9 ms·

While I acknowledge the cool factor, I don't like what Boom is doing. We should be looking at making air travel more efficient, reducing the energy/emissions p

While I acknowledge the cool factor, I don't like what Boom is doing. We should be looking at making air travel more efficient, reducing the energy/emissions per passenger-mile flown. We don't need to invent ways to make luxury travel by the rarified few ever more expensive and damaging.

bowmessage 3y ago
> Overture is designed to run on up to 100% sustainable aviation fuel (SAF).
- jameshart 3y ago
  “Designed to run on up to 100%” says nothing about what percentage it will in practice operate on in service. I am capable of running on a sustainable diet of 100% nutrient balanced meals and a strictly controlled daily calorie intake. In practice, I’m operating on a mixture of pizza and Oreos right now.
  - rbanffy 3y ago
    SAF is a good investment - it allows us to use the current airplanes while we transition the shorter distances to electrics. It also allows for a gradual infrastructure transition, because you can run a jet engine with any mix of kerosene and SAF.
  - Someone 3y ago
    And even if it runs on 100% sustainable air fuel 100% of the time, that fuel is better used powering more efficient planes. It’s not as if we’re having surplus production of sustainable air fuel, or will have it any time soon.
    - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
      > not as if we’re having surplus production of sustainable air fuel You want to spur an industry by rationing its customers?
- apendleton 3y ago
  If SAFs are to be economically viable at all, they'll almost certainly need to be able to run in existing, unmodified engines. So: all engines will be able to run on some amount of SAFs anywhere for 0% to 100%, as will this new engine. This statement has no information content whatsoever.
mikepurvis 3y ago
Unfortunately, I think the route to more efficiency is funneling people to massive hub airports where widebody planes carry them on less frequent runs to other hubs— but that results in longer boarding times, less flexible schedules, and more stopovers, none of which the market wants. So instead we have a bunch of smaller "commuter" jets making point-to-point trips, many of which are short enough that they really should be trains, not air travel. And that's a whole other issue. Sigh.
- rbanffy 3y ago
  > many of which are short enough that they really should be trains That's a good point, but rail infrastructure is very expensive to build and, unlike planes, where you only need to build the destinations, you need to build every route. Anyway, the future of short commuter flights is electric.
  - mnw21cam 3y ago
    The key determinant that tells you whether trains or planes are more cost-efficient is population density. If you have two cities far apart with not much in-between, then it's cheaper to build a couple of airports. If you have loads of other cities along the route, then it'd be cheaper to build a railway. The former case is true for much of North America, and the latter for much of Western Europe and UK.
    - mikepurvis 3y ago
      Commonly cited but not really grounded in reality— lots of places that have made rail work have very similar or worse density characteristics to the coastal US routes that should be a no-brainer: https://persquaremile.com/2011/05/27/u-s-not-dense-enough-for-high-speed-rail-think-again/ https://persquaremile.com/2011/05/27/u-s-not-dense-enough-fo...
  - class3shock 3y ago
    If you take into account cost-per-moved-amount-of-cargo trains are dramatically cheaper, even including infrastructure. The only reason we don't use/develop them more is social/political bs not due to choosing the ideal engineering solution for the problem and that solution being planes) As for electric flight: 1 gallon of jet fuel has like 40 kwh of energy and weighs like 6 lbs. A Ford Lightning has a battery capacity of 100 kwh and that battery weighs 1,800 lbs. Electric flight ain't happening in a big way anytime soon with current battery tech.
Espressosaurus 3y ago
Agreed. For noise reasons as well, I'd like to see these kinds of efforts get shut down.
- rockemsockem 3y ago
  NASA is working on designs to significantly reduce noise from breaking the sound barrier, which I'm sure will inform changing requirements for supersonic flight over the United States. Right now the regulation is a very strict "you cannot fly supersonic over the US", except military aircraft of course
  - rbanffy 3y ago
    > Right now the regulation is a very strict "you cannot fly supersonic over the US", except military aircraft of course I bet it wouldn't if Boeing or Lockheed managed to make their Concorde competitors.
    - extraduder_ire 3y ago
      I doubt it, outside of very small portions of the country. IIRC, the plan was to have huge airports in places like florida that the 2707 would land at and people would get on subsonic jets to connect to where they wanted to go. Unless sentiment changed due to people hearing how quiet a "sonic boom" actually is when one of them was cruising. Most of eurpoe also banned overland supersonic flights.
- kylehotchkiss 3y ago
  Noise is a valid complaint but where these planes will really shine is oceanic flights, USA to Japan, Australia, Singapore are 3 routes mostly over ocean or uninhabited areas that could use the reduced travel time.
greggroth 3y ago
I think their sights are set on military contracts (I believe they already have some military funding) and commercial aviation is a way to fund the development.
- jjk166 3y ago
  Seems a little silly, the military is exempt from the regulatory burden they're spending a fortune to work around and has extremely deep pockets. It would be much easier to start with military contracts and establish everything they need to make supersonic planes and then transition that to civilian supersonic planes then to try and do everything and then some with no revenue and an unproven business plan.
- mrguyorama 3y ago
  Military supersonics just aren't that important. We don't have Mach 3+ planes anymore not because we forgot or some nonsense, but because the things we used them for we now use space for: Need to spy on someone? The USSR is less happy to shoot a satellite out of the sky (this will change soon) than Mr. Powers in a plane. Want to nuke someone in a few minutes? ICBMs are mature technology. So what are they supposedly offering the military?
  - mulmen 3y ago
    Powers was shot down in a subsonic U2. The mach 3+ Blackbird family never overflew Russia.
- notahacker 3y ago
  It would make a lot more sense to do that the other way round...
maccaw 3y ago
Why should we make it more efficient? Why not make more energy from clean sources first?
- rbanffy 3y ago
  That's what sustainable air fuel is. There is a lot being done to certify existing engines to run on it. Moving to an incompatible power source (such as hydrogen) isn't feasible because it would require scrapping the current fleets (and well maintained planes live longer than their pilots).
shmatt 3y ago
Pretty much everything we use daily were introduced to "regular people" as a luxury product for the 0.1%. Even personal computers Eventually companies are able to scale things
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- filleduchaos 3y ago
  > Eventually companies are able to scale things Companies generally don't scale things very well beyond the boundaries set by physics.
oldpersonintx 3y ago
[dead]
samatman 3y ago
There's no "we" here. You're not a part of Boom, and I daresay you aren't working to make commercial air travel more efficient either. You're kibitzing.
- moralestapia 3y ago
  Thanks, I shrug whenever I read "we"s used liberally here and there.
rockemsockem 3y ago
They are making air travel more efficient. More time efficient. That's great for everyone flying, but also great for airlines. The last three flights I've been on arrived significantly ahead of schedule and were going much faster than usual. I assume this was to get the pilot to the location ASAP so they can fly again sooner. Also how do you not see supersonic flight as just generally good for everyone flying? I want to sit in a plane for less time, always.
- sandworm101 3y ago
  >> how do you not see supersonic flight as just generally good for everyone flying Because it require vastly more energy (fuel) per mile than most any other form of travel. Because the aircraft carry fewer people per takeoff/landing cycle, congesting airports. Those who care about time can already travel at much greater speeds. Door-to-door travel times for first class, and especially private, are already about 1/3 to 1/2 that of the common economy passenger on a domestic flight. If we wanted to speed up the process, the easy fruit is the speed of the airport rather than the aircraft.
  - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
    > Those who care about time can already travel at much greater speeds There is massive room for improvement. Consider the effect on global relations if crossing the world didn’t cost days but hours. More practically, consider an economy networked with this travel and transport competing against one sticking to trains, trucks and Zoom.
    - rbanffy 3y ago
      I believe the cultural integration aspects of cheap, fast, and effortless passenger transportation cannot be overstated. I'd like to see more and more people traveling to places they wouldn't travel otherwise. It's easier to dehumanise the people you don't know, and much harder to do that when you have been with them.
      - 3y ago
lettergram 3y ago
> While I acknowledge the cool factor, I don't like what Boom is doing. We should be looking at making air travel more efficient, reducing the energy/emissions per passenger-mile flown. We don't need to invent ways to make luxury travel by the rarified few ever more expensive and damaging. Didn't they say it could run on sustainable fuel? I'm sorry, but I want to maximize my (and really all humans) time on this Earth, if that costs energy, that's the cost. I wouldn't be concerned about emissions per passenger-mile as that's nothing more than a rounding error in "emissions". You're welcome to walk / swim from San Francisco to Europe, but don't expect me to.
- sandworm101 3y ago
  >> Didn't they say it could run on sustainable fuel? The same can be said about my car/boat/monster truck/jet fighter and anything else that pumps out carbon. The average jet engine can be tuned to run rather well on olive oil. "Can run on X" is a far cry from "actually runs on X".
- jocaal 3y ago
  > I'm sorry, but I want to maximize my (and really all humans) time on this Earth, if that costs energy, that's the cost But by using too much energy, you are reducing the expected lifespan of future generations. I can't tell if your being sarcastic. Tragedy of the commons.
kilroy123 3y ago
I disagree. The world badly needs new players in aviation shaking things up. I'm very happy to see boom existing and trying to do what they're doing. Plus, as someone who has done many long haul flights, I badly want this. (flying one in two weeks)
- spxneo 3y ago
  I also disagree. As a fan of aviation, theres never enough experiments going on. We need to stop it with this carbon virtue signaling when everyone of us here would be glad to own a used 2017 Bombardier Global 6000 I applaud Boom's efforts I just don't know if its viable because if Airbus isn't working on it then it probably isn't safe/worth the insurance upkeep.
  - philwelch 3y ago
    Airbus lost a bunch of money developing the A380 and are understandably nervous to undertake any more high risk development projects. This is actually a great case for an aviation startup. If Airbus failed to develop a modern SST that might bankrupt them and disrupt the entire industry, but if Boom fails it only destroys a nascent startup that no one depends upon yet.
kylehotchkiss 3y ago
Plenty of people around the world have legitimate needs to travel via airplane. Think about the millions of immigrants in USA with family abroad. Tech to better connect the world is worth celebrating.
- rqtwteye 3y ago
  That tech exists already. Those immigrants don't need/can't afford supersonic travel.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
multimoon 3y ago
That’s one of the most shortsighted views I’ve seen in awhile. They are making air travel more efficient. Improvements in aircraft aerodynamics and engine efficiency to achieve supersonic flight can sometimes apply backwards and make a normal plane more efficient. We can apply some of the same technologies to shorten runways and reduce the sprawling layout airports need. There’s so many places technology like this can go that it’s insane we ever stopped researching it. Writing it off because of vague fear-mongered potential environmental impacts is silly. As another commenter said, you can swim to Europe if you’d like but I will take the supersonic jet personally.
trollerator23 3y ago
There are so many commies in HN that I have to think that's deliberate. That's gotta be state actors at play. CCP? Like, who the f*k cares? There are other companies working on that too.
- jrflowers 3y ago
  I’ve always found the best way to fight for American freedoms is to post “CCP?” at people that I disagree with on the internet. These cyber actors may be well trained but they cannot stand up to the rigor of my investigative methods
  - fdddd4666 3y ago
    [dead]
- Extropy_ 3y ago
  They're everywhere here. It sucks.
- anomaly_ 3y ago
  110%. The libertarian/anarchist hacker ethos is dead.
__loam 3y ago
Boom is specifically working on efficient and affordable supersonic flight. This isn't the 1980s.
foxyv 3y ago
To be honest, the best air travel is high speed rail. Replacing regional flights with train trips would save so much energy and reduce emissions monstrously. I'm not even worried about these supersonic flights to be honest. They are 40 planes out of over ten thousand in service today. Now, if Boom was working on a supersonic train? That would be AMAZING!
VelesDude 3y ago
While yes this is a pessimistic take on it, the book 'Dark Age America' called out the problems of the original Concord and I think it applies to Boom as well. The authors argument being that Boeing pulling out of the 2707 SST project, while at the time was seen as a massive loss, turned out to be one of the smartest moves they had done in the space. Yes, super sonic flight and things like Boom are a massive technical achievement, there is no doubt about that. But, we should not conflate technical capabilities with economic viability. Concord was very technically viable, but it was an economic white elephant. This thing could see a role in the luxury space but I don't think we can reconcile the issue of brute forcing physics and cheap transport for the masses.
- switchbak 3y ago
  Hermeus is ostensibly going after the super/hypersonic commercial transport market too, but something seems kind of off with that approach (to me). Their quarterhorse demo aircraft has plenty of utility in a variety of unmanned military roles. To such a degree that the civilian transport angle seems like kind of a distraction in this current era of military ramp-up. Maybe it's just a hedge so they can keep their toes in two markets simultaneously and perhaps appeal to investment via those different interests.
  - VelesDude 3y ago
    I keep forgetting the military angle. Again a pessimistic take but when I see things like SpaceX saying point to point travel to anywhere in the world in 30 minutes - maybe the message should be 30 minutes point to point explosive payload.
notatoad 3y ago
>We don't need to invent ways to make luxury travel by the rarified few ever more expensive and damaging. you do if you're the Saudi government and you're worried about finding way to prop up declining demand for fossil fuels https://youtu.be/aT0r_yJafmg?si=0aPDghhuU6RUaNNY&t=780 https://youtu.be/aT0r_yJafmg?si=0aPDghhuU6RUaNNY&t=780 (obnoxious youtuber voice warning) slide 25 here: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24175697-osp-opportunities-overview-presentation https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24175697-osp-opportu...
csharpminor 3y ago
Boom (and supersonic aircraft) are a strategic investment priority for Saudi Arabia to sustain demand for oil. If that doesn’t tell you everything you need to know about their impact on emissions I don’t know what else does.
lizardking 3y ago
Who is "we" exactly?
- nemo44x 3y ago
  Certainly a Stalinist “Who, whom” thing here. This assumption of collectivism and that the “we” are not only a thing but actually a decision maker is presumptuous at minimum. That there’s some “we” that knows best!
futhey 3y ago
Every single other major jet manufacturer is already making air travel cheaper and more efficient every year. It's all airlines who buy from Boeing or Airbus care about. The underserved niche is premium and small, not scale. Commercial aircraft will get 1% more efficient every year with or without new companies (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_economy_in_aircraft#/media/File:Aviation_Efficiency_(RPK_per_kg_CO2).svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_economy_in_aircraft#/medi...). If we start in supersonic today, and innovate at the same pace for 20 years, you might match the efficiency boom from the "jet age" and make supersonic twice as efficient as today.
sn9 3y ago
The future is probably gonna be carbon neutral jetfuel synethesized with solar energy and air capture. https://terraformindustries.wordpress.com/2023/06/26/the-terraformer-mark-one/ https://terraformindustries.wordpress.com/2023/06/26/the-ter...
nemo44x 3y ago
“We”. Then do it. “They” obviously see a market for their product where “you” aren’t the object. Who is “we”?

bowmessage 3y ago

> Overture is designed to run on up to 100% sustainable aviation fuel (SAF).

jameshart 3y ago
“Designed to run on up to 100%” says nothing about what percentage it will in practice operate on in service. I am capable of running on a sustainable diet of 100% nutrient balanced meals and a strictly controlled daily calorie intake. In practice, I’m operating on a mixture of pizza and Oreos right now.
- rbanffy 3y ago
  SAF is a good investment - it allows us to use the current airplanes while we transition the shorter distances to electrics. It also allows for a gradual infrastructure transition, because you can run a jet engine with any mix of kerosene and SAF.
- Someone 3y ago
  And even if it runs on 100% sustainable air fuel 100% of the time, that fuel is better used powering more efficient planes. It’s not as if we’re having surplus production of sustainable air fuel, or will have it any time soon.
  - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
    > not as if we’re having surplus production of sustainable air fuel You want to spur an industry by rationing its customers?
apendleton 3y ago
If SAFs are to be economically viable at all, they'll almost certainly need to be able to run in existing, unmodified engines. So: all engines will be able to run on some amount of SAFs anywhere for 0% to 100%, as will this new engine. This statement has no information content whatsoever.

mikepurvis 3y ago

Unfortunately, I think the route to more efficiency is funneling people to massive hub airports where widebody planes carry them on less frequent runs to other hubs— but that results in longer boarding times, less flexible schedules, and more stopovers, none of which the market wants. So instead we have a bunch of smaller "commuter" jets making point-to-point trips, many of which are short enough that they really should be trains, not air travel. And that's a whole other issue. Sigh.

rbanffy 3y ago
> many of which are short enough that they really should be trains That's a good point, but rail infrastructure is very expensive to build and, unlike planes, where you only need to build the destinations, you need to build every route. Anyway, the future of short commuter flights is electric.
- mnw21cam 3y ago
  The key determinant that tells you whether trains or planes are more cost-efficient is population density. If you have two cities far apart with not much in-between, then it's cheaper to build a couple of airports. If you have loads of other cities along the route, then it'd be cheaper to build a railway. The former case is true for much of North America, and the latter for much of Western Europe and UK.
  - mikepurvis 3y ago
    Commonly cited but not really grounded in reality— lots of places that have made rail work have very similar or worse density characteristics to the coastal US routes that should be a no-brainer: https://persquaremile.com/2011/05/27/u-s-not-dense-enough-for-high-speed-rail-think-again/ https://persquaremile.com/2011/05/27/u-s-not-dense-enough-fo...
- class3shock 3y ago
  If you take into account cost-per-moved-amount-of-cargo trains are dramatically cheaper, even including infrastructure. The only reason we don't use/develop them more is social/political bs not due to choosing the ideal engineering solution for the problem and that solution being planes) As for electric flight: 1 gallon of jet fuel has like 40 kwh of energy and weighs like 6 lbs. A Ford Lightning has a battery capacity of 100 kwh and that battery weighs 1,800 lbs. Electric flight ain't happening in a big way anytime soon with current battery tech.

Espressosaurus 3y ago

Agreed. For noise reasons as well, I'd like to see these kinds of efforts get shut down.

rockemsockem 3y ago
NASA is working on designs to significantly reduce noise from breaking the sound barrier, which I'm sure will inform changing requirements for supersonic flight over the United States. Right now the regulation is a very strict "you cannot fly supersonic over the US", except military aircraft of course
- rbanffy 3y ago
  > Right now the regulation is a very strict "you cannot fly supersonic over the US", except military aircraft of course I bet it wouldn't if Boeing or Lockheed managed to make their Concorde competitors.
  - extraduder_ire 3y ago
    I doubt it, outside of very small portions of the country. IIRC, the plan was to have huge airports in places like florida that the 2707 would land at and people would get on subsonic jets to connect to where they wanted to go. Unless sentiment changed due to people hearing how quiet a "sonic boom" actually is when one of them was cruising. Most of eurpoe also banned overland supersonic flights.
kylehotchkiss 3y ago
Noise is a valid complaint but where these planes will really shine is oceanic flights, USA to Japan, Australia, Singapore are 3 routes mostly over ocean or uninhabited areas that could use the reduced travel time.

greggroth 3y ago

I think their sights are set on military contracts (I believe they already have some military funding) and commercial aviation is a way to fund the development.

jjk166 3y ago
Seems a little silly, the military is exempt from the regulatory burden they're spending a fortune to work around and has extremely deep pockets. It would be much easier to start with military contracts and establish everything they need to make supersonic planes and then transition that to civilian supersonic planes then to try and do everything and then some with no revenue and an unproven business plan.
mrguyorama 3y ago
Military supersonics just aren't that important. We don't have Mach 3+ planes anymore not because we forgot or some nonsense, but because the things we used them for we now use space for: Need to spy on someone? The USSR is less happy to shoot a satellite out of the sky (this will change soon) than Mr. Powers in a plane. Want to nuke someone in a few minutes? ICBMs are mature technology. So what are they supposedly offering the military?
- mulmen 3y ago
  Powers was shot down in a subsonic U2. The mach 3+ Blackbird family never overflew Russia.
notahacker 3y ago
It would make a lot more sense to do that the other way round...

maccaw 3y ago

Why should we make it more efficient? Why not make more energy from clean sources first?

rbanffy 3y ago
That's what sustainable air fuel is. There is a lot being done to certify existing engines to run on it. Moving to an incompatible power source (such as hydrogen) isn't feasible because it would require scrapping the current fleets (and well maintained planes live longer than their pilots).

shmatt 3y ago

Pretty much everything we use daily were introduced to "regular people" as a luxury product for the 0.1%. Even personal computers Eventually companies are able to scale things

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
filleduchaos 3y ago
> Eventually companies are able to scale things Companies generally don't scale things very well beyond the boundaries set by physics.

oldpersonintx 3y ago

[dead]

samatman 3y ago

There's no "we" here. You're not a part of Boom, and I daresay you aren't working to make commercial air travel more efficient either. You're kibitzing.

moralestapia 3y ago
Thanks, I shrug whenever I read "we"s used liberally here and there.

rockemsockem 3y ago

They are making air travel more efficient. More time efficient. That's great for everyone flying, but also great for airlines. The last three flights I've been on arrived significantly ahead of schedule and were going much faster than usual. I assume this was to get the pilot to the location ASAP so they can fly again sooner. Also how do you not see supersonic flight as just generally good for everyone flying? I want to sit in a plane for less time, always.

sandworm101 3y ago
>> how do you not see supersonic flight as just generally good for everyone flying Because it require vastly more energy (fuel) per mile than most any other form of travel. Because the aircraft carry fewer people per takeoff/landing cycle, congesting airports. Those who care about time can already travel at much greater speeds. Door-to-door travel times for first class, and especially private, are already about 1/3 to 1/2 that of the common economy passenger on a domestic flight. If we wanted to speed up the process, the easy fruit is the speed of the airport rather than the aircraft.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago
  > Those who care about time can already travel at much greater speeds There is massive room for improvement. Consider the effect on global relations if crossing the world didn’t cost days but hours. More practically, consider an economy networked with this travel and transport competing against one sticking to trains, trucks and Zoom.
  - rbanffy 3y ago
    I believe the cultural integration aspects of cheap, fast, and effortless passenger transportation cannot be overstated. I'd like to see more and more people traveling to places they wouldn't travel otherwise. It's easier to dehumanise the people you don't know, and much harder to do that when you have been with them.
    - 3y ago

lettergram 3y ago

> While I acknowledge the cool factor, I don't like what Boom is doing. We should be looking at making air travel more efficient, reducing the energy/emissions per passenger-mile flown. We don't need to invent ways to make luxury travel by the rarified few ever more expensive and damaging. Didn't they say it could run on sustainable fuel? I'm sorry, but I want to maximize my (and really all humans) time on this Earth, if that costs energy, that's the cost. I wouldn't be concerned about emissions per passenger-mile as that's nothing more than a rounding error in "emissions". You're welcome to walk / swim from San Francisco to Europe, but don't expect me to.

sandworm101 3y ago
>> Didn't they say it could run on sustainable fuel? The same can be said about my car/boat/monster truck/jet fighter and anything else that pumps out carbon. The average jet engine can be tuned to run rather well on olive oil. "Can run on X" is a far cry from "actually runs on X".
jocaal 3y ago
> I'm sorry, but I want to maximize my (and really all humans) time on this Earth, if that costs energy, that's the cost But by using too much energy, you are reducing the expected lifespan of future generations. I can't tell if your being sarcastic. Tragedy of the commons.

kilroy123 3y ago

I disagree. The world badly needs new players in aviation shaking things up. I'm very happy to see boom existing and trying to do what they're doing. Plus, as someone who has done many long haul flights, I badly want this. (flying one in two weeks)

spxneo 3y ago
I also disagree. As a fan of aviation, theres never enough experiments going on. We need to stop it with this carbon virtue signaling when everyone of us here would be glad to own a used 2017 Bombardier Global 6000 I applaud Boom's efforts I just don't know if its viable because if Airbus isn't working on it then it probably isn't safe/worth the insurance upkeep.
- philwelch 3y ago
  Airbus lost a bunch of money developing the A380 and are understandably nervous to undertake any more high risk development projects. This is actually a great case for an aviation startup. If Airbus failed to develop a modern SST that might bankrupt them and disrupt the entire industry, but if Boom fails it only destroys a nascent startup that no one depends upon yet.

kylehotchkiss 3y ago

Plenty of people around the world have legitimate needs to travel via airplane. Think about the millions of immigrants in USA with family abroad. Tech to better connect the world is worth celebrating.

rqtwteye 3y ago
That tech exists already. Those immigrants don't need/can't afford supersonic travel.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]

multimoon 3y ago

That’s one of the most shortsighted views I’ve seen in awhile. They are making air travel more efficient. Improvements in aircraft aerodynamics and engine efficiency to achieve supersonic flight can sometimes apply backwards and make a normal plane more efficient. We can apply some of the same technologies to shorten runways and reduce the sprawling layout airports need. There’s so many places technology like this can go that it’s insane we ever stopped researching it. Writing it off because of vague fear-mongered potential environmental impacts is silly. As another commenter said, you can swim to Europe if you’d like but I will take the supersonic jet personally.

trollerator23 3y ago

There are so many commies in HN that I have to think that's deliberate. That's gotta be state actors at play. CCP? Like, who the f*k cares? There are other companies working on that too.

jrflowers 3y ago
I’ve always found the best way to fight for American freedoms is to post “CCP?” at people that I disagree with on the internet. These cyber actors may be well trained but they cannot stand up to the rigor of my investigative methods
- fdddd4666 3y ago
  [dead]
Extropy_ 3y ago
They're everywhere here. It sucks.
anomaly_ 3y ago
110%. The libertarian/anarchist hacker ethos is dead.

__loam 3y ago

Boom is specifically working on efficient and affordable supersonic flight. This isn't the 1980s.

foxyv 3y ago

To be honest, the best air travel is high speed rail. Replacing regional flights with train trips would save so much energy and reduce emissions monstrously. I'm not even worried about these supersonic flights to be honest. They are 40 planes out of over ten thousand in service today. Now, if Boom was working on a supersonic train? That would be AMAZING!

VelesDude 3y ago

While yes this is a pessimistic take on it, the book 'Dark Age America' called out the problems of the original Concord and I think it applies to Boom as well. The authors argument being that Boeing pulling out of the 2707 SST project, while at the time was seen as a massive loss, turned out to be one of the smartest moves they had done in the space. Yes, super sonic flight and things like Boom are a massive technical achievement, there is no doubt about that. But, we should not conflate technical capabilities with economic viability. Concord was very technically viable, but it was an economic white elephant. This thing could see a role in the luxury space but I don't think we can reconcile the issue of brute forcing physics and cheap transport for the masses.

switchbak 3y ago
Hermeus is ostensibly going after the super/hypersonic commercial transport market too, but something seems kind of off with that approach (to me). Their quarterhorse demo aircraft has plenty of utility in a variety of unmanned military roles. To such a degree that the civilian transport angle seems like kind of a distraction in this current era of military ramp-up. Maybe it's just a hedge so they can keep their toes in two markets simultaneously and perhaps appeal to investment via those different interests.
- VelesDude 3y ago
  I keep forgetting the military angle. Again a pessimistic take but when I see things like SpaceX saying point to point travel to anywhere in the world in 30 minutes - maybe the message should be 30 minutes point to point explosive payload.

notatoad 3y ago

>We don't need to invent ways to make luxury travel by the rarified few ever more expensive and damaging. you do if you're the Saudi government and you're worried about finding way to prop up declining demand for fossil fuels https://youtu.be/aT0r_yJafmg?si=0aPDghhuU6RUaNNY&t=780 https://youtu.be/aT0r_yJafmg?si=0aPDghhuU6RUaNNY&t=780 (obnoxious youtuber voice warning) slide 25 here: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24175697-osp-opportunities-overview-presentation https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24175697-osp-opportu...

csharpminor 3y ago

Boom (and supersonic aircraft) are a strategic investment priority for Saudi Arabia to sustain demand for oil. If that doesn’t tell you everything you need to know about their impact on emissions I don’t know what else does.

lizardking 3y ago

Who is "we" exactly?

nemo44x 3y ago
Certainly a Stalinist “Who, whom” thing here. This assumption of collectivism and that the “we” are not only a thing but actually a decision maker is presumptuous at minimum. That there’s some “we” that knows best!

futhey 3y ago

Every single other major jet manufacturer is already making air travel cheaper and more efficient every year. It's all airlines who buy from Boeing or Airbus care about. The underserved niche is premium and small, not scale. Commercial aircraft will get 1% more efficient every year with or without new companies (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_economy_in_aircraft#/media/File:Aviation_Efficiency_(RPK_per_kg_CO2).svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_economy_in_aircraft#/medi...). If we start in supersonic today, and innovate at the same pace for 20 years, you might match the efficiency boom from the "jet age" and make supersonic twice as efficient as today.

sn9 3y ago

The future is probably gonna be carbon neutral jetfuel synethesized with solar energy and air capture. https://terraformindustries.wordpress.com/2023/06/26/the-terraformer-mark-one/ https://terraformindustries.wordpress.com/2023/06/26/the-ter...

nemo44x 3y ago

“We”. Then do it. “They” obviously see a market for their product where “you” aren’t the object. Who is “we”?