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Rolls Royce Ends Boom Supersonic Partnership

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Re: Rolls Royce Ends Boom Supersonic Partnership

#81

Post by objclxt »

asciii wrote: post #35
trollied wrote: post #11

Just last month they were saying they'd be manufacturing the first aircraft in 2024. This company just looks like another huge investor scam at the moment.

Weird. This article states 2029 but their own site says 2024. https://boomsupersonic.com/flyby/post/its-about-time-for-a-b...

> This article states 2029 but their own site says 2024.

The article says they intend to carry passengers in 2029, which isn't incompatible with going into production in 2024 (of course, they will do neither).

Re: Rolls Royce Ends Boom Supersonic Partnership

#82

Post by jjk166 »

bell-cot wrote: post #7

My understanding is that the only profitable part of being a modern commercial jet engine manufacturer is service contracts - on actually-in-service jet engines. Vs. Boom Supersonic has never built a plane which actually managed to take off. And even their 1/3-scale "technology demonstrator" plane is 5+ years behind its original schedule. (And has yet to taxi along a runway, if I read Wikipedia right.) My guess - Boo…

Well all planes that haven't been developed yet are not in service, and development cycles for jet engines are always long. Investing in engine R&D is standard practice. While Boom doesn't have a fleet of aircraft at the moment, it didn't 2 years ago either, but it does have orders. While of course those orders don't mean much if Boom can't ultimately deliver and sunk cost is not a good reason to continue a venture, the fact that RR entered into the agreement in the first place suggests they believed at some point it made business sense.

Indeed, supersonic business jets are ideal for the service contract based market. Supersonic engines need much more frequent maintenance than subsonic engines, business jet owners are much less price sensitive than mass-market airlines, and its not like you can just swap in a different supersonic engine, operators are completely locked in.

Far more likely, RR wanted Boom to use one of the supersonic engines it already has developed with minimal modification but Boom needs either heavy modification or a clean slate design to reduce fuel consumption (the second biggest issue for commercial supersonic aviation).

Re: Rolls Royce Ends Boom Supersonic Partnership

#83

Post by chadash »

rollinggoron wrote: post #76
rocket_surgeron wrote: post #60

Regarding Boom there are only two reasonable conclusions one can reach: 1. They are a Theranos-style operation 2. They are a Madoff-style operation I, a lone aerospace engineer working out of my garage in my spare time, have a better chance of achieving supersonic flight than Boom does. Even their technology demonstrator is an obvious scam. It demonstrates nothing. It does not demonstrate the ability to design, build…

Agreed. I know nothing about aerospace engineering or aircraft design, but the hype around Boom always puzzled me. If this start up can all of a sudden make an economical supersonic jet, then surely the existing plane manufacturers could do it quicker and cheaper. Boeing, Lockheed, Airbus, etc... already have existing designs from decades past that they could at least use as a base. They have experts in material scie…

I agree with you, but to play devil's advocate, what if I changed your comment to:

Agreed. I know nothing about automotive engineering or car design, but the hype around Tesla always puzzled me. If this start up can all of a sudden make an economical electric car, then surely the existing automotive manufacturers could do it quicker and cheaper. Toyota, Mercedes, Ford, etc... already have existing designs from decades past that they could at least use as a base. They have experts in material science, car design, and actual resources/contracts to actually build one. If it made sense.

Sometimes the incumbents are just too entrenched in what they are doing to make what out an outsider sees as an obvious move.

Re: Rolls Royce Ends Boom Supersonic Partnership

#84

Post by namirez »

Sadly Boom is doomed and it’s been a writing on the wall all along. They never had a good engine option. The military engines are not safe enough and developing a new civilian engine makes sense only if you make hundreds of them.

Their net-zero emission claim is also bogus. Their pricing model doesn’t make much sense either unless they’re willing to lose money for a decade or so. There is not much innovation in aerodynamics and shock wave shaping either. Their only innovation compared to Concorde is the use of composite materials which is just not enough to hit their targets.

Re: Rolls Royce Ends Boom Supersonic Partnership

#85

Post by 0x457 »

topspin wrote: post #48
daniel-cussen wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dude when the sanctions end the sanctions will really really end.

Russia couldn't get any of their civil aviation jets certified before the sanctions.

SSJ 100 was certified to operate in Europe in 2012. How much of SSJ 100 is Russian is another question.

Irkut MC-21 had its first flight in 2017 and was supposed to get certified somewhere around 2025, which is pretty normal period, I think? Obviously, not going to happen now.

Re: Rolls Royce Ends Boom Supersonic Partnership

#86

Post by bri3d »

rocket_surgeron wrote: post #60

Regarding Boom there are only two reasonable conclusions one can reach: 1. They are a Theranos-style operation 2. They are a Madoff-style operation I, a lone aerospace engineer working out of my garage in my spare time, have a better chance of achieving supersonic flight than Boom does. Even their technology demonstrator is an obvious scam. It demonstrates nothing. It does not demonstrate the ability to design, build…

Isn't there a third kind of operation, maybe a Magic Leap-style operation, where employees are earnestly developing against a goal which is fanciful but appealing to VCs? And in that case, what's the difference between that and the "usual" VC funded company?

I don't really think Boom are a Theranos style operation, because they aren't claiming to have an operational product when no such item exists. A Theranos style scam would be flying a known-unsafe airframe, or parading their demonstrator around claiming "it totally has engines and is ready to fly lol! we just haven't tested it yet." But so far, Boom have just honestly said "we're delayed" instead.

It's surely not a Madoff style operation as they employ staff who are earnestly working towards their goal, however fanciful it may be.

Re: Rolls Royce Ends Boom Supersonic Partnership

#87

Post by carabiner »

rocket_surgeron wrote: post #60

Regarding Boom there are only two reasonable conclusions one can reach: 1. They are a Theranos-style operation 2. They are a Madoff-style operation I, a lone aerospace engineer working out of my garage in my spare time, have a better chance of achieving supersonic flight than Boom does. Even their technology demonstrator is an obvious scam. It demonstrates nothing. It does not demonstrate the ability to design, build…

Lol you're too harsh. I was an aerospace engineer at an aviation startup you've probably heard of. We built a jet and received a type certificate, and sold ships. The company still went bankrupt. Boom is trying something harder, but it's not Theranos, or cold fusion. It's still just an engineering problem. They have aerospace engineers and facilities. It doesn't look more like a scam than SpaceX did in its early days when they were constantly blowing up rockets. It's just they're trying something very hard stretching what any manufacturing startup could do.

3. They're a startup in a manufacturing-oriented, highly regulated industry and dramatically underestimated capital needed.

Re: Rolls Royce Ends Boom Supersonic Partnership

#88

Post by rocket_surgeron »

MichaelCollins wrote: post #73
rocket_surgeron wrote: post #60

Regarding Boom there are only two reasonable conclusions one can reach: 1. They are a Theranos-style operation 2. They are a Madoff-style operation I, a lone aerospace engineer working out of my garage in my spare time, have a better chance of achieving supersonic flight than Boom does. Even their technology demonstrator is an obvious scam. It demonstrates nothing. It does not demonstrate the ability to design, build…

> 1. They are a Theranos-style operation If they were that, they'd be lying about having their own engine in development that is an order of magnitude better than the competitions but won't show it to anybody.

My angle was the "charismatic and overambitious leaders who think that gumption and sticktoitiveness can overcome any problem and who aren't afraid to start lying when they find out that solving science and engineering problems isn't like the scammy adware/SEO/social network they made their first chunk of money on" aspect.

I just can't believe people keep falling for it.

I'm willing to bet most of the $100m+ they've raised went right into executive compensation and that their engineers have been making do with peanuts since the beginning.

And I eagerly await the dueling Netflix/HBO documentaries to come.

Re: Rolls Royce Ends Boom Supersonic Partnership

#89

Post by aresant »

In 2020 COVID decimated Rolls Royce given their concentration of revenue associated with selling & servicing existing aero engines.

They have yet to recover from that era which saw a ~10x decrease in enterprise value and record losses.

That said I would interpret this news as a "cut the $!@$! R&D bleeding in anything that won't be generating revenue in the next 4 quarters" vs a reflection on the feasibility or health of Boom's very early but very ambitious plans.

(1) https://www.barrons.com/market-data/stocks/rycey

(2) https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/rolls-...

(3) https://simpleflying.com/rolls-royce-record-loss/

Re: Rolls Royce Ends Boom Supersonic Partnership

#90

Post by nfw2 »

rollinggoron wrote: post #76
rocket_surgeron wrote: post #60

Regarding Boom there are only two reasonable conclusions one can reach: 1. They are a Theranos-style operation 2. They are a Madoff-style operation I, a lone aerospace engineer working out of my garage in my spare time, have a better chance of achieving supersonic flight than Boom does. Even their technology demonstrator is an obvious scam. It demonstrates nothing. It does not demonstrate the ability to design, build…

Agreed. I know nothing about aerospace engineering or aircraft design, but the hype around Boom always puzzled me. If this start up can all of a sudden make an economical supersonic jet, then surely the existing plane manufacturers could do it quicker and cheaper. Boeing, Lockheed, Airbus, etc... already have existing designs from decades past that they could at least use as a base. They have experts in material scie…

I also know nothing about the subject, but just to play devil's advocate here, doesn't SpaceX show that a startup could potentially solve hard physical engineering problems more effectively than established incumbents?
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