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Boom XB-1 First Supersonic Flight [video]

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

#331

Post by Full_Clark »

ethbr1 wrote: post #184
ghaff wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'd expect for trans-oceanic, you'd have people scheduling their travel around limited flights, given the unique offering. I.e. you aren't trying to figure out "How do I 100% capacity a 8:17am daily flight?" (traditional subsonic carriers) but rather "How much demand is there per week/month?" (Boom) If the flight is Wednesdays-only, then folks line their travel up on Wednesday. Because the alternative is a much longe…

"People scheduling their travel around limited flights" drove extra operational complexity and expenditure for Concorde; it's not a hassle-free business case.

BA and Air France understood that people paid extra to be able to quickly travel transatlantic[0]. That premium value proposition depends heavily on passengers' expectation that the flight WILL go at the scheduled time. The airlines had to invest significant extra resources in spare parts, additional staffing, and standby airframes to ensure on-time performance.

If the Concorde were to ever develop a reputation for six-hour departure delays or days of cancellations in a row, no one among their premium customer base would bother paying extra for it.

British Airways and Air France did profit from them prior to the 9/11 hijackings and the flight 4590 crash, so it's not an impossible hurdle to clear for Boom. But the value proposition for a new SST is going to be vulnerable to operational concerns that don't affect the rest of an airline's fleet.

--

[0] https://omegataupodcast.net/166-flying-the-concorde/ - "Every now and then they'd have a survey amongst the regular passengers [...] 'What do you think you paid for your Concorde flight today?' These people haven't got a clue what they paid for their Concorde flight today. They just tell their secretary, 'book me on tomorrow's Concorde, I need to get to New York in a hurry!'"

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

#332

Post by TeMPOraL »

Retric wrote: post #283
aeturnum wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is only true from the point of capital - if a startup changes the world in a way you like it can be a success to you. Profitability brings a certain approval and sustainability, but don't confuse that with your goals in what you are working on.

It’s fine to have multiple aims, but asking for investments without trying to be profitable is fraud.

Sort of. There's a class of startups that's not meant to be profitable, except maybe by happy accident. Many (most?) tech startups are like that now. After all, the investors don't care about creating profitable companies - they just want to make money, which they're positioned to do in many ways. One of them is to help create profitable companies. Another is to help grow companies to be sold to other companies and/or to the public for maximum value, giving the investors back a large multiple of initial investments, after which... they don't care anymore.

It's like with modern husbandry: you can make money selling milk, eggs and meat by sustainably raising animals living comfortable lives, but you can make more money by sticking them in cages, pumping them up with antibiotics and optimized fodder, to maximize production rates and minimize costs. The two approaches are inherently incompatible with each other. And I dare to say, modern startup ecosystem kind of entered the era of "factory farming" some time ago now.

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

#333

Post by EA-3167 »

teractiveodular wrote: post #123
EA-3167 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are some interesting technological developments around fuel efficiency and minimizing the "sonic boom" that's felt on the ground. Neither of those killed Concorde though, because the entire idea of Concorde turned out to be incredibly faulty. MOST people weren't in such a hurry to get from point A to point B that they'd pay 5x-10x a normal business/first class ticket to cut a trip down by 50% or so. The intende…

There were enough passengers, and flying the Concorde actually became profitable for the airlines once they figured out they just needed to charge through the nose for it. This was despite prodigious fuel consumption and that fuel becoming much more expensive after the oil crisis. The main problems were that the requirement to only fly supersonic over water massively limited the possible routes it could fly, and that…

I still don't see this being something large airlines would be overly interested in, but I wonder if there's a private market. If you're Taylor Swift maybe being able to fly from NYC to LA in half the time is well worth it.

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

#334

Post by ghaff »

senko wrote: post #172
ghaff wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

European airfares from the US can be really funky. I'm doing a trip in a couple months with a roundtrip for Heathrow and I'm actually taking the Eurostar back to London because returning directly from Paris was going to be so expensive. Open jaws in particular can be fairly OK or can be really expensive (as in my case).

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

#335

Post by Full_Clark »

mkoubaa wrote: post #212
belter wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you make this profitable?

Could this thing take a polar route from New York to Hong Kong?

That's over 8,000 miles. An aircraft with that kind of unrefueuled range could go pretty much anywhere from New York, except Australia, SE Asia, or the tips of Africa and India.

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

#336

Post by iancmceachern »

wongarsu wrote: post #308
ergocoder wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Basically, the critics: "unless you build a 100B company, we are not wrong" I mean, yeah, sure.

My metric for success is simply making more money than they spent. Supersonic planes are already proven technology. We made the Concorde and the Tu-144 in the 70s, and have plenty of supersonic military planes in active service. The assumption was simply that you can't make a profit by selling them as civil aviation planes. That's the assumption Boom is challenging, and to be proven correct they have to turn a profit…

Neither of those planes made more money than they cost.

The Tu-144 was famously not reasonable at all.

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

#337

Post by pembrook »

OnlineGladiator wrote: post #249
pembrook wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Endless pessimism, even in the face of evidence to the contrary is a hallmark of HN. Thank you for continuing the tradition. May you never hold out hope for anything positive in the future.

Blind optimism is just as obnoxious as blind pessimism - both are based on ignorance. Boom still hasn't solved the 2 hardest problems after nearly a decade. Currently regulations prohibit supersonic flight over land. It's a total guess whether or not they'll be able to overcome this, but I remain skeptical both of their noise claims and their ability to overturn legislation. Also they don't have a real plan for an en…

Yes, I'm sure for the rest of human history we're never going to break supersonic flight commercially, after having done it already for many decades. Because "regulation." It's not like we'd have the power to change that if we wanted.

Now let us chant the HN pessimists rejoinder in unison.

LLMs are a fad. Bitcoin is a fad. Saas is a fad. Dropbox will never work as it can be trivially replicated on Linux using FTP, curlftpfs, and SVN...

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

#338

Post by wongarsu »

iancmceachern wrote: post #336
wongarsu wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My metric for success is simply making more money than they spent. Supersonic planes are already proven technology. We made the Concorde and the Tu-144 in the 70s, and have plenty of supersonic military planes in active service. The assumption was simply that you can't make a profit by selling them as civil aviation planes. That's the assumption Boom is challenging, and to be proven correct they have to turn a profit…

Neither of those planes made more money than they cost. The Tu-144 was famously not reasonable at all.

Hence why everyone thinks supersonic passenger planes are a bad idea. Lots of profitable military supersonic planes, but every existing example of a civilian supersonic plane is only justified as a Cold War dick-measuring contest.

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

#339

Post by everfrustrated »

class3shock wrote: post #301

This is literally a company designed to separate investors from money so aerospace engineers can have fun, which I guess is better than many startups. At the end of the day though there is no way they are designing, prototyping, getting FAA approval for, and going to manufacturing on a plane and engine by 2030. It's not unlikely, it's just not feasible which literally anyone who bothers to look at the FAA website wou…

Yup. Moreso when you realise this scaled down prototype has basically nothing in common with their larger variant.

So it's testing/validating nothing actually.

Only makes sense as a gimmick to get the next funding round.

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

#340

Post by beeflet »

pembrook wrote: post #337
OnlineGladiator wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blind optimism is just as obnoxious as blind pessimism - both are based on ignorance. Boom still hasn't solved the 2 hardest problems after nearly a decade. Currently regulations prohibit supersonic flight over land. It's a total guess whether or not they'll be able to overcome this, but I remain skeptical both of their noise claims and their ability to overturn legislation. Also they don't have a real plan for an en…

Yes, I'm sure for the rest of human history we're never going to break supersonic flight commercially, after having done it already for many decades. Because "regulation." It's not like we'd have the power to change that if we wanted. Now let us chant the HN pessimists rejoinder in unison. LLMs are a fad. Bitcoin is a fad. Saas is a fad. Dropbox will never work as it can be trivially replicated on Linux using FTP, cu…

The regulation exists because of the sonic boom sound
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