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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

#431

Post by freeone3000 »

cjrp wrote: post #320
yardstick wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

That would be the Long Island Rail Road (at 35 minutes). (It's also connected by subway, which will take 60 minutes to Manhattan but maybe worthwhile if you want to get off sooner.)

Re: American Airlines agrees to purchase Boom Supersonic Overture aircraft

#432

Post by nerpderp82 »

delisam wrote: post #428
jandrese wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Didn't the founder say he envisions supersonic tickets to be $100? I can't even buy any subsonic tix for less than $120.

I can envision teleportation.

Re: American Airlines agrees to purchase Boom Supersonic Overture aircraft

#433

Post by samstave »

chx wrote: post #104
samstave wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Probably will be very expensive but it's exciting for future possibilities Are you kidding me! I cant recall the last time I DIDN'T need to be in Honolulu in THREE HOURS!! This is a life changer for my Macadamia nut Addiction... --- In all seriousness, the best commercial prospect for this is high-speed-cargo. Need a part from GuangZhu like TODAY? Need an organ transplant from Ohio to Munich, TODAY? Need to fire 90…

> a range of 4,250 nautical miles. > Need a part from GuangZhu CAN-LAX is 6,284 nm. > Ohio to Munich OK that can work, CLE-MUC is 3,759 nm.

I FUKN LOVE that someone on HN spent the effort to determine if my BS was airport-code ready.

God, I fn Love you.

Re: American Airlines agrees to purchase Boom Supersonic Overture aircraft

#434

Post by wmeredith »

delisam wrote: post #428
jandrese wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Didn't the founder say he envisions supersonic tickets to be $100? I can't even buy any subsonic tix for less than $120.

This is hilarious, if true. I flew on a shitty subsonic flight from the midwest to Utah earlier this year and it was $450/ticket when I bought them 6 months out.

Re: American Airlines agrees to purchase Boom Supersonic Overture aircraft

#435

Post by newsclues »

sofixa wrote: post #419
newsclues wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people want to live and work in different places. Rather than high speed rail to get the masses into cities for work, we are getting fast planes for the wealthy to work in NYC and spend the weekend in European villas. Makes you scratch your head trying to justify this while climate change is encouraging people to eat bugs.

> Rather than high speed rail to get the masses into cities for work That wouldn't really work outside of some very specific cases. High speed rail (300km/h+) needs some distance to get to its cruising speed. Below that it's a waste of money. The shortest high-speed rail route i know of is Paris-Reims and it takes 40 minutes, which is decent for a commute, depending on home/work to train station distance.

Those specific cases cover massive numbers of people so why aren’t they being done? I don’t expect HSR everywhere but in the dense areas

Re: American Airlines agrees to purchase Boom Supersonic Overture aircraft

#436

Post by rootusrootus »

matwood wrote: post #247
zionic wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also sanity. I’ve done a 16 hour flight before, and let me say never again . I slept for half of it and the other half was still miserable.

On those lengths you start to go a little crazy. I've done Atlanta to Tokyo and back before, and those are 13+ hours depending. You sleep and wake up and sleep and wake up, watch movies, and then wonder why there's still so many hours left to go. It does make me appreciate human engineering though. When you think about all the parts that work correctly day in and day out to have these longs flights run back and forth…

> On those lengths you start to go a little crazy

100% this. After 16 hours, I could have kissed the ground when I walked off that plane. At some point, after maybe 8-10 hours, order seems to break down a bit. People stop caring so much about keeping clean, the plane starts to get really cluttered and nasty, food ground into the carpet. I feel for the cleaning crews that have to spruce up the interior after a really long international flight.

I still remember the first time I flew home from the north, we had taken off from Dubai and were headed to Seattle, which goes over the north pole. I watched that silly map more than I should have (it just makes things slower, I'm sure...) and I was so elated the moment we went 'feet dry' over North America. And then I realized that we still had six plus hours to go, more than if we were starting at the east coast. I was so sad for a few minutes I could have cried.

Re: American Airlines agrees to purchase Boom Supersonic Overture aircraft

#437

Post by rootusrootus »

chx wrote: post #175
MetallicCloud wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in Colorado, but am from Melbourne, Australia. I told everyone the last time I went back that it will be the last visit. That trip is hellish and once every 2 years is still too much.

Try adding a break in Honolulu. It is indeed a long flight from Los Angeles but I found it's bearable if you spend a few days in Honolulu. Also, Jetstar-Melbourne can be very cheap in economy or it can be a very good price/value in what it calls business which really is just premium economy in today's transcontinental flights.

Before the pandemic saved me from ever having to do it again, I was traveling from Portland to Hyderabad twice a year, and I told my manager that I wouldn't go back unless I could stop over in London for a day before continuing on to Hyderabad. Never did find out if that would have been accepted or not, but I was so tired of that particular three-flight nightmare.

Re: American Airlines agrees to purchase Boom Supersonic Overture aircraft

#438

Post by ghaff »

username223 wrote: post #417
ghaff wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me, it's a good chance to watch a movie and maybe read a book (which I don't do often enough at home). I'm may be an outlier but I don't really care if I have Internet on a flight or not. If I have a lie-flat business class option with decent food, getting to my destination a few hours early with less comfortable seating isn't a clear win. Like most people, I'm not jetting over to London to have lunch and sign a…

> Like most people, I'm not jetting over to London to have lunch and sign a deal and heading home to sleep in my own bed. Thank you for enlightening me. As someone nowhere near rich enough for this to be relevant, my upper bound for pleasant W-E transatlantic flight is being able to sleep. Shortening that sleep seems like a loss. But if you have a private jet on call, you can skip connecting flights, airport security…

There is, in general, a very big gap between private and cost-doesn't-matter commercial. And, no, I can't speak to what flying private is like.

Flying can still be a hassle flying business/first mostly because of cancellations/schedule changes--which can still happen otherwise because of weather, air traffic, etc.--but is less frequent I assume. A lot of the hassles of commercial flight (security lines, lack of overhead space, airport crowds in the waiting area, cramped seating, etc.) can be mitigated to a significant degree however.

Re: American Airlines agrees to purchase Boom Supersonic Overture aircraft

#439

Post by rootusrootus »

bluGill wrote: post #243
zionic wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also sanity. I’ve done a 16 hour flight before, and let me say never again . I slept for half of it and the other half was still miserable.

I find planes impossible to sleep on. End up arriving over tired and stiff and sore after my 16 hour flight. I've never got my company to spring for a better class though. Next time I'm taking a 1 day layover in Germany or something.

That moment when your body really understands that it is in fact 1 or 2 in the morning, but you can't sleep on a plane. I'd nod off repeatedly, only to instantly wake back up again. I'm quite jealous of people who can just conk out on a plane, but it does not work for me.

Re: American Airlines agrees to purchase Boom Supersonic Overture aircraft

#440

Post by rootusrootus »

_gu8l wrote: post #216
awb wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> over water All the imagined routes are over large bodies of water. Is it key to the functionality or intent of the aircraft in some way? Why not NYC to LAX in 3 hours?

A bunch of replies say that wouldn’t be allowed, but I heard sonic booms regularly while living near an Air Force Base in California. It didn’t seem to affect the hundreds of thousands of residents nearby. Is there an actual reason why we can’t have one every day at 10am or on some other regular schedule?

It really depends on where the sounds were generated, in my experience. Off shore sonic booms are loud, but fairly tolerable by the time the sound makes it to the beach. But I once heard two fighters go supersonic directly overhead in eastern Washington (they were pretty high up, even so) and the booms sounded like someone tried to bash in the front of the house. Not something you'd tolerate with any regularity.
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