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American Airlines agrees to purchase Boom Supersonic Overture aircraft

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Re: American Airlines agrees to purchase Boom Supersonic Overture aircraft

#501

Post by vosper »

thombat wrote: post #482
fedorareis wrote: post #466

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seattle to Tokyo is only 4144nm so that might be a viable route especially for routes that would have already had a layover in LAX and/or Tokyo.

In part that will depend upon its ETOPS capabilities, i.e. how far it can be trusted to fly after an engine fails. The Great Circle mapper is fun for playing "what if" games with potential routes: e.g. here's the direct Seattle-Tokyo routing with dark shading showing parts where flying for 60 mins at 410 knots wouldn't reach an airport. So if that was the ETOPS performance for a Boom aircraft (and I've no idea; I jus…

For those who don't know, ETOPS = "Engines Turn or Passengers Swim"

j/k, it stands for "Extended Range Twin Operations"

https://www.caa.co.uk/commercial-industry/aircraft/operation...

Re: American Airlines agrees to purchase Boom Supersonic Overture aircraft

#502

Post by elzbardico »

jandrese wrote: post #368
galgot wrote: post #200

So they went from scaled down Concorde configuration : https://www.airway.com.br/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Boom_Ov... to a very scaled down Boeing 2707-300 configuration : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_2707 (that tiny fin tho...). While reducing cruise speed to 1.7 mach. I see no visible changes to deal with the sonic booms problem. So operation would be like Concorde I suppose, subsonic (or hi-subsonic) over…

And they still have not solved the problem that ultimately sunk the Concorde. Fuel costs made it unprofitable to operate whenever the price of oil went up. The small niche of customers willing to pay a significant premium in order to save some travel hours is not big enough to sustain an entire industry of specialized mechanics, parts suppliers, pilots, etc... Basically you need a critical mass of people riding these…

We now live in an era of conspicuous consumption and wealth concentration. Maybe the right time for overly expensive air travel

Re: American Airlines agrees to purchase Boom Supersonic Overture aircraft

#504

Post by elzbardico »

runarberg wrote: post #461
_ph_ wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This could be a very important enabler. As you can see in other "luxus" industries, the amount of affluent people on this planet has ballooned. I don't know any numbers, but I got the impression that the private airplane industry had a strong growth in recent years. And flying supersonic with an airline for sure is way cheaper than any private flight.

Will that also be the case if they actually have to pay for the carbon they emit in the process? Currently airline passengers don’t have to pay for their carbon emissions, but I doubt that’s gonna last for much longer (we are in an emergency after all). And I’ve seen elsewhere in this thread that the emissions are likely gonna be somewhere between 5x and 10x of normal sub-sonic flights. The price of this extra carbon…

No, of course not. This is for us, the plebe.

Re: American Airlines agrees to purchase Boom Supersonic Overture aircraft

#505

Post by akmarinov »

ISL wrote: post #24
akmarinov wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only very expensive, but basically coach class all the way through, even for the rich people.

Rich people value time highly. Coach-class that gets you somewhere quickly can be worth a lot more than first-class that takes twice as long.

If that was the case, wouldn’t we still have Concorde or something similar?

Re: American Airlines agrees to purchase Boom Supersonic Overture aircraft

#506

Post by credit_guy »

foo92691 wrote: post #301
credit_guy wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> to get less people around the world faster What does “less people” mean? You mean Boom is targeting only the ultra-rich? That’s not their aim. They aim to make supersonic flight both possible and affordable.

According to their propaganda, they are going to make jet transport cheaper AND faster AND greener. I see no evidence that this is at all realistic, and a lot of evidence to the contrary. Do they even have a story explaining how their new supersonic jet could possibly reduce costs?

Concorde had a cruising speed that was 2.31 times higher than Boeing 747, and a lift-to-drag ratio that was almost the same times lower (2.36). So, every second Concorde had to burn about 2.36 times more fuel per ton of aircraft compared to 747, but it reaches the destination 2.31 times faster. All in all, the fuel consumption during the cruising phase of the flight was comparable. Well, Concorde had a horrible fuel economy during takeoff, so overall it was pretty bad compared with the 747.

But 50 years have passed since the Concorde was designed. Both computational fluid dynamics algorithms and computing power have made tremendous progress. It's quite likely Ouverture will have a much better fuel economy than Concorde, if only for the fact that it will use turbofan rather than turbojet.

Re: American Airlines agrees to purchase Boom Supersonic Overture aircraft

#507

Post by midoridensha »

jandrese wrote: post #368
galgot wrote: post #200

So they went from scaled down Concorde configuration : https://www.airway.com.br/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Boom_Ov... to a very scaled down Boeing 2707-300 configuration : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_2707 (that tiny fin tho...). While reducing cruise speed to 1.7 mach. I see no visible changes to deal with the sonic booms problem. So operation would be like Concorde I suppose, subsonic (or hi-subsonic) over…

And they still have not solved the problem that ultimately sunk the Concorde. Fuel costs made it unprofitable to operate whenever the price of oil went up. The small niche of customers willing to pay a significant premium in order to save some travel hours is not big enough to sustain an entire industry of specialized mechanics, parts suppliers, pilots, etc... Basically you need a critical mass of people riding these…

The other big problem here is that it would only be useful for trans-oceanic trips (i.e., international). This is American Airlines.

Who in their right mind wants to spend top dollar to fly internationally on an American airline, worst of all AA, one of the two worst airlines on the planet?

Anyone with some money who wants a nice international flight is going to take one of the Asian or Middle Eastern airlines, not one of the shitty American-run airlines. The level of service is so far superior it's not even funny. AA is infamous for their horrible service in First Class.

Re: American Airlines agrees to purchase Boom Supersonic Overture aircraft

#508

Post by junofan »

midoridensha wrote: post #507
jandrese wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And they still have not solved the problem that ultimately sunk the Concorde. Fuel costs made it unprofitable to operate whenever the price of oil went up. The small niche of customers willing to pay a significant premium in order to save some travel hours is not big enough to sustain an entire industry of specialized mechanics, parts suppliers, pilots, etc... Basically you need a critical mass of people riding these…

The other big problem here is that it would only be useful for trans-oceanic trips (i.e., international). This is American Airlines . Who in their right mind wants to spend top dollar to fly internationally on an American airline, worst of all AA, one of the two worst airlines on the planet? Anyone with some money who wants a nice international flight is going to take one of the Asian or Middle Eastern airlines, not…

Isn’t that the point of the purchase? A differentiator for this market?

Re: American Airlines agrees to purchase Boom Supersonic Overture aircraft

#509

Post by junofan »

_ph_ wrote: post #400
acchow wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder how much larger the population of people is today (vs Concorde's era) that are willing to pay for these supersonic ticket prices. 3x? 10x?

This could be a very important enabler. As you can see in other "luxus" industries, the amount of affluent people on this planet has ballooned. I don't know any numbers, but I got the impression that the private airplane industry had a strong growth in recent years. And flying supersonic with an airline for sure is way cheaper than any private flight.

It’s like 2–5 million people with more than $10 mm. Regionally correlates with real estate and equities.

Re: American Airlines agrees to purchase Boom Supersonic Overture aircraft

#510

Post by ulfw »

galgot wrote: post #200

So they went from scaled down Concorde configuration : https://www.airway.com.br/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Boom_Ov... to a very scaled down Boeing 2707-300 configuration : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_2707 (that tiny fin tho...). While reducing cruise speed to 1.7 mach. I see no visible changes to deal with the sonic booms problem. So operation would be like Concorde I suppose, subsonic (or hi-subsonic) over…

Over water isn't too bad a problem as many major routes (e.g. US - Europe, US - Asia, US-Australia, Asia - Australia) are over long stretches of ocean.

But will the range be there? Concorde was severely range limited, which somewhat defeats the purpose of faster travel (if it only works on medium length routes).

Cutting a 14hr SYD-SFO flight down to 8.5hrs is just more impactful than cutting a 7h LHR-JFK flight down to 4.2 (when taking into consideration significant time at the airfields for taxi, boarding, security checks etc)

Concorde didn't have the range for long haul and once you need to land to refuel you lose all time savings.

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