20 30 mins (if you have strong sto-mach) Or Boring Company focused to hyperloops. My humble opinion is that it's aviation company without huge innovation or disruption of the industry. More like a fast horse rather than car.
- malkia 4y agoRecently I've read an article about plane leasing, and it left me realizing that air-companies lease planes from such companies (one of biggest ones are Ireland) rather than buying them. https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/28/irish-lessors-have-terminated-all-russian-airline-leases-says-ali.html https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/28/irish-lessors-have-terminate... "Aircraft Leasing Ireland (ALI), members of which include SMBC Aviation Capital, Avolon, Aircastle and AerCap Holdings, which is the world’s biggest aircraft leasing company, said that all of its members have complied fully with the sanctions."
- ucha 4y agoTo everyone saying this will not work because it's more expensive... jets were more expensive than turboprops. And even though the former use more fuel, we prefer them. The costs of flying an airplane isn't proportional to its fuel usage. The faster an aircraft is, the more flights it can perform per day. The carbon emissions impact of flying a gas-guzzling supersonic aircraft aren't evident either. Of course, more gas is used per trip but fewer planes need to be manufactured. Since there is no supersonic business jet, it could also make sense for some people who used to fly private for the speed and convenience to reconsider as they may get faster to their destination by flying supersonic.
- foo92691 4y agoThe fuel burned by an aircraft is almost certainly the dominant portion of its lifecycle carbon emissions. I expect the carbon emissions due to its manufacture are negligible by comparison. Have you seen a source either way?
- ucha 4y agoYou're right.
- nautilius 4y ago> The costs of flying an airplane isn't proportional to its fuel usage. The faster an aircraft is, the more flights it can perform per day. It is indeed not proportional, but not in the way you are thinking. Drag (and ~fuel consumption) scales with velocity squared, so a plane flying twice at fast (and neglecting any time at the airport, which would make the argument even worse) would use four times as much fuel. I.e., even if twice the amount of passengers would be served, it would be done for four times the fuel consumption and four times the carbon emissions (or twice the fuel consumption per trip).
- panick21_ 4y ago> a plane flying twice at fast would use four times as much fuel Not that this only applies if they fly at the same altitude. If you fly higher you can avoid that. That of course causes other problems but it is a relevant factor.
- testing654321 4y agothis is wild
- pinky1417 4y agoAs someone who has actually flown on the Concorde, I can say that I'd gladly endure its tight seats again and empty my wallet in exchange for a shorter flight. Heck, if I had the option between spending $20,000 for a NY-London roundtrip on an Overture (the same price for that route on the Concorde, inflation-adjusted) versus spending $20,000 to charter a long-range private jet (likely a significant underestimate), I'd go for the Overture in most cases. However, although I'm rooting for any company that's making a sincere (as opposed to fraudulent) attempt at bringing back supersonic travel, the hardest challenges may still be ahead for Boom. The biggest one is the need to find or build a new engine. They've recently redesigned the Overture to use four engines instead of two, which should ease required engine specs, but there's no engine that would meet the reliability, noise, fuel consumption, and dimension requirements for a supersonic passenger aircraft. Related to the engines: money. It sounds impressive that boom raised at least $150 million, including $60 million from the US Air Force (which has the added advantage of creating a new customer segment in the military)... until you learn engine development alone would require in the ballpark of $6 BILLION of capital. Aviation history is rife with examples of amazing, innovative aircraft designs that failed because no suitable engine was available. Also, Boom leadership has set some ambitious goals, which makes me a bit skeptical. They plan on using sustainable aviation fuel (SAF). Great! But now they not only need to create a new engine, they need to create a new engine that runs off of a new fuel. Additionally, they've set a goal price of $5,000 for a New York to London roundtrip whereas Concorde would've cost $20,000 for the same route. Heck, I once paid $8,000 for a Boston to Tokyo roundtrip business class flight. Nothing wrong with setting such a goal (and Boom isn't even the party that sets route prices) and it's OK for marketing claims to be a tad optimistic, but this tests the limits of credibility. Lastly, there's the issue of possible routes, which is primarily limited by noise constraints. Unlike the Concorde, which needed afterburners to produce sufficient thrust for takeoff, Boom is going for a no-afterburner design. While this should expand the number of airports the Overture can use since afterburners won’t be blasting the neighborhood, you’re still not going to be able to fly over land. Boom suggest 500 routes are supersonically viable[1], which I’d assume means “pairs of international airports separated mostly by water”. We might be talking about something like 50 actual airports. only a fraction of those routes are not just supersonically viable, but economically viable. Of course, commercial aircraft are designed for particular types of routes. An Embraer ERJ-145 regional jet and the Boeing 787 long-range wide-body jet fly different routes. I’m not expert on this though; maybe 500 routes is plenty for a “total addressable market” in the aviation industry, To bring it all together: my big issues with Boom are, one, engine development and, two, the choice of “hard problems” they decided to take on (specifically, SAF & cheap tickets). My hopes are that the engines are in development, using SAF instead of conventional fuel isn’t a big deal if you design for from the start, and the $5,000 thing is more about saying how low, hypothetically, an airline could price tickets while making money. I’d also like to know what the current status of the state-of-the-art is in quiet supersonic flight. NASA’s quiet supersonic demonstrator, the Lockheed Martin X-59 QuSST, combined with regulators’ desire to decide on supersonic overland travel in 2028, would open up new routes like JFK-LAX for planes meeting noise requirements, should regulators decide to allow it. My hypothesis on Boom’s design choices? Quiet supersonic cruise is still technically challenging and has an uncertain regulatory future, and the political tide may be turning towards greater regulation on fossil fuels. So, by using SAF, Boom ensures that their plan will at least fly in an uncertain regulatory future, even if there’s no overland flight. And, using what they learned developing the Overture, they’ll be in a position to develop a quiet supersonic transport should regulators give the green light. [1] I’d interpret routes to be something like airport-pairs, as in Laguardia-Heathrow would be one route. If you Boom could fly from three airports in the US to or from three airports in Europe, you’d have nine routes (3*3). This article talks a bit about the lack of clarity with Boom’s “route” number: <https://leehamnews.com/2021/06/04/hotr-500-destinations-for-boom-goes-bust/ https://leehamnews.com/2021/06/04/hotr-500-destinations-for-...>
- nwatson 4y agoThis is good news for Greensboro, NC and the NC Triad region. The Boom manufacturing/assembly will be done there (at least partially). HondaJet already manufactures there, and there are a number of other aerospace manufacturers in the area. (A lot of embedded and mixed-signal too.) I live in a neighboring town not far from the boutique Triad Semiconductor, which designs digital/analog chips and components for many applications, including space.
- Bubble_Pop_22 4y agoIf TSA is abolished or scaled down significantly then this plane is dead on arrival. 7hrs London to NYC are more than acceptable, too bad it ends up being 10hrs
- qazxcvbnmlp 4y agoIt already is if you fly business class. I’ve done drop off to gate <10 minutes at LAX & SEA multiple times.
- Bubble_Pop_22 4y agoDude we get it, you ballin /s
- leecarraher 4y agois the contract public? i would like to see what contingency is in place if Boom fails to deliver. Or more to the point, is this more PR to make AA appear to be forward looking, and bolster Boom's reputation with a deal that will never come to fruition. It's a win-win for investors
- namirez 4y agoI was speaking with one the top managers of Airbus and asked him about Boom Supersonic and the Overture. He was skeptical of the idea mostly because of fuel consumption. He said based on their research, the future of flight is slower not faster. Open fan, hydrogen, and electrical planes all point to a slower and more efficient aviation.
- rektide 4y agoLet us all hope. It's hard to imagine any future at all where this planet starts adding newly inefficienct means of travel. That there might be a market for faster travel is no comfort.
- janef0421 4y agoThese planes are utterly pointless. The cost and experience will never be competitive with an overnight flight in business class, and the combination of the ongoing environmental crisis and the low efficiency make fuelling it practically impossible. Functionally equivalent to a Ponzi scheme.
- MR4D 4y agoJust in time for the newest wave of de-globalization. I’m betting against this , even if it’s sound on other fronts.