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Boom (YC W16) – Supersonic Passenger Airplanes

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Re: Boom (YC W16) – Supersonic Passenger Airplanes

#31

Post by oddeyed »

staceymakano wrote: post #18

And the environmental impact is... what? Amazing that this is not a consideration, especially since we are now in emergency territory: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/mar/21/global-wa... It's great for you to leave SF in the morning, go to Sydney to watch the opera and be back in SF by midnight. But is the environmental impact of you doing that worth it for everyone else?

My first thought as well.

The drop in the price of oil has discouraged airlines from investing in more efficient engines for their fleet, I assume there are similar economics at play here.

Re: Boom (YC W16) – Supersonic Passenger Airplanes

#32

Post by tommynicholas »

Super smart - make good margins on a use case for the wealthy to subsidize R&D and development of scale economics, hopefully eventually get that price down so we can all use it. Hope it works!

(Writing this just to pre-empt the inevitable $5,000 THIS IS ONLY RICH PEOPLE comments :) )

Re: Boom (YC W16) – Supersonic Passenger Airplanes

#33

Post by beeboop »

ropiku wrote: post #15

One issue with this is the "boom" (from their name). It only works across non-populated areas due to the noise as their sample routes show. It's going to severely limit the opportunity.

I would guess this mostly designed for ocean crossing flights. Their example is NYC to London, as soon as you take off from NYC you're over the ocean. By the time you accelerate to mach 1.12 and are at the appropriate altitude, you'd be far enough away from the city for the boom to not matter.

Re: Boom (YC W16) – Supersonic Passenger Airplanes

#34

Post by ejcx »

I'm reminded of the first half of "Web Design: The First Hundred Years"[0]. Commercial planes have not gotten faster and have in fact gotten slower.

I personally agree with the sentiment of the blog post, that a 5 hour flight across the atlantic is fast enough but it's still neat to see startups getting in to this space.

0 - http://idlewords.com/talks/web_design_first_100_years.htm

Re: Boom (YC W16) – Supersonic Passenger Airplanes

#35

Post by NickM »

themgt wrote: post #3

Sorry but is "Boom" really a good name for an aircraft company? I get it's supersonic, but my first association was an exploding airplane.

"Bad" names can attract lots of attention. Perhaps they're more interested in turning heads than setting up the best possible brand connotations.

Re: Boom (YC W16) – Supersonic Passenger Airplanes

#36

Post by robjan »

There are many reasons why Boeing and Airbus have not entered the supersonic market, the most important being that there is simply very limited appetite for supersonic travel other than for novelty purposes. It's much more economical to build big, subsonic airliners but increase the comfort and level of service.

Re: Boom (YC W16) – Supersonic Passenger Airplanes

#37

Post by teraflop »

caractacus wrote: post #23

The photo of the engineer in what is clearly a cardboard mock-up: http://boom.aero/assets/boom-3-cd0822d52cb5c9ecaac404d5cfd09... .... does not inspire confidence.

Presumably they're just testing the ergonomics of their seat/cockpit layout, or something along those lines. Unless you're worried that they're actually going to try to build an airplane out of cardboard, I don't see what the problem is.

Re: Boom (YC W16) – Supersonic Passenger Airplanes

#38

Post by rdl »

danielschonfeld wrote: post #25
sremani wrote: post #14

As tangent, instead of focusing on NYC to London, a Mach 2.2 travel actually will make travel from Americas to Asia more comfortable. US to India and US to China routes benefit the most, and perhaps where people will be interested in paying top-dollar vs. Europe.

I believe the problem with those was always the sonic boom created by flying at > 1 Mach. It shattered windows on the ground. Could be wrong tho

Most of that route would be over the Pacific, so it would be fine, too (although ex-West Coast US).

It might be a fuel issue on distance, but probably not. Also potentially an ETOPS range issue.

However, there are three big issues with transpac: (not impossible issues, but strong reasons why NYC-LON is ideal as MVP)

1) Greater number of destination cities on each side; for transatlantic, NYC-LON really is the main market. LAX-NRT is probably the best first pass. but LAX/SFO/SEA/LAS/Texas/NY/DC could all make solid claims on being sources of traffic, and there are >10 cities in Asia which would be destinations and fairly far apart? I'd almost certainly prefer a nonstop NYC-PEK to a domestic NYC-LAX, switch to LAX-NRT supersonic, then another subsonic NRT-PEK.

2) A lot of the good cities are inland, so no supersonic for those parts of the flights. NYC-PEK or NYC-PVG (corrected) would be awesome, but there's a lot of inland there. So you're also stuck doing something suboptimal, either connecting flights or operating outside supersonic regime.

3) After a certain point, comfort is a priority over absolute speed. If it lets you accomplish a mission (meeting, etc.) in a single day, that's a new capability. if it means you get 5h of cramped sleep and then another 7h of cramped sleep on the way back, that's not really better for most missions than 8-10h of comfortable sleep in a full-sized suite for the same price. There clearly is a value in 1-4h flights from USA to China/India, but that requires more than Mach 2.2 -- maybe exoatmospheric.

Another option is probably "events"; special flights to follow F1 and stuff like that. Concorde did a lot of that toward the end.

Re: Boom (YC W16) – Supersonic Passenger Airplanes

#39

Post by api »

acveilleux wrote: post #27
api wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given SpaceX's well documented experience, I would not trust any cost estimates from the legacy aerospace industry. It's a deeply moribund field as a result of decades of stagnation and dependence on government/military funding. Still I would be absolutely floored if they could do it for under $500mil, so what you say still applies-- maybe just not quite to the point of billionS with an S.

There's a steep difference in the acceptable safety of a space vehicle and of a commercial airliner.

There's also a steep difference in the tolerances you can permit. A rocket -- especially one with any hope of reusability -- is something that can't be built without getting very very close to the maximum tolerances possible within the bounds of physics. Look at the temperature differentials in a rocket engine for example... it involves nearly instantaneous transitions from deep cryptogenic temperatures to ones far beyond the melting point of any known material that can only be sustained with constant active cooling. The fact that we can achieve any level of reliability with a device this insane is really a testament to human ingenuity, but it doesn't give you much margin for error. Screw up just a tiny bit and the rocket is going to do what the laws of thermodynamics really want it to do: explode in every direction instead of just downward.

An airliner, even a supersonic one, is more forgiving. Over-engineering goes a long way toward adding nines to your reliability. We've been doing supersonic flight with reusable craft since the 1950s, and there aren't a whole lot of unknowns remaining. That means it's mostly a manufacturing and operations optimization problem.

Re: Boom (YC W16) – Supersonic Passenger Airplanes

#40

Post by 13of40 »

api wrote: post #16
themgt wrote: post #3

Sorry but is "Boom" really a good name for an aircraft company? I get it's supersonic, but my first association was an exploding airplane.

It could work until they have an accident, at which point the double meaning will kick in hard-core... especially since the traditional airline industry will PR flak them. (Flak pun intended.)

Yep, that headline is pretty much going to write itself.
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