Wasn't the Concorde a failure because of noise pollution? It could only do trans Atlantic flights.
Can Boom Supersonic Succeed Where the Concorde Failed?
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Re: Can Boom Supersonic Succeed Where the Concorde Failed?
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
But it didn't refresh its fleet, either. The Concorde itself might've been successful, but supersonic flight mostly died with it.
Politicians are notoriously impatient people with short attention spans that seldom go beyond a term. Concorde 2, which was more efficient, was cancelled while the planes we can think of prototypes were put in commercial service.
Mass tourism began in the 1970s. Airliners needed something that could carry 350 tourists to Spain or Hawaii cheaply.
Re: Can Boom Supersonic Succeed Where the Concorde Failed?
#43"Boom is leveraging advances in engine design that yield greater fuel efficiency, which will mean cheaper ticket prices. But they aren’t stopping there. Boom plans to use fuel made from carbon removed from the atmosphere, meaning that supersonic travel will be carbon neutral from day one." You can have cheap tickets and don't give a shit about the climate or you can claim you use extra expensive synfuels made from ca…
Why can't you have both?
Fuels made from carbon filtered from the air are expensive. Like... not a bit more expensive, but really expensive.
While there's some uncertainty about how expensive - this is technology that doesn't exist today - it's gonna require massive amounts of energy, which is simple physics.
Re: Can Boom Supersonic Succeed Where the Concorde Failed?
#44These kind of projects remind me of elaborate fronts for money laundering... why?
Re: Can Boom Supersonic Succeed Where the Concorde Failed?
#45Wikipedia notes that a 1/3 scale Boom demonstrator plane is expected to begin flight testing in 2021. Otherwise, it sounds like they've produced zero planes that actually fly so far. Even the hype-ridden article admits that their founder/CEO has zero experience delivering real-world physical products. Then there's the huge "SPACEX KILLER" banner at the top of that article...which has zero logic behind it, and is foll…
And the whole thing is full of factual errors as well. I’m not in aviation, but I’m quite interested in it and I know enough to get the sense that the only research this article was based on was some notes taken during a drunk hyperbolic conversation with the founder in a bar.
Confession - once the article opened by comparing a 250MPH Tesla (maybe true, for short periods, in a few extreme-high-end models, on certain test tracks) to Boom's 1000MPH+ speed (which all their products will need to routinely & economically sustain, in the real world), I stopped caring whether the article's "facts" were true or not.
If somebody is telling me that their radical new physics theory is true "because I'm an assistant examiner in the Swiss Patent Office, just like Albert Einstein was..." - then I don't see much point in fact-checking their Swiss Patent Office employment claim.
Re: Can Boom Supersonic Succeed Where the Concorde Failed?
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why can't you have both?
Fuels made from carbon filtered from the air are expensive. Like... not a bit more expensive, but really expensive. While there's some uncertainty about how expensive - this is technology that doesn't exist today - it's gonna require massive amounts of energy, which is simple physics.
It doesn't really make sense to make fuels from CO2 drawn from the atmosphere if we're still pumping oil. Instead, make jet fuel from the oil, then make that carbon neutral by capturing and sequestering the CO2. This will change if green hydrogen becomes very cheap, but not yet.
Re: Can Boom Supersonic Succeed Where the Concorde Failed?
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Concorde was profitable Your own article points out that it really, really wasn't, especially not for the parties investing in its development, not their customers who profited mainly because they got the aircraft at knockdown prices (and operated it without any supersonic competition) in what was later described as one of the worst deals ever negotiated by any government $3bn was spent developing an aircraft they…
But it jump started Airbus, a hugely successful aircraft manufacturer, the difference between Airbus and Boeing is the dependence on fly-by-wire a technology that was first used outside the military in Concorde. So yes it was £3BN down but Airbus supports > 100,000 jobs in Britain, France and Germany. If you compare it to the current Space Launch System, which is a vapourware project which exists to provide a channel…
That calculation rests on the assumption that Concord was a necessary step toward Airbus. Given that the Airbus A300 actually entered service prior to the Concord, it seems to me that Concord was not a necessary precondition.
Granted, the Concord was the first aircraft to have fly-by-wire. However, it used an entirely different technology (analogue fly-by-wire) to the Airbus A320 (digital) and preceded it by a decade.
Were there some lessons learned from the Concord that carried over to the Airbus A320? Maybe? However, the causal relation you've conjectured seems quite tenuous.
Re: Can Boom Supersonic Succeed Where the Concorde Failed?
#48Wasn't the Concorde a failure because of noise pollution? It could only do trans Atlantic flights.
It was a truly massive fuel hog.
Re: Can Boom Supersonic Succeed Where the Concorde Failed?
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I will never understand why Boom chose such a terrible name. It’ll be the core of countless jokes. I remember a TV series called “Fireball XL5” about a spaceship with that name and I always found it amusing someone would want to board something named like that.
Spaceships always land as a fireball (atmospheric re-entry), so it's a fitting name IMO.
Only the real ones. When you have sci-fi rated engines, you can do a full propulsive reentry down to the landing area without the need for atmospheric braking.
Re: Can Boom Supersonic Succeed Where the Concorde Failed?
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
Politicians are notoriously impatient people with short attention spans that seldom go beyond a term. Concorde 2, which was more efficient, was cancelled while the planes we can think of prototypes were put in commercial service.
Mass tourism began in the 1970s. Airliners needed something that could carry 350 tourists to Spain or Hawaii cheaply.
A supersonic transport can carry twice as many passengers per day as a subsonic widebody.