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The Race to Build the First Sustainable Supersonic Jet

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Re: The Race to Build the First Sustainable Supersonic Jet

#11

Post by leetcrew »

mshook wrote: post #7
chrisseaton wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they don't impact productive time Even flying in first class I’m sure I’d get there much more refreshed for a short four hour flight than an eight hour one, improving my productivity when I get there. And why are you only considering overnight flights?

Regarding Concorde and from a customer's business perspective, going west (from Paris or London to NYC) made sense as you'd pretty much land before you took off (in local time). So you'd gain time. For instance you'd leave Paris at 10:30am and you'd land at JFK at 8:25am or so. But on the way back, you'd take-off from JFK at 8am to land at 5:45pm... To/From London would be 10:30am/09:25am and 8:30am/17:25pm. Bottom l…

as an aside, I don't understand how people can fly several hours on a commercial airline and then just start their day as if it didn't happen. I need at least a full 24hr cycle involving sleep in a real bed to get back to 100%.

Re: The Race to Build the First Sustainable Supersonic Jet

#12

Post by chrisseaton »

leetcrew wrote: post #11
mshook wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regarding Concorde and from a customer's business perspective, going west (from Paris or London to NYC) made sense as you'd pretty much land before you took off (in local time). So you'd gain time. For instance you'd leave Paris at 10:30am and you'd land at JFK at 8:25am or so. But on the way back, you'd take-off from JFK at 8am to land at 5:45pm... To/From London would be 10:30am/09:25am and 8:30am/17:25pm. Bottom l…

as an aside, I don't understand how people can fly several hours on a commercial airline and then just start their day as if it didn't happen. I need at least a full 24hr cycle involving sleep in a real bed to get back to 100%.

> I don't understand how people can fly several hours on a commercial airline

Flying in first, not drinking a ton of free alcohol, and showering at the arrivals lounge.

Re: The Race to Build the First Sustainable Supersonic Jet

#13

Post by theothermkn »

johncalvinyoung wrote: post #5

I was surprised the article didn't mention Boom, which is targeting the business-class airliner tier. Their value proposition is different, and closer to Concorde: no plans for 'boomless' supercruise, but also vastly higher supersonic cruise at Mach 2.2. They haven't started constructing their airliner yet (named Overture) but XB-1, their supersonic demonstrator and testbed, is in fabrication right now.

It's clearly a submarine (http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html) article. The article is so light, and so full of hot air, that it practically advocates for balloon travel, not supersonic flight.

Re: The Race to Build the First Sustainable Supersonic Jet

#14

Post by smachiz »

polalavik wrote: post #4
smachiz wrote: post #2

Feels like a losing battle against physics, combined with it only being really valuable in a single direction. Overnight flights from east coast to EU are late enough that they don't impact productive time, and largely get in early enough for a full day of work. Making that flight shorter - as anyone who's done a DEN-NYC redeye will tell you - doesn't actually help productivity. Sure, on the return flight, it would b…

Sounds like you only fly first class. Have you ever flown 10+ hours in economy and felt ready for work (or even vacation) stepping off the plane?

It sucks, but I've done it and do it. Unfortunately sometimes you just have to.

But these are maybe around 10h max flights - given the range of ~4000-4500 miles. So you're still on a plane for ~5 hours.

But you still have the same issues with time zones. If you need a lot of time to adjust to a new time zone, you were always flying in way earlier - so whether your flight is 5 hours or 10 doesn't really matter much.

You were never going to red-eye in for a morning meeting in London or Paris either way.

Re: The Race to Build the First Sustainable Supersonic Jet

#15

Post by smachiz »

chrisseaton wrote: post #3
smachiz wrote: post #2

Feels like a losing battle against physics, combined with it only being really valuable in a single direction. Overnight flights from east coast to EU are late enough that they don't impact productive time, and largely get in early enough for a full day of work. Making that flight shorter - as anyone who's done a DEN-NYC redeye will tell you - doesn't actually help productivity. Sure, on the return flight, it would b…

> they don't impact productive time Even flying in first class I’m sure I’d get there much more refreshed for a short four hour flight than an eight hour one, improving my productivity when I get there. And why are you only considering overnight flights?

Timezones. 6PM in NYC is midnight in Paris. Leave the office at 3PM and get to Paris at Midnight? Lost half a day leaving, still not getting into a hotel until 1AM best case.

Leave NYC supersonic at 9PM, get to paris at 6AM, great, I might've been able to sleep 1h.

On a normal plane I can leave NYC at 6PM, get to Paris at 8AM, and hopefully have gotten to sleep for 3-4h.

This also doesn't account for block padding - busy destinations and origins are busy. JFK-CDG is blocked at ~7.5h, at least 45m of that time is for padding departure/taxiing/landing slots in JFK and CDG.

Doubling the speed of the middle leg is not the same as halving trip length.

Re: The Race to Build the First Sustainable Supersonic Jet

#16

Post by CalRobert »

leetcrew wrote: post #11
mshook wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regarding Concorde and from a customer's business perspective, going west (from Paris or London to NYC) made sense as you'd pretty much land before you took off (in local time). So you'd gain time. For instance you'd leave Paris at 10:30am and you'd land at JFK at 8:25am or so. But on the way back, you'd take-off from JFK at 8am to land at 5:45pm... To/From London would be 10:30am/09:25am and 8:30am/17:25pm. Bottom l…

as an aside, I don't understand how people can fly several hours on a commercial airline and then just start their day as if it didn't happen. I need at least a full 24hr cycle involving sleep in a real bed to get back to 100%.

Honestly I think a lot are struggling to stay awake and just use a ton of caffeine to mask it. Certainly I've seen some execs whose brains just weren't there thinking they were fine to do SFO->DUB and start meetings.

Re: The Race to Build the First Sustainable Supersonic Jet

#17

Post by [deleted] »

smachiz wrote: post #15
chrisseaton wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they don't impact productive time Even flying in first class I’m sure I’d get there much more refreshed for a short four hour flight than an eight hour one, improving my productivity when I get there. And why are you only considering overnight flights?

Timezones. 6PM in NYC is midnight in Paris. Leave the office at 3PM and get to Paris at Midnight? Lost half a day leaving, still not getting into a hotel until 1AM best case. Leave NYC supersonic at 9PM, get to paris at 6AM, great, I might've been able to sleep 1h. On a normal plane I can leave NYC at 6PM, get to Paris at 8AM, and hopefully have gotten to sleep for 3-4h. This also doesn't account for block padding -…

[deleted]

Re: The Race to Build the First Sustainable Supersonic Jet

#18

Post by philjohn »

One thing they got wrong in the article was on profits - whilst the Air France operation struggled, the British Airways Concorde operation was profitable, especially when they did research that showed most people thought seats on Concorde were more expensive than they actually were.

Re: The Race to Build the First Sustainable Supersonic Jet

#19

Post by ryanlol »

chrisseaton wrote: post #12
leetcrew wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

as an aside, I don't understand how people can fly several hours on a commercial airline and then just start their day as if it didn't happen. I need at least a full 24hr cycle involving sleep in a real bed to get back to 100%.

> I don't understand how people can fly several hours on a commercial airline Flying in first, not drinking a ton of free alcohol, and showering at the arrivals lounge.

Yup, sleep well and have a shower right before landing. Rather easy (depending on the route), but could be expensive depending on how valuable your time is.

Doesn’t even always have to be first, lots of airlines have excellent product in biz too.

Re: The Race to Build the First Sustainable Supersonic Jet

#20

Post by johngalt »

leetcrew wrote: post #11
mshook wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regarding Concorde and from a customer's business perspective, going west (from Paris or London to NYC) made sense as you'd pretty much land before you took off (in local time). So you'd gain time. For instance you'd leave Paris at 10:30am and you'd land at JFK at 8:25am or so. But on the way back, you'd take-off from JFK at 8am to land at 5:45pm... To/From London would be 10:30am/09:25am and 8:30am/17:25pm. Bottom l…

as an aside, I don't understand how people can fly several hours on a commercial airline and then just start their day as if it didn't happen. I need at least a full 24hr cycle involving sleep in a real bed to get back to 100%.

It's mainly about routine. Given time and repetition people will get used to almost anything.

The anxiety surrounding travel is what makes it exhausting. Once you are used to it, it fades into the background as a well optimized habit. It's like your work commute where you are just on autopilot and don't really think about it.

Ultimately it becomes a few hours to yourself to just read, sleep, or get caught up.

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