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Boom takes the wraps off its supersonic Symphony engine design

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Re: Boom takes the wraps off its supersonic Symphony engine design

#31

Post by kitd »

masklinn wrote: post #25
whinvik wrote: post #24

It's very disappointing to see how skeptical HN has become about new technology. Making aircrafts is hard, making supersonic aircraft even harder and making a new supersonic aircraft company hardest of all. That there's progress by Boom should be encouraged. Otherwise we are just saying that aircrafts will continue to be the domain of Airbus and Boeing only who don't have much incentive to innovate.

> It's very disappointing to see how skeptical HN has become about new technology. Completely made up nonsense with no evidence is not "new technology". > That there's progress by Boom Is there though? PR is not progress.

Completely made up nonsense with no evidence

Citation?

Re: Boom takes the wraps off its supersonic Symphony engine design

#32

Post by julienfr112 »

akiselev wrote: post #18
KingOfCoders wrote: post #11

"35,000 pounds of thrust" Can anyone compare this to other commercial and military engines?

A popular turbofan with civilian fighter jets is the TFE731 with 3,500–4,750 lbf [1] and can be fitted to i.e. the L39 Albatross trainer jet. [2] Supersonic jets like the F5 might use something like the GE J85 which produces a base 3,500 lbf or 5,000 with an afterburner [3]. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garrett_TFE731 [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aero_L-39_Albatros [3] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ge…

civilian fighter jet ? Is that a US thing ?

Re: Boom takes the wraps off its supersonic Symphony engine design

#33

Post by masklinn »

akiselev wrote: post #9
beefman wrote: post #6

I want to believe but my B.S. detector is pegged at 11 with this company.

> The Symphony engine will be designed from scratch by Boom’s partners: Florida Turbine Technologies (a subsidiary of Kratos) will do the engine design proper, GE Additive will consult on manufacturing, and StandardAero will be on maintenance duty. (FTA) They're (Boom) not the ones designing it. Kratos Turbine Technologies has made turbopumps for liquid rockets so they're well placed to do this work. The hard part is…

> Kratos Turbine Technologies has made turbopumps for liquid rockets so they're well placed to do this work.

Liquid rocket turbopumps and jet engines are completely different things.

And FTT was a designer of missile and UAV engines, according to Kratos' website they're developing 300lb thrust turbojets and 900lb thrust turbofans: https://www.kratosdefense.com/products/uav/air/turbines. Their KTT is 200lbf, targeted towards "cheap cruise missiles" and "attritable" (aka expendable) UAVs, and was developed in 18 months.

But apparently they'll be able to develop an airliner engine with 175 times more thrust (without afterburner), in 2 years?

Hell, the linked page boasts of their newly commissioned "X-58 test facility", able to accomodate engines "up to 3000-lb thrust".

I'm not panning KTT here, I don't know if they were even involved in the press release, but things don't really make any sense.

And remember, this is a project Rolls-Royce fucked away from 3 months ago, after two years of collaboration. So in 3 months Boom has supposedly found a company which is able to design an engine type which has basically never existed from scratch with no experience.

Re: Boom takes the wraps off its supersonic Symphony engine design

#34

Post by phire »

cromulent wrote: post #3

Still interested in the business model. Supersonic flight is over land is illegal in the US. https://www.faa.gov/newsroom/supersonic-flight

There has been some openness towards reversing the ban.

But it doesn't look any serioys movement will happen until after someone makes a plane and proves it's quiet enough.

So Boom are taking a bit of a leap of faith, and also designing it to be capable of trans-Atlantic flights as a semi-profitable backup plan.

Re: Boom takes the wraps off its supersonic Symphony engine design

#35

Post by dncornholio »

whinvik wrote: post #24

It's very disappointing to see how skeptical HN has become about new technology. Making aircrafts is hard, making supersonic aircraft even harder and making a new supersonic aircraft company hardest of all. That there's progress by Boom should be encouraged. Otherwise we are just saying that aircrafts will continue to be the domain of Airbus and Boeing only who don't have much incentive to innovate.

Where's the new technology though? It's just a turbofan engine.

We should be super skeptical these days. Too many promises and not enough deliveries. Also, just because something is hard, doesn't mean it shouldn't deserve criticism.

Re: Boom takes the wraps off its supersonic Symphony engine design

#36

Post by rgmerk »

whinvik wrote: post #24

It's very disappointing to see how skeptical HN has become about new technology. Making aircrafts is hard, making supersonic aircraft even harder and making a new supersonic aircraft company hardest of all. That there's progress by Boom should be encouraged. Otherwise we are just saying that aircrafts will continue to be the domain of Airbus and Boeing only who don't have much incentive to innovate.

The point is that there isn’t progress on the most critical part of a viable aircraft - the engine.

Some of us who weren’t born yesterday have seen this rodeo before, and when a startup aircraft manufacturer switches engines it tends to indicate their concept isn’t viable. The fact that Boom are proposing to build their own engine, rather than partnering with an established engine manufacturer, tends to suggest that the engine manufacturers don’t think it’s doable either.

Sometimes the establishment gets it wrong, but jet engine manufacture is a very mature field, and Boom isn’t proposing to do some radical new engine design. That makes me pretty suspicious.

Re: Boom takes the wraps off its supersonic Symphony engine design

#37

Post by syntaxing »

whinvik wrote: post #24

It's very disappointing to see how skeptical HN has become about new technology. Making aircrafts is hard, making supersonic aircraft even harder and making a new supersonic aircraft company hardest of all. That there's progress by Boom should be encouraged. Otherwise we are just saying that aircrafts will continue to be the domain of Airbus and Boeing only who don't have much incentive to innovate.

I mean, that’s just engineering in general. We’re all mostly pessimistic opportunists. Skeptical of any new technology but get impressed only when they actually deliver. Ideas are cheap (not easy though). Execution is where most ideas die.

Re: Boom takes the wraps off its supersonic Symphony engine design

#38

Post by perihelions »

- "And it is built specifically for use with Sustainable Aviation Fuel, a cleaner alternative to ordinary jet fuel — albeit one that costs several times more right now."

I've been thinking about this for a while, in the context of multiple different startups. There's this (anti)pattern I see repeatedly: a startup says they're doing something that's an obviously an overwhelmingly bad idea from a business sense, but that creates positive PR in the short term. "We're limiting ourselves to exotic jet fuel multiple times more expensive than our competitors'" is such an example. I've seen so many others, I'm beginning to wonder what's going on.

Is it bait-and-switch? Start out by promising something you don't plan to deliver, to garner goodwill and investment in the near term? And then switch to the "correct" mode later.

Is it unseriousness? Are they not 100% focused on doing everything to get the startup to succeed? Imposing artificial limits on your company isn't the action of a success-at-all-costs mindset. Do they expect to fail and are just coasting?

I'm overlooking something obvious and reasonable. Most founders are smart (?); there has to be a sensible business explanation for this.

(edit: Not that carbon-neutral jet fuel isn't a great idea for a startup. But this is a supersonic airplane company, not a jet fuel company. If your startup's success requires succeeding at two different extremely difficult novel things at the same time, your success probability goes from "epsilon" to "epsilon squared").

Re: Boom takes the wraps off its supersonic Symphony engine design

#39

Post by goodSteveramos »

kitd wrote: post #31
masklinn wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's very disappointing to see how skeptical HN has become about new technology. Completely made up nonsense with no evidence is not "new technology". > That there's progress by Boom Is there though? PR is not progress.

Completely made up nonsense with no evidence Citation?

this is a really funny comment if you think about it. Instead of simply presenting the evidence, you demand that he prove there is none. Quite a bold demand. got to respect that on some level. If you disagree, prove there isn't any evidence that Im right.

Re: Boom takes the wraps off its supersonic Symphony engine design

#40

Post by mnw21cam »

phire wrote: post #26
akiselev wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The Symphony engine will be designed from scratch by Boom’s partners: Florida Turbine Technologies (a subsidiary of Kratos) will do the engine design proper, GE Additive will consult on manufacturing, and StandardAero will be on maintenance duty. (FTA) They're (Boom) not the ones designing it. Kratos Turbine Technologies has made turbopumps for liquid rockets so they're well placed to do this work. The hard part is…

Interestingly, it's not GE Aviation (the GE division who make engines) but GE Additive, a division of GE who specialise in Additive manufacturing (aka 3D printing) metal parts. So it's going to have 3d printed rotors and probally other , which is super cool. GE Additive have previously made 3d printed turbine parts for GE Aviation[1], so they do have some experience. Also, this appears to be Kratos' second jet engine…

Turbine blades are the bits that whizz around really fast and are subject to extremes of temperature and force. Established engine manufacturers go to interesting lengths to make turbine blades made of interesting materials like single crystal metal alloys just so that they can cope with the conditions. In a jet engine, a small increase in working temperature gives a significant improvement in efficiency and performance. I can't see how 3D-printed turbine blades could possibly be a good idea.
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