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Boom XB-1 First Supersonic Flight [video]

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Re: Boom XB-1 First Supersonic Flight [video]

#41

Post by talldayo »

rbanffy wrote: post #35
talldayo wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Civil" supersonic aircraft is a designation, that's it. Like the other comment said - you can fly supersonic military jets with a civilian designation as long as the jet is deemed airworthy. The real question is whether this will ever scale up to be a passenger aircraft. There are still a huge number of unsolved problems, many of which plagued the Concorde in the best of years. I don't think a scaled demonstrator is…

This is the first supersonic aircraft in a long time that started as a civilian one and was never intended for military applications. Loses points for the military engines though. Still impressively cool.

"in a long time" kinda doesn't matter to me. America hasn't built a supersonic bomber "in a long time", you'll have to excuse me for not caring. The value of such a weapon is dubious and only made sense in a hype-laden Cold War environment.

Similarly I don't think we've learned the lessons of the Concorde yet. Not only do people not need hypersonic flight, it's going to create a premium class of hydrocarbon emissions that is already bad enough with passenger aircraft. Progressive countries will ban operation (much like they did with the Concorde) and routes will have to be changed. Removing the afterburner and making the boom quieter simply isn't going to bring these skeptics onboard, and they're right to remain skeptical.

Re: Boom XB-1 First Supersonic Flight [video]

#45

Post by strongpigeon »

dralley wrote: post #5

Is the goal to be able to supercruise, or are they just going to be to waste tons of fuel on afterburning like the Concorde?

The Concorde was in fact able to supercruise. (As someone else pointed out)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercruise#Aircraft_with_supe...

Re: Boom XB-1 First Supersonic Flight [video]

#47

Post by bangaroo »

dylan604 wrote: post #36
bangaroo wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i don't disagree with any of that, i'm extremely skeptical that they will ever scale this up however: there is, now. this is a civil aircraft flying supersonic, which is still some sort of interesting fact.

Do none of the private jets like G6s or whatever fly supersonic?

nope.

commercial and private jets generally cap out around mach 0.9

i am very rusty on the economics and details of supersonic commercial flight, but the general gist as i recall is:

- going much faster scales up the cost of flying at a rate that's hard to justify for how much time it saves. there is less case in the 2000s for "having to be in london in 3 hours from NY" than there previously was, too.

- noise restrictions and such limit the usefulness of planes that are set up to fly that fast as people don't like being underneath constant sonic booms, so the routes that supersonic passenger flights were relegated to are mostly over water.

it is just way cheaper and easier to fly subsonic, and if you're on a private jet anyway it's not like you're uncomfortable while traveling.

Re: Boom XB-1 First Supersonic Flight [video]

#48

Post by rvz »

dmitrygr wrote: post #10
bangaroo wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

there hasn't been supersonic civil aviation, as far as i am aware, since the concorde was grounded. there are no active commercial aircraft capable of going supersonic. this is significant because it's the first civil aircraft to reach that milestone since the ending of the concorde program.

> there hasn't been supersonic civil aviation There still isn’t, and this is not a very interesting stepping stone. We already knew that we could fly a plane quickly. This company has no engines for their allegedly full scale plane. The last manufacturer dropped them a few years ago, and there has been no movement in that direction. This demonstrates the easiest part of what they’re trying to do, not the hardest. Thi…

Might as well tell the folks at SpaceX to not land on the moon because it we already "knew" we could do it because it has been already been done before.

This sort of pessimism to dismiss this achievement is exactly how to lose and stay comfortable.

Ladies and gentlemen, dismiss the above take.

Re: Boom XB-1 First Supersonic Flight [video]

#49

Post by bangaroo »

talldayo wrote: post #41
rbanffy wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the first supersonic aircraft in a long time that started as a civilian one and was never intended for military applications. Loses points for the military engines though. Still impressively cool.

"in a long time" kinda doesn't matter to me. America hasn't built a supersonic bomber "in a long time", you'll have to excuse me for not caring. The value of such a weapon is dubious and only made sense in a hype-laden Cold War environment. Similarly I don't think we've learned the lessons of the Concorde yet. Not only do people not need hypersonic flight, it's going to create a premium class of hydrocarbon emissions…

as a person who likes airplanes (and airliners in particular,) i think it's cool that a commercially-focused aircraft manufacturer has managed to return to a type of flight that has primarily been relegated to military operations for a very long time

today i am not thinking any further ahead than "wow, they did a really cool thing and made a supersonic test platform for a commercial airliner."

there will be lots of future questions and concerns but we are far off from them, because they are not even close to scaling this up and there are so many gaping holes in the plan that i don't take it seriously at the moment.

i just think the little plane is neat.

Re: Boom XB-1 First Supersonic Flight [video]

#50

Post by rbanffy »

talldayo wrote: post #41
rbanffy wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the first supersonic aircraft in a long time that started as a civilian one and was never intended for military applications. Loses points for the military engines though. Still impressively cool.

"in a long time" kinda doesn't matter to me. America hasn't built a supersonic bomber "in a long time", you'll have to excuse me for not caring. The value of such a weapon is dubious and only made sense in a hype-laden Cold War environment. Similarly I don't think we've learned the lessons of the Concorde yet. Not only do people not need hypersonic flight, it's going to create a premium class of hydrocarbon emissions…

> Not only do people not need hypersonic flight,

We do. It takes me more than 14 hours and two flights to visit my son in Brazil. Even if there was a direct flight, it wouldn't be much less than that.

At this time, very few people visit places more than 10 hours away from their homes. Knowing places faraway and different expands one's horizons. You learn that there are different ways of living, different ways of thinking, and that not everything that's different is bad, threatening, or broken, or "underdeveloped".

The more people know each other, the better we are able to work together. And the better we understand we are all on the same boat, regardless of what our governments say.

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