9 ms·

Boom takes the wraps off its supersonic Symphony engine design

70 points by dirtyaura 4y ago

4ndrewl 4y ago
- thinkmcfly 4y ago
  Just months ago weren't they hoping to use someone else's engine? and now already they have this?
  - masklinn 4y ago
    Rolls Royce dropped them in September, after a 2 years partnership thing.
- tmitchel2 4y ago
  Interesting you say that, I look at a company like Arrival and think fantasy company, they don't show any of their manufacturing processes, instead doing robot dances. However, boom looks to be taking a modern but practical approach to their manufacturing and have a test plane almost ready to fly. Timelines are aggressive but if contend that wouldn't put it in fantasy land.
  - ulfw 4y ago
    Test plan will fly with what engine?
echelon 4y ago
So these are their new partners after Rolls-Royce dropped them [1]? Hopefully it works out this time. This is a very hard problem, and they're outsourcing one of the most critical components. [1] https://denvergazette.com/news/business/colorado-s-boom-supersonic-loses-its-engine-partner-rolls-royce/article_3fe35522-32e9-11ed-8d25-931e94f18ade.html https://denvergazette.com/news/business/colorado-s-boom-supe...
- ulfw 4y ago
  I don’t See them as a serious business. When the four major engine producers are all not on board there just isn’t anything technologically advanced out there. Engine development is very expensive.
- bagels 4y ago
  With this announcement, I wondered to myself which party decided to end the partnership? It's highly probable that Rolls-Royce left the deal, and not vice versa, but the GP press release leaves that question unanswered.
- geocrasher 4y ago
  Every aircraft manufacturer outsources their engines to other manufacturers. This is normal in the aerospace industry. Even rockets have motors made by different companies most of the time. As far as this particular project goes though, I would have a hard time expecting it to succeed. They have a great number of hurdles to overcome, and the engine design has to be the biggest one. Designing an engine that can work efficiently in both subsonic and supersonic regimes without an afterburner is very very difficult.
cromulent 4y ago
Still interested in the business model. Supersonic flight is over land is illegal in the US. https://www.faa.gov/newsroom/supersonic-flight https://www.faa.gov/newsroom/supersonic-flight
- dharmab 4y ago
  NASA is testing new supersonic designs to see if they can be quiet enough for the ban to be revisited. https://www.nasa.gov/specials/Quesst/ https://www.nasa.gov/specials/Quesst/
- nszceta 4y ago
  There is a procedure that allows supersonic operation under certain conditions granted on an individual basis. In addition, any new aircraft would need to meet current airworthiness and noise certification requirements.
  - cromulent 4y ago
    Yes the link I posted mentions that. > Currently, U.S. law prohibits flight in excess of Mach 1 over land unless specifically authorized by the FAA for purposes stated in the regulations. The two supersonic rulemaking activities would not rescind the prohibition of flight in excess of Mach 1 over land.
- phire 4y ago
  There has been some openness towards reversing the ban. But it doesn't look any serioys movement will happen until after someone makes a plane and proves it's quiet enough. So Boom are taking a bit of a leap of faith, and also designing it to be capable of trans-Atlantic flights as a semi-profitable backup plan.
Rapzid 4y ago
It's built specifically for an alternative consumable, the largest expensive of a flight right?, that cost SEVERAL TIMES what the standard consumable costs right now? That's a.. Forward looking design.
- stephen_g 4y ago
  SAF is generally made to be compatible with regular jet fuel so I would expect it should work with either, even if it’s optimised for a particular type of SAF.
beefman 4y ago
I want to believe but my B.S. detector is pegged at 11 with this company.
- akiselev 4y ago
  > The Symphony engine will be designed from scratch by Boom’s partners: Florida Turbine Technologies (a subsidiary of Kratos) will do the engine design proper, GE Additive will consult on manufacturing, and StandardAero will be on maintenance duty. (FTA) They're (Boom) not the ones designing it. Kratos Turbine Technologies has made turbopumps for liquid rockets so they're well placed to do this work. The hard part is making the rotors which I bet is why GE is involved.
  - phire 4y ago
    Interestingly, it's not GE Aviation (the GE division who make engines) but GE Additive, a division of GE who specialise in Additive manufacturing (aka 3D printing) metal parts. So it's going to have 3d printed rotors and probally other , which is super cool. GE Additive have previously made 3d printed turbine parts for GE Aviation[1], so they do have some experience. Also, this appears to be Kratos' second jet engine [2] [1] https://www.ge.com/news/reports/mad-props-3d-printed-airplane-engine-will-run-year https://www.ge.com/news/reports/mad-props-3d-printed-airplan... [2] https://www.janes.com/defence-news/news-detail/kratos-completes-testing-on-affordable-turbine-engine-for-missiles-uavs https://www.janes.com/defence-news/news-detail/kratos-comple...
    - mnw21cam 4y ago
      Turbine blades are the bits that whizz around really fast and are subject to extremes of temperature and force. Established engine manufacturers go to interesting lengths to make turbine blades made of interesting materials like single crystal metal alloys just so that they can cope with the conditions. In a jet engine, a small increase in working temperature gives a significant improvement in efficiency and performance. I can't see how 3D-printed turbine blades could possibly be a good idea.
sschueller 4y ago
How much time was wasted in meetings to come up with "symphony" for the name of their engine. Who gives a crap what the engine is called? Just give it a serial number and be done with. Edit: By serial number I mean some insignificant labelling instead of a marketing campaign. Sell me the supersonic trip not the engines that you have to build to make it work.
- bagels 4y ago
  It doesn't exist yet, hard to meaningfully put a serial number on a rendering. Edit: Investors is their audience for this announcement, less so potential customers.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
KingOfCoders 4y ago
"35,000 pounds of thrust" Can anyone compare this to other commercial and military engines?
- bagels 4y ago
  Google says "The most recent model, the 747-8, has engines that produce 66,000lbs of thrust."
- akiselev 4y ago
  A popular turbofan with civilian fighter jets is the TFE731 with 3,500–4,750 lbf [1] and can be fitted to i.e. the L39 Albatross trainer jet. [2] Supersonic jets like the F5 might use something like the GE J85 which produces a base 3,500 lbf or 5,000 with an afterburner [3]. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garrett_TFE731 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garrett_TFE731 [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aero_L-39_Albatros https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aero_L-39_Albatros [3] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Electric_J85 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Electric_J85
  - julienfr112 4y ago
    civilian fighter jet ? Is that a US thing ?
    - akiselev 4y ago
      Mostly. Ironically the most popular civilian fighter jet is a Soviet era Czech design (the aforementioned L39). Even in the US though, they are relatively limited in where they can fly and require an experimental aircraft authorization. It’s relatively impractical in most of Europe because they’re not allowed to fly above populated areas except to take off and land (at least in the US)
      - rosnd 4y ago
        You don't actually have to worry about any of this stuff, if you have the money to buy one of these you also have the money to register it in a third country. >It’s relatively impractical in most of Europe because they’re not allowed to fly above populated areas except to take off and land (at least in the US) FWIW this is mostly a US problem.
thdrtnl 4y ago
The original announcement has more information about this: https://boomsupersonic.com/flyby/post/introducing-symphony-the-sustainable-and-cost-efficient-engine-for-overture https://boomsupersonic.com/flyby/post/introducing-symphony-t... It seems Boom designed some engine ideas and is now partnering with other companies to see if it can be built. This sounds a little like Magic Leap. Sell great ideas and then conclude it can't be made (yet).
low_tech_punk 4y ago
Interesting play on names. A Symphony sounds like the boomed up version of Concorde.
whinvik 4y ago
It's very disappointing to see how skeptical HN has become about new technology. Making aircrafts is hard, making supersonic aircraft even harder and making a new supersonic aircraft company hardest of all. That there's progress by Boom should be encouraged. Otherwise we are just saying that aircrafts will continue to be the domain of Airbus and Boeing only who don't have much incentive to innovate.
- masklinn 4y ago
  > It's very disappointing to see how skeptical HN has become about new technology. Completely made up nonsense with no evidence is not "new technology". > That there's progress by Boom Is there though? PR is not progress.
  - kitd 4y ago
    Completely made up nonsense with no evidence Citation?
    - goodSteveramos 4y ago
      this is a really funny comment if you think about it. Instead of simply presenting the evidence, you demand that he prove there is none. Quite a bold demand. got to respect that on some level. If you disagree, prove there isn't any evidence that Im right.
      - kitd 4y ago
        Not so. He is the one who made the original statement. The onus of proof is on him to show what is "completely made up". It's a fairly extreme statement after all.
        masklinn 4y ago
        No, the original statement is that there is “new technology” which HN is “skeptical of”. The evidentiary requirements for a dismissal are no higher than what they dismiss. Which in this case is a PR bit completely devoid of evidence, so 0. But if you’ re interested in evidence I actually scratched a bit at one of the names mentioned, and I can’t say I’m impressed: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33983419#33996877 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33983419#33996877
perihelions 4y ago
- "And it is built specifically for use with Sustainable Aviation Fuel, a cleaner alternative to ordinary jet fuel — albeit one that costs several times more right now." I've been thinking about this for a while, in the context of multiple different startups. There's this (anti)pattern I see repeatedly: a startup says they're doing something that's an obviously an overwhelmingly bad idea from a business sense, but that creates positive PR in the short term. "We're limiting ourselves to exotic jet fuel multiple times more expensive than our competitors'" is such an example. I've seen so many others, I'm beginning to wonder what's going on. Is it bait-and-switch? Start out by promising something you don't plan to deliver, to garner goodwill and investment in the near term? And then switch to the "correct" mode later. Is it unseriousness? Are they not 100% focused on doing everything to get the startup to succeed? Imposing artificial limits on your company isn't the action of a success-at-all-costs mindset. Do they expect to fail and are just coasting? I'm overlooking something obvious and reasonable. Most founders are smart (?); there has to be a sensible business explanation for this. (edit: Not that carbon-neutral jet fuel isn't a great idea for a startup. But this is a supersonic airplane company, not a jet fuel company. If your startup's success requires succeeding at two different extremely difficult novel things at the same time, your success probability goes from "epsilon" to "epsilon squared").
- JoshTriplett 4y ago
  It says "built specifically for use with", not "only works with". Is there anything that says it cannot work with other sources of fuel, either natively or at least with some adaptation? I've seen plenty of products whose marketing says "built specifically for use with (our other product)"; that doesn't mean it only works with that. If you're building something that won't get deployed for a while, you want to take the design constraints into account that you're going to need to work with, not just those valid today. It's not unreasonable, if you think your design will both take a while and need to stay in service for a while to pay off, to include future-proofing.
- ZeroGravitas 4y ago
  Building for SAF is actually one of the plus points I see in this. It's generally purer than old-fashioned stuff, and the wider industry has already committed to switching to it on all the legacy machines, so there is likely some benefits at the design stage to assuming this better quality fuel is available, which it almost certainly will be.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
simple10 4y ago
Here's the link to Airmade SAF [1]. The company making the "net zero" fuel that Boom wants / hopes customers will use for net zero flights. Tons of marketing hype, but at least it's not a carbon offset bait and switch. Anybody know how much this fuel is supposed to cost relative to fossil jet fuel? Boom says they have a deal with Airmade for 5M gallons of SAF per year. [2] [1] https://www.aircompany.com/sustainable-aviation-fuel/ https://www.aircompany.com/sustainable-aviation-fuel/ [2] https://boomsupersonic.com/sustainability https://boomsupersonic.com/sustainability

70 points by dirtyaura 4y ago

thinkmcfly 4y ago
Just months ago weren't they hoping to use someone else's engine? and now already they have this?
- masklinn 4y ago
  Rolls Royce dropped them in September, after a 2 years partnership thing.
tmitchel2 4y ago
Interesting you say that, I look at a company like Arrival and think fantasy company, they don't show any of their manufacturing processes, instead doing robot dances. However, boom looks to be taking a modern but practical approach to their manufacturing and have a test plane almost ready to fly. Timelines are aggressive but if contend that wouldn't put it in fantasy land.
- ulfw 4y ago
  Test plan will fly with what engine?

So these are their new partners after Rolls-Royce dropped them [1]? Hopefully it works out this time. This is a very hard problem, and they're outsourcing one of the most critical components. [1] https://denvergazette.com/news/business/colorado-s-boom-supersonic-loses-its-engine-partner-rolls-royce/article_3fe35522-32e9-11ed-8d25-931e94f18ade.html https://denvergazette.com/news/business/colorado-s-boom-supe...

ulfw 4y ago
I don’t See them as a serious business. When the four major engine producers are all not on board there just isn’t anything technologically advanced out there. Engine development is very expensive.
bagels 4y ago
With this announcement, I wondered to myself which party decided to end the partnership? It's highly probable that Rolls-Royce left the deal, and not vice versa, but the GP press release leaves that question unanswered.
geocrasher 4y ago
Every aircraft manufacturer outsources their engines to other manufacturers. This is normal in the aerospace industry. Even rockets have motors made by different companies most of the time. As far as this particular project goes though, I would have a hard time expecting it to succeed. They have a great number of hurdles to overcome, and the engine design has to be the biggest one. Designing an engine that can work efficiently in both subsonic and supersonic regimes without an afterburner is very very difficult.

cromulent 4y ago

Still interested in the business model. Supersonic flight is over land is illegal in the US. https://www.faa.gov/newsroom/supersonic-flight https://www.faa.gov/newsroom/supersonic-flight

dharmab 4y ago
NASA is testing new supersonic designs to see if they can be quiet enough for the ban to be revisited. https://www.nasa.gov/specials/Quesst/ https://www.nasa.gov/specials/Quesst/
nszceta 4y ago
There is a procedure that allows supersonic operation under certain conditions granted on an individual basis. In addition, any new aircraft would need to meet current airworthiness and noise certification requirements.
- cromulent 4y ago
  Yes the link I posted mentions that. > Currently, U.S. law prohibits flight in excess of Mach 1 over land unless specifically authorized by the FAA for purposes stated in the regulations. The two supersonic rulemaking activities would not rescind the prohibition of flight in excess of Mach 1 over land.
phire 4y ago
There has been some openness towards reversing the ban. But it doesn't look any serioys movement will happen until after someone makes a plane and proves it's quiet enough. So Boom are taking a bit of a leap of faith, and also designing it to be capable of trans-Atlantic flights as a semi-profitable backup plan.

Rapzid 4y ago

It's built specifically for an alternative consumable, the largest expensive of a flight right?, that cost SEVERAL TIMES what the standard consumable costs right now? That's a.. Forward looking design.

stephen_g 4y ago
SAF is generally made to be compatible with regular jet fuel so I would expect it should work with either, even if it’s optimised for a particular type of SAF.

beefman 4y ago

I want to believe but my B.S. detector is pegged at 11 with this company.

akiselev 4y ago
> The Symphony engine will be designed from scratch by Boom’s partners: Florida Turbine Technologies (a subsidiary of Kratos) will do the engine design proper, GE Additive will consult on manufacturing, and StandardAero will be on maintenance duty. (FTA) They're (Boom) not the ones designing it. Kratos Turbine Technologies has made turbopumps for liquid rockets so they're well placed to do this work. The hard part is making the rotors which I bet is why GE is involved.
- phire 4y ago
  Interestingly, it's not GE Aviation (the GE division who make engines) but GE Additive, a division of GE who specialise in Additive manufacturing (aka 3D printing) metal parts. So it's going to have 3d printed rotors and probally other , which is super cool. GE Additive have previously made 3d printed turbine parts for GE Aviation[1], so they do have some experience. Also, this appears to be Kratos' second jet engine [2] [1] https://www.ge.com/news/reports/mad-props-3d-printed-airplane-engine-will-run-year https://www.ge.com/news/reports/mad-props-3d-printed-airplan... [2] https://www.janes.com/defence-news/news-detail/kratos-completes-testing-on-affordable-turbine-engine-for-missiles-uavs https://www.janes.com/defence-news/news-detail/kratos-comple...
  - mnw21cam 4y ago
    Turbine blades are the bits that whizz around really fast and are subject to extremes of temperature and force. Established engine manufacturers go to interesting lengths to make turbine blades made of interesting materials like single crystal metal alloys just so that they can cope with the conditions. In a jet engine, a small increase in working temperature gives a significant improvement in efficiency and performance. I can't see how 3D-printed turbine blades could possibly be a good idea.

sschueller 4y ago

How much time was wasted in meetings to come up with "symphony" for the name of their engine. Who gives a crap what the engine is called? Just give it a serial number and be done with. Edit: By serial number I mean some insignificant labelling instead of a marketing campaign. Sell me the supersonic trip not the engines that you have to build to make it work.

bagels 4y ago
It doesn't exist yet, hard to meaningfully put a serial number on a rendering. Edit: Investors is their audience for this announcement, less so potential customers.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

KingOfCoders 4y ago

"35,000 pounds of thrust" Can anyone compare this to other commercial and military engines?

bagels 4y ago
Google says "The most recent model, the 747-8, has engines that produce 66,000lbs of thrust."
akiselev 4y ago
A popular turbofan with civilian fighter jets is the TFE731 with 3,500–4,750 lbf [1] and can be fitted to i.e. the L39 Albatross trainer jet. [2] Supersonic jets like the F5 might use something like the GE J85 which produces a base 3,500 lbf or 5,000 with an afterburner [3]. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garrett_TFE731 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garrett_TFE731 [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aero_L-39_Albatros https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aero_L-39_Albatros [3] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Electric_J85 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Electric_J85
- julienfr112 4y ago
  civilian fighter jet ? Is that a US thing ?
  - akiselev 4y ago
    Mostly. Ironically the most popular civilian fighter jet is a Soviet era Czech design (the aforementioned L39). Even in the US though, they are relatively limited in where they can fly and require an experimental aircraft authorization. It’s relatively impractical in most of Europe because they’re not allowed to fly above populated areas except to take off and land (at least in the US)
    - rosnd 4y ago
      You don't actually have to worry about any of this stuff, if you have the money to buy one of these you also have the money to register it in a third country. >It’s relatively impractical in most of Europe because they’re not allowed to fly above populated areas except to take off and land (at least in the US) FWIW this is mostly a US problem.

thdrtnl 4y ago

The original announcement has more information about this: https://boomsupersonic.com/flyby/post/introducing-symphony-the-sustainable-and-cost-efficient-engine-for-overture https://boomsupersonic.com/flyby/post/introducing-symphony-t... It seems Boom designed some engine ideas and is now partnering with other companies to see if it can be built. This sounds a little like Magic Leap. Sell great ideas and then conclude it can't be made (yet).

low_tech_punk 4y ago

Interesting play on names. A Symphony sounds like the boomed up version of Concorde.

whinvik 4y ago

It's very disappointing to see how skeptical HN has become about new technology. Making aircrafts is hard, making supersonic aircraft even harder and making a new supersonic aircraft company hardest of all. That there's progress by Boom should be encouraged. Otherwise we are just saying that aircrafts will continue to be the domain of Airbus and Boeing only who don't have much incentive to innovate.

masklinn 4y ago
> It's very disappointing to see how skeptical HN has become about new technology. Completely made up nonsense with no evidence is not "new technology". > That there's progress by Boom Is there though? PR is not progress.
- kitd 4y ago
  Completely made up nonsense with no evidence Citation?
  - goodSteveramos 4y ago
    this is a really funny comment if you think about it. Instead of simply presenting the evidence, you demand that he prove there is none. Quite a bold demand. got to respect that on some level. If you disagree, prove there isn't any evidence that Im right.
    - kitd 4y ago
      Not so. He is the one who made the original statement. The onus of proof is on him to show what is "completely made up". It's a fairly extreme statement after all.
      - masklinn 4y ago
        No, the original statement is that there is “new technology” which HN is “skeptical of”. The evidentiary requirements for a dismissal are no higher than what they dismiss. Which in this case is a PR bit completely devoid of evidence, so 0. But if you’ re interested in evidence I actually scratched a bit at one of the names mentioned, and I can’t say I’m impressed: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33983419#33996877 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33983419#33996877

perihelions 4y ago

- "And it is built specifically for use with Sustainable Aviation Fuel, a cleaner alternative to ordinary jet fuel — albeit one that costs several times more right now." I've been thinking about this for a while, in the context of multiple different startups. There's this (anti)pattern I see repeatedly: a startup says they're doing something that's an obviously an overwhelmingly bad idea from a business sense, but that creates positive PR in the short term. "We're limiting ourselves to exotic jet fuel multiple times more expensive than our competitors'" is such an example. I've seen so many others, I'm beginning to wonder what's going on. Is it bait-and-switch? Start out by promising something you don't plan to deliver, to garner goodwill and investment in the near term? And then switch to the "correct" mode later. Is it unseriousness? Are they not 100% focused on doing everything to get the startup to succeed? Imposing artificial limits on your company isn't the action of a success-at-all-costs mindset. Do they expect to fail and are just coasting? I'm overlooking something obvious and reasonable. Most founders are smart (?); there has to be a sensible business explanation for this. (edit: Not that carbon-neutral jet fuel isn't a great idea for a startup. But this is a supersonic airplane company, not a jet fuel company. If your startup's success requires succeeding at two different extremely difficult novel things at the same time, your success probability goes from "epsilon" to "epsilon squared").

JoshTriplett 4y ago
It says "built specifically for use with", not "only works with". Is there anything that says it cannot work with other sources of fuel, either natively or at least with some adaptation? I've seen plenty of products whose marketing says "built specifically for use with (our other product)"; that doesn't mean it only works with that. If you're building something that won't get deployed for a while, you want to take the design constraints into account that you're going to need to work with, not just those valid today. It's not unreasonable, if you think your design will both take a while and need to stay in service for a while to pay off, to include future-proofing.
ZeroGravitas 4y ago
Building for SAF is actually one of the plus points I see in this. It's generally purer than old-fashioned stuff, and the wider industry has already committed to switching to it on all the legacy machines, so there is likely some benefits at the design stage to assuming this better quality fuel is available, which it almost certainly will be.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

simple10 4y ago

Here's the link to Airmade SAF [1]. The company making the "net zero" fuel that Boom wants / hopes customers will use for net zero flights. Tons of marketing hype, but at least it's not a carbon offset bait and switch. Anybody know how much this fuel is supposed to cost relative to fossil jet fuel? Boom says they have a deal with Airmade for 5M gallons of SAF per year. [2] [1] https://www.aircompany.com/sustainable-aviation-fuel/ https://www.aircompany.com/sustainable-aviation-fuel/ [2] https://boomsupersonic.com/sustainability https://boomsupersonic.com/sustainability