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American Airlines agrees to purchase Boom Supersonic Overture aircraft

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Re: American Airlines agrees to purchase Boom Supersonic Overture aircraft

#311

Post by humanistbot »

mmaunder wrote: post #262

Burning more Jet-A to get less people around the world faster has got to be the most tone deaf idea this decade. I'm a pilot, I just attended Airventure, and I love the history around SR-71, Concorde and the other incredible high speed planes we've built. But this is an idea that had its time and aviation has moved on to high bypass turbofan engines, reliability, safety, fuel efficiency and reducing our environmental…

Tone-deaf to many people who care about climate, sure. But what about to the executive types who believe they are so important that they need to be there in-person, and they get to expense these tickets to the corporate account? I think the same executives who are trying to kill work-from-home and have an inflated view of the benefits of in-person meetings will buy these tickets up.

Re: American Airlines agrees to purchase Boom Supersonic Overture aircraft

#312

Post by nautilius »

ucha wrote: post #298

To everyone saying this will not work because it's more expensive... jets were more expensive than turboprops. And even though the former use more fuel, we prefer them. The costs of flying an airplane isn't proportional to its fuel usage. The faster an aircraft is, the more flights it can perform per day. The carbon emissions impact of flying a gas-guzzling supersonic aircraft aren't evident either. Of course, more g…

> The costs of flying an airplane isn't proportional to its fuel usage. The faster an aircraft is, the more flights it can perform per day.

It is indeed not proportional, but not in the way you are thinking. Drag (and ~fuel consumption) scales with velocity squared, so a plane flying twice at fast (and neglecting any time at the airport, which would make the argument even worse) would use four times as much fuel. I.e., even if twice the amount of passengers would be served, it would be done for four times the fuel consumption and four times the carbon emissions (or twice the fuel consumption per trip).

Re: American Airlines agrees to purchase Boom Supersonic Overture aircraft

#313

Post by Scoundreller »

Turing_Machine wrote: post #239
snovv_crash wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Descending and climbing again will take a lot of fuel, jets are only efficient at high altitude. Plus of course the extra takeoff and landing adding cycles to the airframe.

Sure, but if it's the difference between "can" and "can't"... It's a small enough issue that it's the routine route for cargo flights between China and the U.S. West Coast. Anchorage is the second-largest cargo airport in the United States (after FedEx's home base in Memphis).

Part of that is because cargo usually runs on old and inefficient planes, so they really benefit from “intermediate stop operations”. Carrying all that extra fuel for a direct long-haul adds 10-15% in fuel costs.

Re: American Airlines agrees to purchase Boom Supersonic Overture aircraft

#314

Post by etothepii »

mrcartmeneses wrote: post #283
gnfargbl wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's en_gb and not en_uk (although UK is exceptionally reserved [1], and we recently begun using UK on car nationality identifier stickers). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_3166-1_alpha-2#Exceptional...

GB is the more neutral term, UK is pushed by the Conservatives and nationalists/royalists

GB is not "more neutral".

Great Britain is the name of the post 1707 Union of England and Scotland. It's not neutral if you are a member of the Unionist community in Northern Ireland.

The United Kingdom is the name used by the country at the UN but is, of course, not neutral if one is a member of the Nationalist community in Northern Ireland.

No one uses .co.gb domains.

Re: American Airlines agrees to purchase Boom Supersonic Overture aircraft

#315

Post by ghaff »

quercusa wrote: post #230
gbronner wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Concorde was not very pleasant to sit in from what I've heard. Great food, but the seats were basically economy 2x2.

I've tried the seats at the Intrepid museum. They are very tight and the window is tiny. I'm sure the food and drinks helped. https://www.intrepidmuseum.org/The-Intrepid-Experience/Exhib...

When my dad was flying back and forth to Europe from the US East Coast a lot, he told me he got upgraded to the Concorde once for some reason. His reaction was that it was a neat experience but he'd just as soon fly first class in a 747.

Re: American Airlines agrees to purchase Boom Supersonic Overture aircraft

#316

Post by ghaff »

chx wrote: post #132
alphabetting wrote: post #3

Overture is being designed to carry 65 to 80 passengers at Mach 1.7 over water — or twice the speed of today’s fastest commercial aircraft — with a range of 4,250 nautical miles. Optimized for speed, safety and sustainability, Overture is also being designed to fly more than 600 routes around the world in as little as half the time. Flying from Miami to London in just under five hours and Los Angeles to Honolulu in t…

This is not a winning proposition. Even if we presume these will fly from a VIP terminal so the time you spend at an airport is low, you still need to get there. I just can't see everyone being flown in and out on a helicopter but maybe my imagination is stunted. Once you begin to add up those hours, you are just not saving enough time for the surely astronomical cost. You'd need a much longer range for this to be a…

First class into JFK on Pan Am used to at least have an option to fly into NYC by helicopter. Originally this was to the Pan Am building in midtown was switched to the midtown heliport after an accident.

Re: American Airlines agrees to purchase Boom Supersonic Overture aircraft

#317

Post by HPsquared »

solardev wrote: post #168
zip1234 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Old jet engines are super noisy. Modern jet engines are much much quieter.

What makes the newer engines so much quieter?

They have larger fan blades, for one. That means they move a large volume of air relatively slowly, instead of a small volume of air moving quickly.

Consider the difference between a large shop fan, and a small high pressure compressed air nozzle commonly used in workshops for cleaning, with both sized to give the same "reaction force" (i.e. the same thrust). The high-pressure nozzle makes much more noise.

Re: American Airlines agrees to purchase Boom Supersonic Overture aircraft

#318

Post by crazygringo »

mmaunder wrote: post #262

Burning more Jet-A to get less people around the world faster has got to be the most tone deaf idea this decade. I'm a pilot, I just attended Airventure, and I love the history around SR-71, Concorde and the other incredible high speed planes we've built. But this is an idea that had its time and aviation has moved on to high bypass turbofan engines, reliability, safety, fuel efficiency and reducing our environmental…

This isn't going to be applicable to 95+% of aviation, but for something like a flight between the US and Australia, e.g. LAX to SYD?

Going from a 15h to 8h flight will be huge -- that's 30h to 15h round-trip.

I'm American and visited Australia once, and realized I probably never would again, it's just too far. An Australian friend of mine here in the US only went home to see his family every few years. It just takes sooo long, stuck in an economy-class seat.

Supersonic makes a lot of sense not as general-purpose, but for long-haul flights between hemispheres. At least until there's an economy-price "sleeper car" equivalent accomodation where you can actually sleep on flights.

Re: American Airlines agrees to purchase Boom Supersonic Overture aircraft

#319

Post by yupper32 »

mmaunder wrote: post #262

Burning more Jet-A to get less people around the world faster has got to be the most tone deaf idea this decade. I'm a pilot, I just attended Airventure, and I love the history around SR-71, Concorde and the other incredible high speed planes we've built. But this is an idea that had its time and aviation has moved on to high bypass turbofan engines, reliability, safety, fuel efficiency and reducing our environmental…

> Getting rid leaded avgas

Isn't that more chemical engineering? Boom sounds mostly mechanical.

> moving away from fossil fuels altogether which includes fields like energy storage and electric propulsion

Isn't this mostly battery tech? Seems like a stretch for these experts to be working on that.

> developing an efficient trainer to replace the piston lead-gasoline burning C172 that is so ubiquitous and makes up much of the 1500 required hours for an ATP license.

At least this sounds like something in their wheelhouse, but needless to say, there's no money in that.

Boom is developing a plane that has demand. Simple as that. Not everyone needs to try to save the world.

Re: American Airlines agrees to purchase Boom Supersonic Overture aircraft

#320

Post by cjrp »

yardstick wrote: post #295
mshook wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right but I'm sure both companies had good reasons for their schedules (for instance noise restrictions at night). And realistically, from your plane at JFK to Manhattan, that's got to be a least an hour and a half (immigration and cab/limo). And assuming you'd have to be at JFK just an hour before your flight (and for an international flight that's ballsy), plus with transportation still taking an hour, you j…

I expect operators would arrange dedicated/express facilities for all the airport stuff to speed up the experience. Dedicated/priority check-in, security, immigration. What would be the icing on the cake is an express train from the airport to the city centre that runs every 10-20 minutes (for all passengers prepared to pay, not just supersonics).

That train is the Heathrow Express, just need the JFK equivalent and you’re sorted!
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