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Boom Supersonic to break sound barrier during historic test flight today

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Re: Boom Supersonic to break sound barrier during historic test flight today

#51
post #41

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The military does not have relatively silent supersonic flight. Only a few US military aircraft models are even capable of supersonic flight, and they're plenty loud. In order to avoid complaints they normally they only fly that fast over designated exercise areas. The Boom aircraft incorporates some quiet supersonic technology but until they actually test it they won't know whether it's actually quiet enough.

> military does not have relatively silent supersonic flight

We have one plane—soon to be retired—that can supercruise, i.e. sustain supersonic flight without afterburners, the F-22 [1]. It’s absolutely incorrect to treat this technology as anything but bleeding edge.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercruise

Re: Boom Supersonic to break sound barrier during historic test flight today

#52

In what way will this be better than the Concorde? Definitely not cheaper.

>> In what way will this be better than the Concorde?

Well it's a modern design for one. IIRC the Concorde was given an exemption to one of the FAA standards in the US that requires that a catastrophic engine failure not be able to affect another engine. The Concorde could not meet this due to the way the engines were paired right next to each other, and that is one contributing factor to the last crash - one engine failed and took out the other on the same side. This new design is probably going to be cheaper in terms of maintenance as well, which was another problem with Concorde.

Re: Boom Supersonic to break sound barrier during historic test flight today

#53
post #33

A cautionary video "Is Commercial Supersonic Doomed to Fail?" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=je5R3_br8So Boom is having to develop their own engines, which is a huge ask, especially on the schedule they are promising. (spoiler: the video's answer is "yes")

That must be mistaken, it is a violation of betteridge's law

Re: Boom Supersonic to break sound barrier during historic test flight today

#54
I think a lot of people here are missing the point. The idea isn't to just replicate Concorde's flights across the Atlantic Ocean - or any stretch of water for that matter. Their plan would be to have this thing flying over land. The noise issue will be solved either through some feat of engineering or political lobbying. The cynic in me believes it will be mostly the latter.

Re: Boom Supersonic to break sound barrier during historic test flight today

#55
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> just run it only over the ocean If you look at the Overture's website ( https://boomsupersonic.com/overture ), it sounds like that's exactly what they are planning to do - it's advertised as "MACH 1.7 Cruise Speed, 2X Faster over water, 20% Faster over land" - if you take Mach 0.8 as the current cruise speed of subsonic jets, 20% faster would be just barely under the speed of sound.

The reasons why planes don't fly faster is efficiency.

I'm aware of that, but if your selling point is speed, you'll have to sacrifice the efficiency, CO2 emissions be damned...

Re: Boom Supersonic to break sound barrier during historic test flight today

#56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It likely has an affect on whales and other marine animals as shown by a number of studies previously.

It's not like they are flying at 1000 feet above the ocean. at between 30-40k feet, if you can hear the jet engines, you are a lucky whale!

You can in fact hear super sonic flight above you even at 30 to 40k feet, think of the noise that spacex falcon rockets produce, but it's hard to compare legitimate explosions going off every millisecond to a needle piercing the sky.

Re: Boom Supersonic to break sound barrier during historic test flight today

#57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> don't want boom supersonic to succeed You’d prefer we buy them from China? If the physics works, it works and will happen. > military (and concord I guess) have had this technology for nearly a millennium Since the millennium, maybe? Charlemagne wasn’t flying in a supersonic PJ. And no, the military has not obviously solved large-body, sustained and fuel-efficient ( i.e. non-afterburning) flight. The USAF didn’t ge…

Supersonic flight will never be more efficient than traditional flights. And sorry I meant that I don't want any super sonic plane company to be successful.

> Supersonic flight will never be more efficient than traditional flights

Efficient by what metric? Fuel use? That’s the new master of our existence, our six-proton czar?

If there is one way to kill sympathy and support for climate-change action, it’s by not only insisting but actually hoping that living standards don’t improve (or regress) because it reduces emissions.

Instead of seeing a new super-premium air-travel market that can pay for the scaling of synergic jet fuels, you’re essentially hoping that technologies that could e.g. single-handedly eliminate the organ-transplant geographic mismatch problem do not exist. I’m surprised there isn’t an element of shame to such views.

Re: Boom Supersonic to break sound barrier during historic test flight today

#58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having to drive in bumper to bumper traffic versus chilling in a large chair either working on a laptop, watching a movie or just sleeping (or well if you can't afford it in which case this is very irreverent due to ticket prices).

Large????

I'm assuming large here because that's what the tickets will cost for super sonic flight.

Re: Boom Supersonic to break sound barrier during historic test flight today

#59

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This whole 1% focus is just silly.

The Concorde was expensive because everything around it was expensive, not just the nature of high speed flight. They built 20 planes total and never actually capitalized on large scale cost savings. The planes also used afterburner and burned a ton of fuel doing it. There is nothing stopping current transcontinential flights from being supersonic. Heck, the time savings can lead to cost savings as well.

Re: Boom Supersonic to break sound barrier during historic test flight today

#60

[flagged]

I agree it's not a big deal over the Atlantic, but over the Pacific it could really be huge. Flights halfway around the world are looong . I've been to Australia once, and honestly not sure I'll ever be back. Just because it is a lot of time in a seat.

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