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Do you think this is good news for Boom? Honestly they could pivot from supersonic to just "small airplanes at scale made well" and they could grow into a new A

by wrsh07 3y ago

Do you think this is good news for Boom? Honestly they could pivot from supersonic to just "small airplanes at scale made well" and they could grow into a new American industrial giant

consumer451 3y ago
They would need to take over Boeing's factories. You don't just spin something like that up. But this made me think of something funny... maybe Boeing could buy Boom, and Boom management could take over Boeing like McDonnell Douglas management has previously done, when Boeing bought them?
rsynnott 3y ago
There's plenty of choice for _small_ planes; it's really 737-size and up where it's a choice of two manufacturers.
- wrsh07 3y ago
  I agree with this, my (possibly incorrect) line of thinking is that the same was sort of true for electric cars. At the high end there were options, but there weren't good mass market options (Tesla helped change that) You could sort of imagine that airlines use this as an opportunity to fund promising smaller companies that want to scale (I'm not sure if Boom is more excited to become a major manufacturer or for the flight speed change) Regardless, given the friction in training pilots to fly new aircraft, airlines losing faith in Boeing should make them more likely to consider it which removes a huge moat
  - rsynnott 3y ago
    > At the high end there were options, but there weren't good mass market options (Tesla helped change that) Eh? No, that’s not right; it’s almost the opposite of what happened. Before the last decade, there was ~nothing. Around 2010, the Tesla Model S (high end), the Nissan Leaf (mass-market), Renault Zoe (mass-market), VW eGolf and eUp (mass-market) all showed up within a year of each other. The first Tesla mass-market car launched in 2017… kind of; realistically, 2019 (that’s when the ‘standard trim’, ie affordable, Model 3 showed up). In 2019/2020, the first high-end electric cars from conventional manufacturers also start showing up (e-Tron, Polestar etc).

by wrsh07 3y ago

Do you think this is good news for Boom? Honestly they could pivot from supersonic to just "small airplanes at scale made well" and they could grow into a new American industrial giant

consumer451 3y ago

They would need to take over Boeing's factories. You don't just spin something like that up. But this made me think of something funny... maybe Boeing could buy Boom, and Boom management could take over Boeing like McDonnell Douglas management has previously done, when Boeing bought them?

rsynnott 3y ago

There's plenty of choice for _small_ planes; it's really 737-size and up where it's a choice of two manufacturers.

wrsh07 3y ago
I agree with this, my (possibly incorrect) line of thinking is that the same was sort of true for electric cars. At the high end there were options, but there weren't good mass market options (Tesla helped change that) You could sort of imagine that airlines use this as an opportunity to fund promising smaller companies that want to scale (I'm not sure if Boom is more excited to become a major manufacturer or for the flight speed change) Regardless, given the friction in training pilots to fly new aircraft, airlines losing faith in Boeing should make them more likely to consider it which removes a huge moat
- rsynnott 3y ago
  > At the high end there were options, but there weren't good mass market options (Tesla helped change that) Eh? No, that’s not right; it’s almost the opposite of what happened. Before the last decade, there was ~nothing. Around 2010, the Tesla Model S (high end), the Nissan Leaf (mass-market), Renault Zoe (mass-market), VW eGolf and eUp (mass-market) all showed up within a year of each other. The first Tesla mass-market car launched in 2017… kind of; realistically, 2019 (that’s when the ‘standard trim’, ie affordable, Model 3 showed up). In 2019/2020, the first high-end electric cars from conventional manufacturers also start showing up (e-Tron, Polestar etc).