XB-1's wings are officially closed out

Post by rconti » Sat, Apr 18, 2020, 8:06 PM UTC

goodcanadian wrote: post #140

rconti wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So far this sounds more 'affordable' than 'business class comfort' which I STILL cannot afford no matter how hard I try to justify it to myself. There's gotta be a market for an all-business-class plane, since we know that first/business subsidize coach, but nobody's doing it yet. The airlines want to throw those business class seats out as perks to people spending corporate dollars, not charge the end user what they…

There are a handful of all business class routes. For example: https://www.britishairways.com/en-gb/information/travel-clas...

Post by NotSammyHagar » Sun, Apr 19, 2020, 7:35 PM UTC

fragmede wrote: post #148

gr2020 wrote: post #68

Somewhat OT - but from their FAQ they say they're targeting a price of $200M for the Overture. I'm certainly no expert, but this feels to some extent a bargain given the capability. Capacity 55-75 passengers. A few data points for comparison (all of these approximate of course, with multiple variants available of each): Airbus A220 - $90M Airbus A320neo - $110M Boeing 787 - $140M Boeing 777 - $320M Airbus A350 - $325…

The data-point for the elephant in the room: Aérospatiale/BAC Concorde - $169M 150 passengers. Cruising speed: Mach 2 The Concorde was a thing of beauty. Massively expensive to produce and run, and fuel inefficient, it was a passenger airliner that could outrun fighter jets. Fighter jets of that era could get to mach 2 using afterburner, but that's especially fuel inefficient so they could only keep up for 15 minutes…

Post by myrandomcomment » Mon, Apr 20, 2020, 12:16 AM UTC

gsnedders wrote: post #167

myrandomcomment wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

JAL is one of their planned customers that invested. I make the SFO to Tokyo flight every month. This takes that flight from 11 hours to 3.5. It is not about being rich. At the same cost of a business ticket it means that I do not have to leave on Saturday in SFO to make a Monday meeting (leave Sat. at 3pm and land in Tokyo at 7PM Sunday). I get more time at home with my family.

With all due respect, anyone talking about frequent travel at business-class costs is rich.

Post by AWildC182 » Mon, Apr 20, 2020, 4:39 AM UTC

Someone wrote: post #145

AWildC182 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work in aerospace software so I live in between those two realities. Much like software, they'll do testing to make sure everything is bonded. They've also done plenty of modeling to determine what the expected strength is and they have a significant error margin baked in. ...They also don't call them test pilots for nothing...

FTA: ”Boom’s two test pilots were also onsite to verify that all aspects of the wing met their approval.” I don’t know how well versed these pilots are in manufacturing this kind of stuff, but I would guess that’s mostly psychological. But yes, it’s their lives that are on the line. If this wing we’re to break or fall apart at supersonic speed, I guess they (or one of them, if this is a single-seater) are dead.

Post by molszanski » Wed, Apr 22, 2020, 12:24 AM UTC

gsnedders wrote: post #168

molszanski wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can it be less noisy? Don't think so. They should climb higher to be less noisy. To climb higher they have to go faster. To go faster they must have blackbird class body and engines. This is a very high ask

Yes; we know for a fact that we can make much quieter supersonic aircraft, even for large transport aircraft (existing smaller aircraft of the same period as Concorde were already much quieter, and we've improved on that since). Note however no current proposal for a SST is anywhere near as big as Concorde, which already gives them an inherent advantage.