American Airlines agrees to purchase Boom Supersonic Overture aircraft • Hacker News Board

Re: American Airlines agrees to purchase Boom Supersonic Overture aircraft

#361

Post by zardo » Tue, Aug 16, 2022, 6:38 PM UTC

foo92691 wrote: post #301

credit_guy wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> to get less people around the world faster What does “less people” mean? You mean Boom is targeting only the ultra-rich? That’s not their aim. They aim to make supersonic flight both possible and affordable.

According to their propaganda, they are going to make jet transport cheaper AND faster AND greener. I see no evidence that this is at all realistic, and a lot of evidence to the contrary. Do they even have a story explaining how their new supersonic jet could possibly reduce costs?

Cheaper than the current options for transporting 80 people via supersonic aircraft.

Re: American Airlines agrees to purchase Boom Supersonic Overture aircraft

#362

Post by foobiekr » Tue, Aug 16, 2022, 6:38 PM UTC

simonebrunozzi wrote: post #225

IMHO a better title would have been: "American Airlines to buy 20 Overture aircraft from Boom Supersonic" When reading the original title, I had the impression that the company was going to be acquired by AA. Instead, it's "just" an order of 20 aircrafts. Note that this is not a new move by Boom, they played this card when raising money when they pitched at YC demo day, and they're doing it again. The problem I have…

The deposit could be $1 for all we know and fully cancelable with no commitment to buy or deploy. The press release is basically fluff.

Re: American Airlines agrees to purchase Boom Supersonic Overture aircraft

#363

Post by jabl » Tue, Aug 16, 2022, 6:38 PM UTC

foo92691 wrote: post #301

credit_guy wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> to get less people around the world faster What does “less people” mean? You mean Boom is targeting only the ultra-rich? That’s not their aim. They aim to make supersonic flight both possible and affordable.

According to their propaganda, they are going to make jet transport cheaper AND faster AND greener. I see no evidence that this is at all realistic, and a lot of evidence to the contrary. Do they even have a story explaining how their new supersonic jet could possibly reduce costs?

Hmm, yeah. I mean with modern technology it should be feasible to create a more cost-effective / greener supersonic airliner than Concorde.

But basic physics dictates that supersonic flight requires a lot of power, as well as low bypass turbofans. So competitive with modern "normal" airliners in terms of cost or emissions per seat-km, nope, not gonna happen.

Synthetic jet fuel is a good idea that deserves R&D money (if we're gonna keep flying long distance in a carbon constrained world I think something like that is going to be necessary), but is orthogonal to a supersonic airliner. Unsure why they think that bundling synthetic jet fuel (itself a high-risk R&D project) with their supersonic jet (another high risk R&D project) will do anything but increase the risk of failure of the entire project. Well, the uncharitable explanation why they're doing it is of course greenwashing.

Re: American Airlines agrees to purchase Boom Supersonic Overture aircraft

#364

Post by greedo » Tue, Aug 16, 2022, 6:38 PM UTC

Ottolay wrote: post #340

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…

Feels like there is a business case for people willing to pay to reduce trip times for trans continental flights. The problem is that the greenhouse gas impact will be higher for a supersonic trip compared to a subsonic one. This is on top of the issue that we don't really have a good low carbon alternative for longer range air travel (batteries don't have anywhere near enough specific energy). The best option we hav…

It's not like tickets on these planes are going to be cheap anyway. You could double the fuel cost and I doubt that would double the ticket cost.

Re: American Airlines agrees to purchase Boom Supersonic Overture aircraft

#365

Post by hef19898 » Tue, Aug 16, 2022, 6:38 PM UTC

bobthepanda wrote: post #256

sonthonax wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why aren't the Chinese and Russians successful at building airliners? International politics aside, they have workable products, so why can't they break into the duopoly.

Workable != competitive, and in an industry as cutthroat in aviation airlines want the absolute best in fuel efficiency and reliability to undercut their competitors by $5. There are other commercial aircraft manufacturers but essentially in each size segment you will only see two players. Embraer doesn‘t make any direct competitors with Airbus or Boeing, as an example.

Embraer jets got rebranded as A220s not that long ago, great planes that took over the market that served by short 737s and A319/18s. No competition for the bigger planes, that is true.

Re: American Airlines agrees to purchase Boom Supersonic Overture aircraft

#366

Post by balaji1 » Tue, Aug 16, 2022, 6:39 PM UTC

simonebrunozzi wrote: post #225

IMHO a better title would have been: "American Airlines to buy 20 Overture aircraft from Boom Supersonic" When reading the original title, I had the impression that the company was going to be acquired by AA. Instead, it's "just" an order of 20 aircrafts. Note that this is not a new move by Boom, they played this card when raising money when they pitched at YC demo day, and they're doing it again. The problem I have…

Totally agree about the wording of the title comment and other commenters in this thread.

But "Boom Supersonic is transforming air travel with Overture, the world’s fastest airliner, optimized for speed, safety, and sustainability. Serving both civil and government markets, Overture will fly at twice the speed of today’s airliners and is designed to run on 100% sustainable aviation fuel (SAF). Overture’s order book, including purchases and options from American Airlines, United Airlines, and Japan Airlines stands at 130 aircraft. Boom is working with Northrop Grumman for government and defense applications of Overture. Suppliers and partners collaborating with Boom on the Overture program include Collins Aerospace, Eaton, Safran Landing Systems, Rolls-Royce, the United States Air Force, American Express, Climeworks, and AWS."

This^ is significant support they already have. So they could operate for 10+ years, which seems like they will (even if they are just in R&D and burning cash). In a way, it is viable to the employees and suppliers, if they get paid for such a long time haha.

Re: American Airlines agrees to purchase Boom Supersonic Overture aircraft

#367

Post by stickfigure » Tue, Aug 16, 2022, 6:42 PM UTC

MaxikCZ wrote: post #300

cannaceo wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who flies first class there is no way I'm flying coach to save time. Flying business is about the lounges, the meals, the service, and the ability to stretch out your legs.

If you value that over speed, why not take a oceanic cruiser? More lounges, more service, you can stretch your legs way more (or take a swim), better meals (and more of them).. Its always a tradeoff of comfort vs speed.

The internet tells me that there is only one ocean liner left (Queen Mary 2), which travels only between the UK and the US east coast.

Re: American Airlines agrees to purchase Boom Supersonic Overture aircraft

#368

Post by jandrese » Tue, Aug 16, 2022, 6:43 PM UTC

galgot wrote: post #200

So they went from scaled down Concorde configuration : https://www.airway.com.br/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Boom_Ov... to a very scaled down Boeing 2707-300 configuration : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_2707 (that tiny fin tho...). While reducing cruise speed to 1.7 mach. I see no visible changes to deal with the sonic booms problem. So operation would be like Concorde I suppose, subsonic (or hi-subsonic) over…

And they still have not solved the problem that ultimately sunk the Concorde. Fuel costs made it unprofitable to operate whenever the price of oil went up.

The small niche of customers willing to pay a significant premium in order to save some travel hours is not big enough to sustain an entire industry of specialized mechanics, parts suppliers, pilots, etc... Basically you need a critical mass of people riding these aircraft every year before the relatively high fixed costs eat you alive, and it's very hard to get a lot of people to buy into a high priced luxury service.

Re: American Airlines agrees to purchase Boom Supersonic Overture aircraft

#369

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Aug 16, 2022, 6:43 PM UTC

simonebrunozzi wrote: post #225

IMHO a better title would have been: "American Airlines to buy 20 Overture aircraft from Boom Supersonic" When reading the original title, I had the impression that the company was going to be acquired by AA. Instead, it's "just" an order of 20 aircrafts. Note that this is not a new move by Boom, they played this card when raising money when they pitched at YC demo day, and they're doing it again. The problem I have…

[deleted]

Re: American Airlines agrees to purchase Boom Supersonic Overture aircraft

#370

Post by hef19898 » Tue, Aug 16, 2022, 6:43 PM UTC

panick21_ wrote: post #251

hef19898 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless Boeing or Airbus screw up financially, which is almost impossible, the duopoly is set in stone. It will take massive government backing to change that, Airbus itself is proof of that. The only parties that do challenge the big two on single aile jets are Bombardier and Embraer, one of which was bought by Airbus and one which was almost bought by Boeing.

I disagree. The disruption can happen as many routes transition to electric. Boeing and Airbus might wait for to long. There are already new companies doing short-distance electric passenger flight. These companies could well scale to longer distance flights. You could also imagine a company like Tesla getting in that business as well.

There are no electric jet operated commercially, and wont be until at least 2026. And those that are in development are meant for distances around 100-200 km or strait up urban mobility. The latter of which falls squarely into the helicopter segment.

And as far as automotive, or generally non-aerospace, companies are concerned, well, aerospace is hard. Really hard, it is with the potential exception of life science the most regulated industry on earth. None of the automotive experience (close to none, but you get the point) translate into an aerospace environment. And even if, we are still looking at billions of development cost for small aircraft to be used commercialy, in the range of ten billion plus for commercial airliners.