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Rolls Royce Ends Boom Supersonic Partnership

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Re: Rolls Royce Ends Boom Supersonic Partnership

#131

Post by bell-cot »

nfw2 wrote: post #90
rollinggoron wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. I know nothing about aerospace engineering or aircraft design, but the hype around Boom always puzzled me. If this start up can all of a sudden make an economical supersonic jet, then surely the existing plane manufacturers could do it quicker and cheaper. Boeing, Lockheed, Airbus, etc... already have existing designs from decades past that they could at least use as a base. They have experts in material scie…

I also know nothing about the subject, but just to play devil's advocate here, doesn't SpaceX show that a startup could potentially solve hard physical engineering problems more effectively than established incumbents?

Yes, definitely. BUT - there is a very wide and thinly-populated gulf between the folks who only talk about doing that, and those who actually deliver viable, working systems.

SpaceX went from founding the company to their first orbital launch attempt in 4 years, was obviously d*mn close to successful orbit 1 year later, and actually made orbit another 18 months after that.

Vs. Boom Supersonic, not having had to design nor build its own jet engines, is already 5+ years behind on their 1/3-scale, zero-passenger technology demonstrator even trying to taxi down the runway.

Re: Rolls Royce Ends Boom Supersonic Partnership

#132

Post by raverbashing »

klintcho wrote: post #99
rollinggoron wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. I know nothing about aerospace engineering or aircraft design, but the hype around Boom always puzzled me. If this start up can all of a sudden make an economical supersonic jet, then surely the existing plane manufacturers could do it quicker and cheaper. Boeing, Lockheed, Airbus, etc... already have existing designs from decades past that they could at least use as a base. They have experts in material scie…

This argument could be made about any big SV company the past 30 years. - Anyone of IBM, Microsoft or Yahoo could build a better (quicker and cheaper) search engine than what a bunch of new grads from Stanford can (Google) - Anyone of the car manufacturer can build a better (quicker and cheaper) electric car than a software millionaire (Tesla) I don't agree with the statement, I think there are numerous reason people…

Except costs for prototyping and building a plane are (no kidding) 100x the costs of prototyping and building a car

And that's for "easy" stuff like electric cars. Not a supersonic plane (which has a full bag of hurt to go with)

If you don't believe me just look at the price tag of a brand new Cessna (which is old/proven/boring technology)

Re: Rolls Royce Ends Boom Supersonic Partnership

#133

Post by pclmulqdq »

nfw2 wrote: post #90
rollinggoron wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. I know nothing about aerospace engineering or aircraft design, but the hype around Boom always puzzled me. If this start up can all of a sudden make an economical supersonic jet, then surely the existing plane manufacturers could do it quicker and cheaper. Boeing, Lockheed, Airbus, etc... already have existing designs from decades past that they could at least use as a base. They have experts in material scie…

I also know nothing about the subject, but just to play devil's advocate here, doesn't SpaceX show that a startup could potentially solve hard physical engineering problems more effectively than established incumbents?

It does, but a supersonic personal jet is a much bigger feat of engineering than a rocket that lands. Most people don't appreciate that. We had landing rockets in the 80's, but Boom was trying to do several things that are completely new. SpaceX's real technology is about launching the rockets cheaply, not re-using them (which is only part of the problem).

And SpaceX started with engineers who knew a lot about the domain of the actual problem (rocket engines). Boom has never designed an engine.

Starlink satellites are a great example of SpaceX solving engineering problems that an incumbent couldn't, but SpaceX was a pretty large company at the time the effort started.

Re: Rolls Royce Ends Boom Supersonic Partnership

#134

Post by MichaelCollins »

lyind wrote: post #103
lacker wrote: post #47

I'm rooting for you, Boom. The world needs supersonic planes and you're so close. Good luck.

I would like to travel like this, assuming they have wifi and tickets are affordable: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/jun/15/eco-airship... Maybe they could fly fully autonomous when used as freighters.

The more references to 'green' and 'eco' a tech startup has in their proposal, the more likely it is to be smoke and mirrors. Not because green and ecological aren't laudable, but rather because they are. Proudly announcing such laudable goals and motivations is a cheap and easy way to build up wishful thinking and suspension of disbelief. It also makes people who see your bullshit hesitant to call you out, for fear of 'diluting the message.'

Re: Rolls Royce Ends Boom Supersonic Partnership

#135

Post by mrguyorama »

nfw2 wrote: post #98
senko wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One can certainly argue that Tesla is overhyped.

Sure, but no one could argue that Tesla is a Theranos-like operation. Arguments can be made about whether Tesla's valuation is reasonable, but it's certainly a legitimate car manufacturer.

I'd say tesla's "full self driving" and "autopilot" claims are pretty theranos like.

There's zero way they don't KNOW internally that asking an inattentive driver to take over with no warning doesn't work, and that they aren't as safe as they are trying to spin.

Re: Rolls Royce Ends Boom Supersonic Partnership

#136

Post by mrguyorama »

mrtksn wrote: post #124
MichaelCollins wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish Tesla would cut it out with the computerized car bullshit and focus on making the best battery cars instead. They shouldn't need bullshit like "it will be fiscally irresponsible to not buy our cars because it will be a robotaxi that pays for itself" ; it imperils the long-term success of the company for a short-term boost in sales. And it alienates anybody with a modicum of critical thinking.

Okay but the genius of Musk was this computerised car stuff and it's exactly where the traditional car manufacturers fail. Just recently the CEO of VW changed and the important part of the failure of the previous CEO was their shit software on their electric cars. It's not like Tesla managed to make cheap electric cars? They managed to make cars with good computers and this is something that people actually want. Ess…

Actually, I desperately want the software world to stay as far away from cars as possible. Even in a VW, I know I will go 100k miles with zero issues with most of the stuff. Someone somewhere wants to put javascript between me and that, and I hope they have a bad life.

Re: Rolls Royce Ends Boom Supersonic Partnership

#137

Post by cmdrriker »

rocket_surgeron wrote: post #60

Regarding Boom there are only two reasonable conclusions one can reach: 1. They are a Theranos-style operation 2. They are a Madoff-style operation I, a lone aerospace engineer working out of my garage in my spare time, have a better chance of achieving supersonic flight than Boom does. Even their technology demonstrator is an obvious scam. It demonstrates nothing. It does not demonstrate the ability to design, build…

Unless some government(s) steps in and dumps a ton of money into SST development and production nothing is going to happen.

The Concord showed this by shouldering the burden of research, development, prototyping, and then production. Turns out SS's don't have the load factor & associated economics to make it a viable mode. That revelation was before environmental and political challenges made those economics worse.

Unless unobtanium can me mined, tooled, and manufactured cheaply into airframe parts and power such as scram-jet or super cruising turbofans can push a plane at Mach 2 with 200+ seats behind the pilot, methinks its just a pretty artist's conception on a Pop Mechanics or Science magazine cover.

Re: Rolls Royce Ends Boom Supersonic Partnership

#138

Post by jjk166 »

ajross wrote: post #107
jjk166 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Paying a well established and experienced engine manufacturer to design the engine you need which is only one part of your product is much more economical than becoming an engine manufacturer yourself. By analogy, if an AI startup needs custom chips, that doesn't mean they need to nor should build their own fab and try to compete with TSMC.

That's just the "off the shelf" argument. Which has just fallen apart because RR doesn't have the product and doesn't want to build it. You're right, that if Boom could just buy their engine it would be better for Boom. Boom can't just buy their engine though, and now it looks like their company is going to fail because they decided to build the easy part and not the hard part.

Off the shelf means buying something already available for sale. Paying someone to develop something for you is the opposite.

Going back to the analogy from before, you can go to companies which specialize in chip design and development, and you can pay them to design a chip that will meet your specifications and make it in small quantities. It is economical for these companies to keep the technical staff and equipment on hand for this highly specialized work, because they use them for more than just one AI startup's need.

Perhaps an easier analogy would be legal services: every startup needs them at some point or another, but it doesn't mean every startup needs to or should build up an internal legal team. You hire the pros when you need them, and since you're not their sole source of income they can maintain a much better legal staff than you could every support internally. Even for companies where legal expenses are frequent, if the legal services are merely enabling something else then you still shouldn't be a law firm.

Likewise, Rolls Royce has years of engine development experience, it has the tools to manufacture and test prototypes, and it has the facilities for mass production already, and it uses those same expertise and tools for many product lines serving a wide swath of the aviation market such that no one aircraft needs to pay for it all. For Boom to acquire this same capability would be orders of magnitude more expensive than paying RR to do it for them.

The deal has not fallen apart because the development can't be done or because RR doesn't have the capability to do it; the deal has fallen apart because boom is unwilling to pay whatever price RR has named for it providing this service. Boom didn't decide to build the wrong thing, they are just unwilling to pay a required business expense.

Re: Rolls Royce Ends Boom Supersonic Partnership

#139

Post by signatoremo »

gamblor956 wrote: post #104
chadash wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you, but to play devil's advocate, what if I changed your comment to: Agreed. I know nothing about automotive engineering or car design, but the hype around Tesla always puzzled me. If this start up can all of a sudden make an economical electric car, then surely the existing automotive manufacturers could do it quicker and cheaper. Toyota, Mercedes, Ford, etc... already have existing designs from decade…

The existing automakers are making EVs faster and cheaper than Tesla did, and the EVs they are making have substantially greater build quality than Tesla's vehicles.

Tesla’s profit margin is higher than most of automakers. So no, EVs made by traditional automakers are not cheaper. If anything that means Tesla’s cars are more desirable because they can command a premium.

Faster? What is that supposed to mean? Tesla is the largest EV maker by volume (not sure if I miss any Chinese ones).

Substantial better build quality? Define substantial. Who decide that? Certainly not the consumers, because they can’t get enough of Tesla cars.

Re: Rolls Royce Ends Boom Supersonic Partnership

#140

Post by bell-cot »

neximo64 wrote: post #119
aresant wrote: post #89

In 2020 COVID decimated Rolls Royce given their concentration of revenue associated with selling & servicing existing aero engines. They have yet to recover from that era which saw a ~10x decrease in enterprise value and record losses. That said I would interpret this news as a "cut the $!@$! R&D bleeding in anything that won't be generating revenue in the next 4 quarters" vs a reflection on the feasibility or health…

That's not entirely true, in the industry it's sort of known Boom still has a lot of work to do to get an engine made for those planes.

Perhaps 's/get an engine made for those planes/get a plane made for those engines/' ?
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