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Boom XB-1 First Supersonic Flight [video]

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

#171

Post by verdverm »

ethagknight wrote: post #161
verdverm wrote: post #151

Congrats to Boom, but also r/killthecameraman

Seems like there is 0 harm to have a 5 minute delay on the whole broadcast in exchange for a more polished production. Me, the viewer, will never know. I know SpaceX is doing it, its trendy to 'watch us make history in realtime', but SpaceX has a couple orders of magnitude more cash to work with.

I was more disappointed that the shot went out of focus as the plane crossed the barrier. I did find it rather amusing that as soon as they started lauding starlink, the feed dropped, which is what you are talking about I think

Growing pains for their camera crew

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

#172

Post by senko »

ghaff wrote: post #163
alex_duf wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assume the question was about the questionable economics of running a super-sonic airplane profitably. The Concorde was notorious for bleeding money. Maybe the premium aspect will be enough, given that we have a bigger and bigger chasm between rich and poor, or maybe the economics of running it won't compete against sub-sonic, lower fuel consumption planes.

I'm skeptical. Trans-Pacific would be interesting for some because that's a long time in a plane even with lie-flat seating. But then you need a lot of range because once you have to refuel you've cut into your time advantage. NYC to London or Paris? Sure. But now you still need to find people willing and able to spend $5K+ each way. I'd like to do it but realistically I'm not going to.

First class NY to Paris in a couple of weeks, one way, is ~$6k "best overall", with $10k for "fastest" (checked a random flight on Skyscanner).

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

#173

Post by joemi »

I wonder if they have cameras to show the pilot everything they can't see when taking off/landing, since it looks like it has the same forward-visibility issues as the Concorde (without the Concorde's moveable nose -- I think?).

Pretty cool though! It was disappointing that the Concorde (along with commercial supersonic flight in general) was retired around the time I was becoming an adult and could begin to contemplate maybe taking a trip on it someday.

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

#174

Post by youngtaff »

sedatk wrote: post #159
cromulent wrote: post #121

“Currently, all civil aircraft flights are prohibited from operating above Mach one speeds over land in the United States.” [1] Mike Bannister’s excellent book Concorde talks at length about how “handsomely profitable” the BA service was (as opposed to the Air France one) from 1984 until the 2000 crash and subsequent grounding put them in to a spiral where keeping enough people certified was too expensive. One part o…

Concorde experiences one fatal crash in 27 years: entire product line gets cancelled. Meanwhile, Boeing 737 MAX... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The manufacturer withdrew support for Concorde so the airlines couldn’t it anymore

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

#175

Post by cromulent »

Analemma_ wrote: post #164
cromulent wrote: post #121

“Currently, all civil aircraft flights are prohibited from operating above Mach one speeds over land in the United States.” [1] Mike Bannister’s excellent book Concorde talks at length about how “handsomely profitable” the BA service was (as opposed to the Air France one) from 1984 until the 2000 crash and subsequent grounding put them in to a spiral where keeping enough people certified was too expensive. One part o…

My understanding was that, even for BA, the Concord was profitable on a cash accounting basis (as in, the tickets more than covered the cost of fuel, salaries, etc.) but not when accounting for a) the depreciation costs of the plane, which were much higher than for an ordinary Boeing or Airbus passenger jet since it was a one-off limited run and there were few spare parts and b) as you said, training new people to fl…

Yeah of course there was always going to be an end date. However, there are people saying it was not profitable at all and that is not really the truth.

Bannister knows probably more than anyone about the topic and tells the story well. Thoroughly recommend the book. His tale of a guy called Bill being invited into the cockpit and discreetly given the controls to fly supersonic was awesome. Of course, later over a beer Bill (Weaver) talked of his times flying the Blackbird at twice the speed, and of the time it disintegrated around him.

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

#177

Post by gangstead »

TheJoeMan wrote: post #13
dylan604 wrote: post #6

I know nothing about Boom. Why is this impressive? We've achieved supersonic for passengers before. Are we meant to be interested just because someone is taking up the mantle again, or is there some new design that makes it impressive?

The same could be said about those who watched SpaceX since the Falcon 1.

I hadn't made that connection but it's really apt. People watching Falcon 1 flight 4 get to orbit probably said "It's 165 kg payload, so what? We've been sending satellites to orbit for 50 years. ULA just sent (https://nextspaceflight.com/launches/details/1538) a 2000 kg payload to orbit 3 weeks ago!" It really is significant what Boom did in the time frame and budget they had.

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

#178

Post by gopalv »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #144
cromulent wrote: post #121

“Currently, all civil aircraft flights are prohibited from operating above Mach one speeds over land in the United States.” [1] Mike Bannister’s excellent book Concorde talks at length about how “handsomely profitable” the BA service was (as opposed to the Air France one) from 1984 until the 2000 crash and subsequent grounding put them in to a spiral where keeping enough people certified was too expensive. One part o…

LA to New York or San Francisco to Honolulu in 2 to 3 hours would be a game changer. You could probably fill a plane at least once a day on those routes for a handsome profit.

NYC to LA in 3 hours would be an 8 AM flight which would land at 8 AM, same day.

Just mind boggling to think of, no trouble finding 100 people daily who want to do a day-trip to California.

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

#179

Post by bobthepanda »

Analemma_ wrote: post #164
cromulent wrote: post #121

“Currently, all civil aircraft flights are prohibited from operating above Mach one speeds over land in the United States.” [1] Mike Bannister’s excellent book Concorde talks at length about how “handsomely profitable” the BA service was (as opposed to the Air France one) from 1984 until the 2000 crash and subsequent grounding put them in to a spiral where keeping enough people certified was too expensive. One part o…

My understanding was that, even for BA, the Concord was profitable on a cash accounting basis (as in, the tickets more than covered the cost of fuel, salaries, etc.) but not when accounting for a) the depreciation costs of the plane, which were much higher than for an ordinary Boeing or Airbus passenger jet since it was a one-off limited run and there were few spare parts and b) as you said, training new people to fl…

It also had a three person crew, and post 9/11 was the start of structurally higher oil prices, both of which were a death knell.

The true nail in the coffin was the development of the lie flat business seat, which meant that you could cross the Atlantic in three hours in a plush but cramped seat, or spend less money to sleep for six on a redeye and arrive well rested. At that point three hours was not a compelling enough time savings, but the Concorde also didn't fly far enough to do routes where the speed resulted in more significant time savings, like on transpacific routes.

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

#180

Post by EA-3167 »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #137
EA-3167 wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suppose the question is whether you feel like spending 3-5 times as much for the same flight, to save a bit of that time. Perhaps you would be, but I think you can understand how most wouldn't, even if they could. That is of course assuming that unlike Concorde, this can do single-hop journeys longer than a trans-Atlantic flight.

> whether you feel like spending 3-5 times as much for the same flight, to save a bit of that time Plenty of people do for comfort. And these seats don’t look horrendous.

You have a good point, maybe they'll find the sweet spot between price and utility.
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