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Boom XB-1 First Supersonic Flight [video]

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

#341

Post by justmedep »

echoangle wrote: post #224
jameslk wrote: post #115

Boom (YC W16) – Supersonic Passenger Airplanes: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11329286 I remember seeing this post about Boom going through YC, 9 years ago. It's really cool to see the founder laying out what he wanted to accomplish in the comments and then seeing it happen today. Especially fun looking back at those comments saying it couldn't be done and all the haranguing over the name "Boom" :) Congrats to…

It’s a good start but I wouldn’t say the critics are proven wrong already. Even getting the full-scale version flying won’t be enough, you need to make the whole operation economically viable so it actually makes sense to operate it. I’m not saying they won’t manage to do it, but they haven’t proven that they will be able to do it today.

Concord was actually a cash cow for all airlines who had them. The only reason why airlines stopped using Concord was because of the crash and the inherent safety issues that were found. But the actual business model worked - limited in scope but it was highly profitable.

“That said, the airlines that flew the Concorde did make a profit. Concorde was only ever purchased by two airlines: BA and Air France. While the concept of the Concorde might not have been a worldwide hit, it was certainly a good market fit for these two airlines at the time.”

Overall it was obviously a money looser because of the high development costs (paid for by the governments).

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

#342

Post by duxup »

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.

I assume that’s the source of the doubs about Boom.

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

#344

Post by ungreased0675 »

Does Boom have a public roadmap? How much of a jump is it between building a fighter jet clone and building a passenger sized aircraft? I suspect it’s a massive jump. How much of the technology and testing is transferable? I also suspect not much. They’re going to spend an immense amount of money testing this aircraft, will it get them closer to passenger service as a result?

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

#345

Post by ChuckMcM »

echoangle wrote: post #224
jameslk wrote: post #115

Boom (YC W16) – Supersonic Passenger Airplanes: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11329286 I remember seeing this post about Boom going through YC, 9 years ago. It's really cool to see the founder laying out what he wanted to accomplish in the comments and then seeing it happen today. Especially fun looking back at those comments saying it couldn't be done and all the haranguing over the name "Boom" :) Congrats to…

It’s a good start but I wouldn’t say the critics are proven wrong already. Even getting the full-scale version flying won’t be enough, you need to make the whole operation economically viable so it actually makes sense to operate it. I’m not saying they won’t manage to do it, but they haven’t proven that they will be able to do it today.

I don't disagree that it's proof they will succeed, it is however proof that they can build a supersonic aircraft. That is no small thing.

Given that they can, they now need to build a larger one, which with more surface area will be more difficult than this one.

In terms of 'risk stacking'[1] they are definitely a big step closer to being in successful.

[1] Risk Stacking is the set of risks a company faces between the current time and being operational. Technology risk is always level 1 (can they build what they say they can build), after that comes market risk (will people buy it with enough margin for both continued operation of the company as well as further development), and the third is execution risk (can they operate efficiently enough to create a net positive economic product.)

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

#346

Post by [deleted] »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #332
Retric wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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/…

[deleted]

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

#347

Post by ksec »

mrtksn wrote: post #76

How cool is that, hopefully will pressure Airbus into developing one too. So far they did silly concept vides only. I'm also quite worried about Airbus after winning against Boeing becoming complacent since Chinese or Russians are not even close.

This is slightly off topic, but why cant we start rebuilding Concorde?

Wouldn't it be much easier to rebuild using modern technology? And try to get Mach 3 over the Atlantic so London to New York could hopefully be under 3 hours including take off and landing.

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

#348

Post by pembrook »

stouset wrote: post #295
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.

I don't think you fully appreciate the number of obstacles in the way of new entrants building commerically-operable airplanes. Flying a supersonic prototype is amazing. But it is a depressingly-small amount of the overall work necessary to simply start taking passengers , much less make something economical, and even less to make something succeed .

Yes, I'm fully aware the market for building commercial jets is probably one of the most locked-down on the planet.

But hard things have been done before. Throwing rocks at the people trying doesn't do much to help them. They're fully aware of the reasons they might fail.

Would you rather these folks just not try at all, so you don't have to feel jealous if they actually succeed?

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

#349

Post by Retric »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #332
Retric wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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/…

Aiming to build a company to be bought by Microsoft or whoever is still aiming to be profitable, the product is simply the company’s assets (IP, customer list, etc).

It’s unsustainable in that the profit is a one time event, but that doesn’t mean you’re not to turn cash into something worth more than what you spent and then sell that thing.

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

#350

Post by yownie »

skgough wrote: post #329
hugs wrote: post #237

I haven't seen anyone directly address it in the comments here (or in the video): was an audible sonic boom noticeable on the ground during today's test flight?

this plane doesn't look like it was made to produce a low boom. It has a very distinct von Karman ogive [1] fuselage and typical delta wings. I would guess that it's shape is primarily optimized for fuel efficiency at 1.5 mach or above. If you take a look at NASA's low boom demonstrator [2], you can see that it's much skinnier and the nose is crazy elongated. This is intended to break up the bow shock into multiple p…

Silly question, but would it be feasible to just equip a plan with a telescoping nose merely for this effect that could be deployed prior to supersonic flight?
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