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A successful Japanese trial of a ramjet engine designed for Mach‑5 aircraft

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Re: A successful Japanese trial of a ramjet engine designed for Mach‑5 aircraft

#12

Cool science. But the article fails to take even a cursory stab at contextualising the plan against the economic, environmental and political backdrop - doesn’t even mention that there’s already been one failed supersonic commercial flight programme. This is as pie-in-the-sky as it gets.

Safety should probably also be considered.

Re: A successful Japanese trial of a ramjet engine designed for Mach‑5 aircraft

#13
post #9

Cool science. But the article fails to take even a cursory stab at contextualising the plan against the economic, environmental and political backdrop - doesn’t even mention that there’s already been one failed supersonic commercial flight programme. This is as pie-in-the-sky as it gets.

Whenever you look at supersonic or hypersonic commercial aircraft plans you should assume one of two things. A. It's a bait and switch by a founder who wants to pivot to weapons/military aircraft but wants to be able to hire high grade talent without paying the "we're gonna kill people" premium, can pivot once a good chunk of the workforce is complacent with a paycheck. You laugh but this happens SO FUCKING MUCH. B.…

What companies are examples of that bait and switch strategy?

Re: A successful Japanese trial of a ramjet engine designed for Mach‑5 aircraft

#14
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whenever you look at supersonic or hypersonic commercial aircraft plans you should assume one of two things. A. It's a bait and switch by a founder who wants to pivot to weapons/military aircraft but wants to be able to hire high grade talent without paying the "we're gonna kill people" premium, can pivot once a good chunk of the workforce is complacent with a paycheck. You laugh but this happens SO FUCKING MUCH. B.…

What companies are examples of that bait and switch strategy?

Can't give any examples but I have definitely heard the same about a lot of aerospace startups through the grapevine. As for OP's point about private jets, Boom supersonic is your classic example.

Re: A successful Japanese trial of a ramjet engine designed for Mach‑5 aircraft

#15
post #9

Cool science. But the article fails to take even a cursory stab at contextualising the plan against the economic, environmental and political backdrop - doesn’t even mention that there’s already been one failed supersonic commercial flight programme. This is as pie-in-the-sky as it gets.

Whenever you look at supersonic or hypersonic commercial aircraft plans you should assume one of two things. A. It's a bait and switch by a founder who wants to pivot to weapons/military aircraft but wants to be able to hire high grade talent without paying the "we're gonna kill people" premium, can pivot once a good chunk of the workforce is complacent with a paycheck. You laugh but this happens SO FUCKING MUCH. B.…

> * when I say time savings I mean dick measuring contest

And in this case smaller is better?

Re: A successful Japanese trial of a ramjet engine designed for Mach‑5 aircraft

#16
post #9

Cool science. But the article fails to take even a cursory stab at contextualising the plan against the economic, environmental and political backdrop - doesn’t even mention that there’s already been one failed supersonic commercial flight programme. This is as pie-in-the-sky as it gets.

Whenever you look at supersonic or hypersonic commercial aircraft plans you should assume one of two things. A. It's a bait and switch by a founder who wants to pivot to weapons/military aircraft but wants to be able to hire high grade talent without paying the "we're gonna kill people" premium, can pivot once a good chunk of the workforce is complacent with a paycheck. You laugh but this happens SO FUCKING MUCH. B.…

Defense contractors don't pay premium wages. Rather the opposite. Many employees specifically want to work in the field in order to contribute to the national security mission.

Re: A successful Japanese trial of a ramjet engine designed for Mach‑5 aircraft

#17
post #16
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whenever you look at supersonic or hypersonic commercial aircraft plans you should assume one of two things. A. It's a bait and switch by a founder who wants to pivot to weapons/military aircraft but wants to be able to hire high grade talent without paying the "we're gonna kill people" premium, can pivot once a good chunk of the workforce is complacent with a paycheck. You laugh but this happens SO FUCKING MUCH. B.…

Defense contractors don't pay premium wages. Rather the opposite. Many employees specifically want to work in the field in order to contribute to the national security mission.

I'm being a bit obtuse here to make the point, it's more complicated than that. The reality is if you create a defense startup you end up hiring defense employees which comes with its own set of issues.

That said, go look at salaries right now in the defense space.

Re: A successful Japanese trial of a ramjet engine designed for Mach‑5 aircraft

#18
post #17
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Defense contractors don't pay premium wages. Rather the opposite. Many employees specifically want to work in the field in order to contribute to the national security mission.

I'm being a bit obtuse here to make the point, it's more complicated than that. The reality is if you create a defense startup you end up hiring defense employees which comes with its own set of issues. That said, go look at salaries right now in the defense space.

From my experience with working for defense/aerospace companies as well as civilian b2b ones in the US, the general situation is that defense/aero companies pay less but demands less of a grind. People usually take the lower pay (usually 70% of equivalent role in commercial sector) for the better culture

Re: A successful Japanese trial of a ramjet engine designed for Mach‑5 aircraft

#19
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whenever you look at supersonic or hypersonic commercial aircraft plans you should assume one of two things. A. It's a bait and switch by a founder who wants to pivot to weapons/military aircraft but wants to be able to hire high grade talent without paying the "we're gonna kill people" premium, can pivot once a good chunk of the workforce is complacent with a paycheck. You laugh but this happens SO FUCKING MUCH. B.…

What companies are examples of that bait and switch strategy?

I can't name names but 3 of the startups I've worked at.

Places I haven't worked:

Skydio

Applied Intuition

Saildrone

Planet Labs

Boom

Scale AI

Also worth noting that sometimes it's on purpose, sometimes the founders are all "we're gonna save the world" then AFWERX enters the chat with a big fucking check and the founders yell "Nevermind! Guess we're the baddies now! How many slaughterbots did you say?"

Re: A successful Japanese trial of a ramjet engine designed for Mach‑5 aircraft

#20
post #18
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm being a bit obtuse here to make the point, it's more complicated than that. The reality is if you create a defense startup you end up hiring defense employees which comes with its own set of issues. That said, go look at salaries right now in the defense space.

From my experience with working for defense/aerospace companies as well as civilian b2b ones in the US, the general situation is that defense/aero companies pay less but demands less of a grind. People usually take the lower pay (usually 70% of equivalent role in commercial sector) for the better culture

For pure generic full-stack-whatever devs yes. For EEs, embedded, FPGA, RF, etc you can pull waaaaay more in the defense world, especially if you're willing to do cleared work.
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