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Rolls Royce Ends Boom Supersonic Partnership

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Re: Rolls Royce Ends Boom Supersonic Partnership

#181

Post by JumpCrisscross »

bombcar wrote: post #54
ajross wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mentioned this elsewhere, but it belongs better here: If there's a market for a product that existing suppliers don't want to provide, that sounds like exactly what a startup should be doing. Boom is wasting their time building an airframe but what they really need to win is an engine. They should have built the engine first.

This is the main way you distinguish the grifters from the movers. The grifters work on the final product, the movers work on the first step, having a plan to make that profitable, so they can build toward the final product. SpaceX is probably the example that comes to mind, even if they did borrow engines.

> grifters work on the final product, the movers work on the first step, having a plan to make that profitable, so they can build toward the final product. SpaceX is probably the example that comes to mind

For me, it's Virgin Galactic showcasing the seats before they'd made it to space versus SpaceX building its engines and only much later unveiling spacesuit designs.

Re: Rolls Royce Ends Boom Supersonic Partnership

#182

Post by pbreit »

rollinggoron wrote: post #76
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…

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…

"surely the existing plane manufacturers could do it quicker and cheaper"

How could you possibly think that?

Re: Rolls Royce Ends Boom Supersonic Partnership

#183

Post by hangonhn »

sidewndr46 wrote: post #155
yabones wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, the problem was never technological to start with. The problem with supersonic transports was and will always be economic. There's a reason that there were only two SSTs in the 20th century instead of the five or six that were planned, and it's because the bean counters at Boeing, McDonnel-Douglas, and Lockheed-Martin wouldn't let their companies bankrupt themselves over a vanity project. So, you take that and…

To be technical, I'd actually argue there were four. The first Concorde reached production & was later redesigned to include an afterburner (or reheat). Why I forget, but it apparently did actually save some fuel since it was used while accelerating to supersonic then shut off. The Tu-144 went the opposite direction. Introduce with military engines which require full time afterburner. Later it was redesigned and re-e…

The reheat is needed to get past the transonic region and onward to supersonic. Once you've gone supersonic the drag actually drops a lot. So you want to get through the transonic region as quickly as possible and reheat is a good way to do it. After that the Concorde just supercruised.

Re: Rolls Royce Ends Boom Supersonic Partnership

#184

Post by hangonhn »

cortesoft wrote: post #16
topspin wrote: post #5

There are perhaps 3 companies on Earth that could conceivably provide engines for this application. RR was one of them. Where to now?

The answer is in the article... the remaining contenders are General Electric and Pratt & Whitney

What about CFM or Safran?

Re: Rolls Royce Ends Boom Supersonic Partnership

#185

Post by pbreit »

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…

Are any of your comments defensible?

Re: Rolls Royce Ends Boom Supersonic Partnership

#186

Post by klintcho »

rollinggoron wrote: post #149
klintcho wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Eh, I figured I would get this response but writing software e.g. your IBM, Yahoo, and Microsoft example is much easier and faster to do than building a cutting edge, physical, supersonic commercial jet. To build Google, all you needed was a computer, and a new approach/algorithm to solving web search. Software companies are much easier to disrupt than physical product companies. As others have pointed out the Tesla…

I did include SpaceX as well, and I'm not sure one can find a better example than that, but there are others as well:

- Cruise + other self driving car companies (obv also a bunch of software, maybe even software focused, but looking at Waymo, they developed all their own hardware, LIDAR tech etc.)

- Commonwealth Fusion + a bunch of other fusion startups (obv they haven't really gotten to a product yet one could argue, but a bunch of breakthroughs in high powered electro-magnets has been made)

- Heart aerospace - electric planes

- Canvas construction - robotic plastering and painting for construction.

While supersonic flight has been proven, albeit not economically viable, it's still something that has been done, and done like 40+ years ago. It's not really on the "fusion power"-levels of difficult. But sure, I guess on could argue both sides equally well :)

In regards to research breakthrough, sure they were handwavy at least as it relates to jet engines capable to support supersonic flights. I don't have any sources but I have little doubt that jet engine / material breakthroughs has been made since the 80:s.

Re: Rolls Royce Ends Boom Supersonic Partnership

#187

Post by Melatonic »

bell-cot wrote: post #7

My understanding is that the only profitable part of being a modern commercial jet engine manufacturer is service contracts - on actually-in-service jet engines. Vs. Boom Supersonic has never built a plane which actually managed to take off. And even their 1/3-scale "technology demonstrator" plane is 5+ years behind its original schedule. (And has yet to taxi along a runway, if I read Wikipedia right.) My guess - Boo…

It may be that they DO actually have some talented engineers and some interesting IP (such as a much better engine design) but were hoping to also generate additional revenue or get bought out by a bigger company. The fact that we are also seeing lots of companies come out with smaller turbojet engines (made for retrofitting older small planes that run on regular style ICE engines) makes me wonder if material science or other advancements have gotten us to the point where we are going to see some big improvements in turbojet and turbofans.

Re: Rolls Royce Ends Boom Supersonic Partnership

#188

Post by Melatonic »

namirez wrote: post #84

Sadly Boom is doomed and it’s been a writing on the wall all along. They never had a good engine option. The military engines are not safe enough and developing a new civilian engine makes sense only if you make hundreds of them. Their net-zero emission claim is also bogus. Their pricing model doesn’t make much sense either unless they’re willing to lose money for a decade or so. There is not much innovation in aerod…

Could be that they were hoping to get bought out and had made some actual improvements though no?

I would imagine that a plane using new advances in material sciences for the outer skin (maybe something like Quasi Crystals) might have significant advantages over an older design like the Concorde. Heat must be a big issue at those speeds.

Re: Rolls Royce Ends Boom Supersonic Partnership

#189

Post by Melatonic »

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…

Is it possible they had some insider knowledge of engines being developed at one of the big manufacturers?

Thinking out loud here - lets say you have a few senior engineers that know that GE or Boeing or RR or something is currently working on a smaller supersonic engine. You know you cannot yourselves design such an engine but if it is released maybe it would make sense to get a head start designing a product to take advantage of it?

Re: Rolls Royce Ends Boom Supersonic Partnership

#190

Post by zardo »

hangonhn wrote: post #183
sidewndr46 wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be technical, I'd actually argue there were four. The first Concorde reached production & was later redesigned to include an afterburner (or reheat). Why I forget, but it apparently did actually save some fuel since it was used while accelerating to supersonic then shut off. The Tu-144 went the opposite direction. Introduce with military engines which require full time afterburner. Later it was redesigned and re-e…

The reheat is needed to get past the transonic region and onward to supersonic. Once you've gone supersonic the drag actually drops a lot. So you want to get through the transonic region as quickly as possible and reheat is a good way to do it. After that the Concorde just supercruised.

> Once you've gone supersonic the drag actually drops a lot.

Certainly the drag coefficient drops, does it actually drop fast enough to counter the v^2 and see total drag drop as velocity increases?

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