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Boom XB-1 First Supersonic Flight [video]

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

#421

Post by anovikov »

throwaway2037 wrote: post #414
Jakob wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not taking away from your point, just for comparison: A British Airways first class LHR-JFK roundtrip is $10K today for an 8h flight. Supersonic would be 3h.

Is Boom aiming to be faster than the Concorde? I don't think so. Their website says: > Overture will carry 64-80 passengers at Mach 1.7 Concorde flew NYC LON in 3.5 hours. I guess Boom will fly the route in about 4 hours. Also, regular commercial flights on NYC LON are currently 7 hours. Also, using Google Flights, I priced LHR JFK on first class about T+1month for 7 days (Mon->Mon). It is about 5.3K USD round trip.…

They claim they have sonic boom solved by modifying the airframe shape. Otherwise, i agree with you. It will be a thing of no real consequence just like the original Concorde.

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

#422

Post by [deleted] »

anovikov wrote: post #374
justmedep wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 c…

It worked because not just the development costs were paid for by the government, but acquisition costs were, too. Planes were given to the airlines for free, completely paid for by the states. Also, only be BA made good profit on it and only after mid-1980s. Air France could barely break even. If not the PR effect that put those airlines above all others as the only ones flying supersonically, they'd never make any…

[deleted]

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

#423

Post by WalterBright »

anovikov wrote: post #374
justmedep wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 c…

It worked because not just the development costs were paid for by the government, but acquisition costs were, too. Planes were given to the airlines for free, completely paid for by the states. Also, only be BA made good profit on it and only after mid-1980s. Air France could barely break even. If not the PR effect that put those airlines above all others as the only ones flying supersonically, they'd never make any…

> Who'd pay that kind of money today for a commercial flight?

Government people. I remember Kissinger flying on it.

A first class ticket on the Titanic would be $50,000 today.

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

#424

Post by WalterBright »

throwaway2037 wrote: post #414
Jakob wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not taking away from your point, just for comparison: A British Airways first class LHR-JFK roundtrip is $10K today for an 8h flight. Supersonic would be 3h.

Is Boom aiming to be faster than the Concorde? I don't think so. Their website says: > Overture will carry 64-80 passengers at Mach 1.7 Concorde flew NYC LON in 3.5 hours. I guess Boom will fly the route in about 4 hours. Also, regular commercial flights on NYC LON are currently 7 hours. Also, using Google Flights, I priced LHR JFK on first class about T+1month for 7 days (Mon->Mon). It is about 5.3K USD round trip.…

> Are people forgetting about how incredibly loud is a sonic boom?

Is it? I lived in Kansas in the 1960s. Sonic booms from the AF base were common. They weren't that loud. Electric storms (a regular in Kansas) were considerably louder.

> The Concorde burned fuel (passenger miles per liter) at roughly twice the rate of non-supersonic aeroplanes.

5-7 times as much.

My dad said when he pushed his jet supersonic, you could watch the gas gauge unwind.

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

#425

Post by iancmceachern »

mattclarkdotnet wrote: post #396
tobinfricke wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What cargo would justify a supersonic flight?

Anything high value and perishable, like sushi grade fish for example. Or did you mean morally justifiable?

Flying fish that are increasingly not sustainably harvested on insanely fuel in-efficient supersonic planes is exactly humanity deserves to go extinct.

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

#426

Post by davedx »

josefrichter wrote: post #418

Is the word aircraft feminine? They keep saying “she” and it sounds weird.

It's from when the English language had gendered nouns, which of course predates aircraft; I think aircraft being female was a carry-over from boats and ships being female

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

#427

Post by throwaway2037 »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #144
cromulent wrote: post #121

“Currently, all civil aircraft flights are prohibited from operating above Mach one speeds over land in the United States.” [1] Mike Bannister’s excellent book Concorde talks at length about how “handsomely profitable” the BA service was (as opposed to the Air France one) from 1984 until the 2000 crash and subsequent grounding put them in to a spiral where keeping enough people certified was too expensive. One part o…

LA to New York or San Francisco to Honolulu in 2 to 3 hours would be a game changer. You could probably fill a plane at least once a day on those routes for a handsome profit.

I thought about Hawaii also. Rich cities in Northeast Asia might also be a good target: Tokyo, Singapore, Seoul, Shanghai, Beijing to Hawaii might be good targets for weekly (or charter) flights. The tricky part (except Tokyo) would be negotiating supersonic flyover rights. I cannot imagine that Japan would be excited to have regular supersonic flights over their main island from Seoul or Beijing.

Regarding LANYC, I think you could make a dent in that market with an all business class flight that flies slightly less than Mach 1 (0.95 or whatever) and has special security screening and baggage handling. People might be willing to pay 30-50% more compared to business class on a regular flight.

Last: Is there a video game like Theme Park or Railroad Tycoon that allows for the simulation of an airline market? That could be fun.

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

#428

Post by pembrook »

yard2010 wrote: post #402
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…

How about non-judgmental, down to earth pragmatism?

There is no such thing. Humans are giant bags of emotion and pain avoidance.

Pessimists get the warm satisfaction of knowing their choice to not try anything interesting and never take risks in life was correct…most of the time. They cheer on failure from the sidelines so as not to suffer the ego-death of comparison.

Optimists…as the saying goes…they don’t get to be right most of the time. But they do get rich.

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

#429

Post by throwaway2037 »

ortusdux wrote: post #19
dylan604 wrote: post #6

I know nothing about Boom. Why is this impressive? We've achieved supersonic for passengers before. Are we meant to be interested just because someone is taking up the mantle again, or is there some new design that makes it impressive?

The Concorde relied on an afterburner to achieve supersonic flight, so it burned a ton of fuel. It also could not go supersonic over land because its sonic booms were too loud. This mean that flights could only go over the ocean, and they were expensive due to fuel costs. Boom's goal is to reduce the sound of their sonic booms 30x and eliminate the need of afterburners.

    > The Concorde relied on an afterburner to achieve supersonic flight, so it burned a ton of fuel.
Wiki says: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercruise

    > Supercruise is sustained supersonic flight of a supersonic aircraft without using afterburner.

    > Concorde routinely supercruised most of the way over the Atlantic
Real question: How many in-production/operation engines in world can fly supersonic without afterburners? I think it is only a handful, all insanely expensive and backed with squillions of dollars of gov't/military money. And, the maintenance cycle must be out of this world expensive.

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

#430

Post by mppm »

Animats wrote: post #379

It's nice, but it's basically Scaled Composites, Rutan's old company, building a supersonic fighter plane sized aircraft. That's what Scaled Composites does - build little airplanes as test vehicles. Not always little; they built Stratolaunch. There have been many supersonic bizjet projects.[1] Spike [2] seems to be the only one other than Boom still alive. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supersonic_business_jet [2…

This is fascinating. Do you have more info about the Rutan connection?
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