Aerospace Startup Will Build A Supersonic Mach 2.2 Aircraft (fortune.com) 150
A new commercial aircraft will fly more than twice the speed of sound, traveling from New York to London in 3.4 hours. An anonymous reader quotes Fortune:
Colorado-based startup Boom Supersonic is one step closer to making such travel a reality after securing $33 million in investments to construct and fly its first supersonic jet, the XB-1 demonstration and testing craft, according to TechCrunch... With the new funding, Boom will be able to put that concept -- and the technology needed to power it -- to the test. "This funds our first airplane, all the way through flight tests," Boom founder and CEO Blake Scholl told TechCrunch. "Now we have all the pieces we need â" technology, suppliers and capital â" to go out and make some history and set some speed records."
They'll be testing a prototype that's one-third smaller than the commercial version within the next year.
They'll be testing a prototype that's one-third smaller than the commercial version within the next year.
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Yeah. This not a "omg, this is all new technology".
We built the fucking plane, we used it, it was stupid expensive, we stopped.
Google "Concorde Airplane"
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Concorde was not commercially viable, because it could only fly a few routes worldwide. NY / London, LA/Tokyo SF/Hong Kong etc. Basically you can't fly supersonic over land, without pissing the natives off.
boom supersonic (Score:4, Funny)
Change the name to "Crash Supersonic"? (Score:4, Insightful)
Apparently a lot of technically-knowledgeable people don't have social ability. Boom Supersonic!!! "Boom" is what you hear when there is a crash.
There are many more like that. For example, Malwarebytes [malwarebytes.com] is software named after the problem it is supposed to cure. Doesn't anyone at BOOM have a mother?
Son: Mom, what do you think of the name BOOM for our company?
Mom: No, son, that's not a good name.
Son: Why not?
Mom: You're only 3 years old. You'll understand when you are 4.
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Boom Supersonic!!! "Boom" is what you hear when there is a crash.
Or, y'know, when something goes supersonic...
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But the sonic "boom" is the BAD thing about supersonic, the thing they're trying so hard to minimize with modern design.
Should call the company "not so much boom", or "minimal-boom", or "don't worry, this don't go as much boom as before".
Yeah, change the name.
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But this will be a harmonious & patriotic AMERICAN boom, not some raucous noise those Limeys and their Cheese-eating pals make.
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BOOM! The Thom(p)sons in 'Land of Black Gold' (Score:2)
Nope (Score:5, Insightful)
Modern commercial aircraft development, testing and certification programs take upward of $5Billion these days, just what do these people think they are going to achieve with $30million? That won't cover the cost of the engines...
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Whilst accepting its not going to be pocket change, if it was $5 billion, the manufacturers of private jets would be unable to do any new aircraft.
Assuming its not a scam, they are claiming that $30mill will get their Proof Of Concept (XB-1) through, when I presume they'll seek a further round of funding to scale up. The problem is that scaling up is a big problem in commercial aircraft terms. Triple the size makes everything more than 3 times harder, because if it weren't we would be seeing 747 size Conco
Re: Nope (Score:1)
That amount of investment is only enough for maybe a fake mockup. It is not even close to 10% of what is needed to build a demo.
Re: Nope (Score:4, Interesting)
Is it really that expensive? I know some people who had run a small startup automaker that raised 30-something million. They were about 3 months out from first commercial deliveries (having made a couple dozen prototypes to various degrees, ranging from empty shells to full builds), with about $10m still left in the bank - when the board decided to bring on a guy from Detroit (Paul Wilbur, the guy responsible for the Chevy SSR [netdna-cdn.com], and a bunch of other train-wrecks-in-car-form), who then proceeded to run the company into the ground.
Are aircraft that much more expensive than cars, that you can't even build a demonstrator for that kind of money? To be fair, the automaker's vehicle was technically classified as a motorcycle, so their regulations weren't as onerous as for most cars (but they still did full crash and crush tests anyway, voluntarily). But, I mean, they just churned out prototypes one after the next.
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A wing glider will get you in the air cheaper than car. In the air is not the problem, supersonic speeds are the problem, read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] and be entertained by the problems that have not gone away, just because people already know about them. Just a reminder when supersonic jets failhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_wuykzfFzE they do so rather spectacularly.
Want to travel to London for a meeting, do it faster http://www.pcmag.com/article2/... [pcmag.com] do it at the speed of light and don't fo
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if it was $5 billion, the manufacturers of private jets would be unable to do any new aircraft.
Boeing accounts the development cost of the 787, a sub-sonic widebody of the sort they've been building for 47 years, as $29 billion as of 2011. The Irkut MC-21, a conventional narrow body sub-sonic 737 competitor being developed in Russia (one built so far) has a program cost of $4.6 billion to date.
For $33 million you might get as far as testing a credible wind tunnel model. $33 million to test fly a "Boom Supersonic" built aircraft next year (!) is pure fantasy. Marketing bunk. Full stop.
There is
Re:Nope (Score:4, Informative)
But they're not building the airliner for $30 million. It appears they're building a 2 seat, 3 engine plane to test out some of the technologies for $30million+ a bit more.
The nearest comparison is perhaps building the winner of the X-Prize Spaceship One which probably cost less than $30million, although it's hard to tell how much Paul Allen sponsored it for,
Re: Nope (Score:4, Funny)
You can buy a scraped tu22 and change bomb bay to a passenger suite with blackjack and hookers
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It wont get them the demonstrator. It wont get them the engines for the demonstrator. Not even close.
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They're going to 3D print it, what else?
That'll save big bucks.
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Substantial pieces of SpaceX craft are 3D printed from
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
2014 called - it wants its Makerbot back. No, not really - even 2014 hates Makerbot by now.
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Forget Makerbot - did you warn them about the Paris attacks? The Ankara bombings? The Metrojet bombing? Did you tell them to have Robin Williams visit a psychiatrist? Did you tell them to have Carrie Fisher visit a cardiologist? Did you have them warn Ukraine not to underestimate Russia in Donbass? Did you tell Germanwings to up their game on psych evals? Did you tell them to teach Podesta basic email security? Did you tell about Brexit? Did you warn them about Trump? Did you have anyone tell
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$5 Billion is to develop a ready for passengers (mid sized) commercial craft, stripped down prototypes cost considerably less. While I doubt that you could do it for $34 Million, you're in the ballpark. The DC-X (prototype SSTO craft) only cost about $100 Million in inflation adjusted dollars and that was a spacecraft. A hypersonic passenger plane prototype is a lot less of a technological stretch.
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I was talking to an aero guy the other day, he said "remember all news about various startups wanting to build the next small business jet?" (actually don't remember) "all these companies went bankrupt." He then explained, like Boom, presents nice aerodynamic shapes and interior designs but what all these companies lack are experience in pressurized cabins. This involves structures which are not attractive like beautiful aero shapes. The pressurized cabin will underdo several cyclic loads as aircraft ascend
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Must be - to go spreading BS like that!
Or, perhaps this is the new trend based on the new administration M/O.
Pricing... (Score:4, Informative)
The 3 or 4 hours of travel time I'm saving doesn't really justify the proposed ticket pricing...
"The company hopes the Boom jet will take three hours and 15 minutes to fly from New York to London for a price of $2,500 per passenger in either direction, based on its initial prototype. Transatlantic flights currently take more than twice that time."
I fly from Boston to Munich, Frankfurt, Paris or London about twice every 3 months. Ticket prices for a round trip, in the winter, range from 600 - 800$, and in the summer the prices range from 800 - 1200$ (I fly lufthansa over the ocean, then wizz air to final destination, cheap af and lufthansa offers very good service for the price).
If you are going to charge 2500$ for a one way ticket, and the only benefit is I save 3 or 4 hours in travel time, I won't even think twice about it, fuck that.
3 hours of my time is not worth proposed ticket price (~3x for one way, ~6x for round trip).
Unless they reduce the pricing structure, the only people flying this will be bigwigs with too much money to spend. The pricing structure itself sets the company up for a death spiral. Poor investors, didn't do their homework: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Re:Pricing... (Score:5, Informative)
I remind you that Concorde was substantially more expensive than $2500 and it was kept busy. There are a lot of bigwigs who are willing to pay that sort of money especially if their company is paying for it.
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One must remember that even at Concorde prices it was not profitable and had to be subsidized by two governments. To be fair, it wasn't allowed to operate as a free-market enterprise either, so our data is limited.
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Concorde was I believe what is called operationally profitable. However since it was able to fill seats at nearly twice the proposed $2500 cost, it would mean that this new aircraft would attract a market at that price.
Re:Pricing... (Score:4, Insightful)
Concorde did not recoup its development costs due to the small number of operational aircrafts (only 20 were ever produced, 14 of which saw commercial use). However they were operationally profitable, meaning their usage generated profit over and above all the operational costs.
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And it might have done, but the economics of Concorde were predicated on cheap oil, and it became operational at the same time as the energy crisis of the early 1970's, when the price of oil sky-rocketed.
Because of this, and because Governments typically make policy on a short-term, knee-jerk basis, the revised version of Concorde (which would have been cheaper to operate) was cancelled.
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One must remember that even at Concorde prices it was not profitable and had to be subsidized by two governments. To be fair, it wasn't allowed to operate as a free-market enterprise either, so our data is limited.
Free market enterprise pretty much resulted in budget airlines and most American full service airlines turning into them.
The Concorde, as you said, was massively unprofitable so it would have been killed years ago if not the UK and French governments wanting to give a two fingered salute to the Americans.
"Free market enterprise" results in coin slots on aircraft toilets so you have to pay a pound to take a piss. In fact, we'd have that if the UK govt didn't force airlines to provide relief facilities.
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"Free market enterprise" results in coin slots on aircraft toilets so you have to pay a pound to take a piss. In fact, we'd have that if the UK govt didn't force airlines to provide relief facilities.
And in turn airline seats prices have fallen by an inflation-adjusted 10x over the past thirty years. But nobody wants to pay 1/20th of the ticket price to take a piss.
I get that nickle-and-diming is economically wasteful, but don't miss the broader picture. Or pay for "business class" which is like the old e
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And I remind you that the Concorde doesn't fly any more because the airlines just couldn't make money on it.
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It is irrelevant whether Concorde made money or not, although I'm lead to believe that at various points in its lifetime it was profitable.
The question was whether enough people are willing to pay $2500 and since Concorde was generally heavily booked at even higher prices, the answer is Yes.
Re:Pricing... (Score:4, Insightful)
This always gets said, and again, it's false. BA did make money [wikipedia.org], which is why they flew it for as long as they did. It just didn't enough money to pay for spare parts as the planes aged (they cannibalized grounded Concordes until that became unsustainable) and, ultimately, replacement aircraft. Limited to only a few routes, Airbus wouldn't tool up to support a dozen or so planes when there's much more money to be made in fleets of subsonic aircraft. In short, the Concorde died of old age and lack of supporting infrastructure. But make no mistake, for 60's and 70's technology, the Concorde was really really great. Well loved by both passengers and pilots.
Wrong (Score:2)
Concorde wasn't grounded because people wouldn't pay the premium for an ultra-fast trans-Atlantic crossing, it was grounded due to FOD from a shoddily-maintained Boeing owned by United.
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It was a Continental DC-10, made by McDonnell Douglas, that lost a strip of metal that the Concorde ran over (12 years before Boeing merged with McDonnell Douglas).
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If you are going to charge 2500$ for a one way ticket, and the only benefit is I save 3 or 4 hours in travel time, I won't even think twice about it, fuck that.
This jet is not for the hoi polloi like you. It's for the folks who where flying the Concord on a regular basis. Their time is more valuable than yours.
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But not valuable enough to have paid to keep the Concorde flying...
If the Concorde still flew, you might have an argument, but it was a commercial failure, the incredibly high prices still weren't high enough to make it profitable.
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You're right and wrong. To be clear, the Concorde was profitable on a day-to-day basis, enough to sustain it for for 27 years [wikipedia.org].
However, the expense for R&D was not recovered, true, and there just weren't enough of them, nor enough profits, to sustain an industry through Airbus or whoever to manufacture spare parts and replacement Concordes. So, they aged out. Had the problems of ozone depletion and sonic booms been addressed without being sensationalized [chicagotribune.com] (e.g., the Anti-Concorde Project [wikipedia.org]), resulting in
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...or when you absolutely have to get to London [youtube.com] or Paris [youtube.com] before the woman you love.
Man, Hollywood totally lost a plot device when they cancelled the Concorde.
Re:Pricing... (Score:5, Informative)
I have an uncle who flew the Concorde from NYC to London frequently. It was entirely worth the extra money to his company to have him there and back in one day. When he would make trips like this, it was to talk to investment banks and the like, and the stock price would take a non-trivial tick upward as a result. The six-hour-plus savings in his time was entirely worth the cost. Moreover, not having to sleep on a plane and have a shitty night's sleep rendering him less effective the next day was even better.
Now, there aren't many people who are like that, but the number is also not zero. Given the large collection of companies in the northeast with insane valuations (e.g., Big Pharma), I'd wager that there is still a market for supersonic travel to London at what amounts to business-class prices.
Re: Pricing... (Score:4, Interesting)
But how much time do you save nowadays though. 20 years ago when the Concord ran, you got to the airport 45 min ahead of time with plenty of time to spare.
Today, international travel takes about 3 hours at the airport alone. Let alone the flight. So if we're taking 9 vs 6 hours spent, is it really that big of a difference?
Also, the economics of flying means that fuel efficiency is the primary factor in profitability. So if this thing eats up twice of 3x the fuel as a 787 but earns twice as much per flight, airlines won't be running it.
Re: Pricing... (Score:5, Informative)
When Concorde flew, it had dedicated check-ins, security, immigration and lounges at either end of the journey, as befitting a premium and exclusive service.
With this in place, even today you'd spend much less time in the airport than the rest of us flying cattle-class...
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Virgin Atlantic "Upper Class" has its own Upper Class Wing [virginatlantic.com] at Heathrow where you can "whizz through our very own Private Security Channel, beating the queues. Seamless, stress free and calm, you can go from your car to the Clubhouse within ten minutes."
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Virgin Atlantic "Upper Class" has its own Upper Class Wing [virginatlantic.com] at Heathrow where you can "whizz through our very own Private Security Channel, beating the queues. Seamless, stress free and calm, you can go from your car to the Clubhouse within ten minutes."
Outgoing immigration and customs queues are not bad at Heathrow. Probably the best I've ever seen in a large airport. Its incoming immigration that is the killer at Heathrow and pretty much all business class passengers get a priority pass through Heathrow.
Last time I went through T2, I spent more time getting from the offsite carpark to the terminal concourse (25 mins) than I spent checking in (all automated, so no lines what so ever) or going through security. I was sitting down having a beer in 10 min
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But how much time do you save nowadays though. 20 years ago when the Concord ran, you got to the airport 45 min ahead of time with plenty of time to spare.
Today, international travel takes about 3 hours at the airport alone. Let alone the flight. So if we're taking 9 vs 6 hours spent, is it really that big of a difference?
The Boom jet is a business jet, not a commercial aircraft. Passengers in a business jet typically drive directly to the tarmac and board the plane, bypassing the usual delays. I've had the opportunity to fly business jet once for work, and it only required me to arrive 15min ahead of takeoff, with the additional benefit of not having to do any layovers.
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Hell yes. Private airport, private plane, you walk from the front door, right thru and out the back door, hand your luggage to the pilot, and get in.
Did this all the time at my previous employer. It was $1800 a seat, and if you had 4 people to go, you could request it. If you filled it with 7 people you could fly for $1200 each.
Get to the airport by 7am, have a 4-5 hour meeting, and a nice lunch somewhere, and still be back by 5pm.
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The people who would be flying supersonic would undoubtedly have Global Entry, and with dedicated security lines, would not spend 3 hours at the airport prior to departure.
Heck, I travel often enough that I rarely get there 1 hour before departure time on domestic or international itineraries, and usually have enough time to have a quick beverage at the lounge before boarding. For most travellers, 2-3 hours is required because they fundamentally don't know what to do, so are figuring out the system and of
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Dunno about the price today (CGI-CBA) but, ten or so years ago, the full price of a round-trip business class ticket on British Airways (paid for by my company) from Heathrow to JFK was ~£2,500, and the flight time is about 7 to 8 hours depending on wind speed and direction.
There are lots of people who will pay twice that price to travel in half the time - after all, Concorde wasn't grounded because people wouldn't pay the premium for an ultra-fast trans-Atlantic crossing, it was grounded due to FOD f
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3 hours of my time is not worth proposed ticket price
This is certainly true, but there are many people for whom those same three hours are worth the ticket price.
Or are you suggesting that 3-star restaurants should price their food to compete with McDonalds?
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How do you guys getting groped by the TSA feel about that?
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That's a big assumption. Today's business class seats on a 747 cost about $5000 minimum, first class even more. Assuming they're going to be supersonic *and* half the price is pretty strange.
Boom - I do not think that this name will fly... (Score:2)
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'Boom' in this case is what you hear on the ground when an aircraft goes supersonic. The Supersonic Boom.
But yes you may have a point.
I'd fly on it in an instant. I flew on Concorde three times. A Wonderful experience.
The biggest issues with this project are excatly the same that Concorde faced.
1) The high cost of fuel for the trip. Concorde used Re-heat all the time it was supersonic. This may have changed.
2) Nations won't allow it to fly supersonic over land. This has not changed.
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'Boom' in this case is what you hear on the ground when an aircraft goes supersonic. The Supersonic Boom.
No kidding?
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WTF, the Concorde supercruised all the bloody time.
Re:Boom - I do not think that this name will fly.. (Score:5, Informative)
1) The high cost of fuel for the trip. Concorde used Re-heat all the time it was supersonic. This may have changed.
Concorde used reheat for takeoff and when passing mach 1, at all other times it wasn't used including cruising at mach 2...
It wasn't needed, but punching through the sound barrier at mach 1 was quicker with reheat and actually used less fuel that way.
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OTOH, the Concorde had horrible fuel consumption on the ground, could consume two tons of fuel to taxi to the runway [wikipedia.org]. A new design might fix this by using electric motors in the gear.
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"WILL fly more than twice the speed of sound" (Score:2)
Editor, thy name is click-bait credulity.
Re:"WILL fly more than twice the speed of sound" (Score:5, Insightful)
Editor, thy name is click-bait credulity.
Exactly. They would LIKE to design and POSSIBLY build such a plane. MAYBE. What is more likly is that they will enjoy a trendy office in Denver or Colorado Springs with a foosball table, catered lunches, microbrews, and a cat, and when the money runs out, move on to some other - dare I say - investor scam.
The idea that $33 million will get them anywhere near a flyable prototype is mind-blowing.
Underwhelming announcemnt (Score:2)
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Looks like they're re inventing the T-38 [wikipedia.org]
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Grrr. Edit less Slashdot...
Which isn't such a bad idea. Lots of T-38's still flying. New engines, new airframe and avionics and perhaps that plane could be have a viable market in and of itself.
If nothing else, it'll be fun to fly.
But the company really needs to get rid of the Microsoft level marketing... Boom? As in 'earth shattering ka-boom'? I think not.
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if operating it profitably requires charging $10K and up per passenger for the London - New York trip
Do it.
It is intended to be all premium class. $10K per ticket is no big deal for people whose time is worth something. You want to pay $1k per passenger for a trans-Atlantic flight? You get to spend 8 hours crammed into economy behind some screaming, snot-nosed kid. Not everything has to be marketed to you.
I really don't understand the scale model thing. (Score:2)
I really don't understand the scale model thing.
When you go to scale up, you're practically building an entirely new vehicle.
It didn't make sense for the HyperLoop, and it didn't make sense for the DC-X. It's not going to make sense here.
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Scale models are useful when they fail, though.
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Scale models are useful when they fail, though.
They are useful in limited realms, given that what's being tested is not the final product. We should probably be designing things to not fail.
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Testing is part of that. About the most obvious example is Edison not designing a perfect lightbulb on day one.
Refer to my post above about why aircraft scale models are still used. Simulating how the design works on a computer is still prone to producing results that diverge from reality unless you get a bit of feedback on what sort of modelling applies. Turbulent flow is a pain, laminar flow is not as simple as you would think and once things go supers
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The DC-X was successful except for the idiot who didn't connect the landing leg.
Human error is not the same as a fundamental flaw in the program.
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The DC-X was successful except for the idiot who didn't connect the landing leg.
Human error is not the same as a fundamental flaw in the program.
If the DC-X had six landing legs instead of 4, one could have failed (like it did) without the thing tipping over and exploding. It could have also landed on rough terrain, both on Earth, and off (moon landing, anyone?) without needing a relatively flat place to land.
Making it small didn't really serve any purpose, other than to save some money up front, and McDonnell Douglas, at the time, was pretty much printing money (which is what made it such an attractive target for a takeover).
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It's because fluid flow is not only computationally difficult but also the rules are all empirical with uncertain boundaries between different domains so sometimes it's not clear what equations to use. That's why there is still wind tunnel testing of scale models. Since the end product is going to be very large (and supersonic wind tunnels are very difficult things to deal with apart from very short test durations) it makes sense for the scale model to be a
Will? (Score:2)
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Actually it should say "fantasizes", not "will build". It's lunacy. Where the hell is my atomic flying car?
Supersonic mach 2.2 (Score:2)
Is that like an ATM Machine?
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Is that like an ATM Machine?
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Well, I certainly don't want my subsonic aircraft going Mach 2.2.
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Exactly like that - the sort that requires you to enter your PIN number...
â" technology, suppliers and capital â" (Score:2)
I was told Slashdot would be adding UTF-8 support "soonish" and that was like a year ago. I'm not saying that hasn't happened, I'm saying they are hoarding the sweet UTF-8 support and keeping it offline!
whipslash, why hath thou forsaken thine brethren?! ;(
Not Over My House (Score:2)
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The point is to dramatically reduce the sonic-boom effect [wired.com] with better, modern designs.
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XB-1? (Score:2)
Experimental Bomber number 1?
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Won't beat Concorde performance in main config (Score:3, Insightful)
50 year plus old turbojet engines, small and less sophisticated wing (missing vortex lift), only a fraction of the resources of Concorde design/development - won't cut it.
carbon/composites instead of RR58 aluminium alloy, CFD modeling and current FWB controls will surprisingly or not fail to produce meaningfully better performance
kudos to the Concorde designers who still have to be topped almost 50 years after its first flight
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kudos to the Concorde designers who still have to be topped almost 50 years after its first flight
Someone needs to make a movie about those guys. Politicians, engineers, businessmen, assemblers, aircrews etc. etc. etc. from two countries of different cultures, different languages, drive on opposite side of the road and were at war with each other for centuries until 20th century.
I want to believe them (Score:2)
I really do, but the endless parade of of proposed supersonic transports starting with the Boeing SST, that were eventually canceled makes me pretty pessimistic.
The basic technology for supersonic flight hasn't changed. Its not clear why the they claim that the will succeed where so many other companies have failed.
Good luck. You'll need it (Score:3)
There is a long history of similar projects and they all face the same challenges: airframe, engines, engines, engines, engines, cash flow, actual demand from buyers, and safety. And time to get certified (likely to be 5-10 years) and lawsuits.
For a couple good examples of conventional aircraft enduring this, look no further than the HondaJet or Leonardo's AW609. Though I am not aware either has been sued, they HAVE taken a very long time to get from design to prototype to test vehicles to certification and sales. Honda worked on their jet for at least SIXTEEN YEARS to get certification, and it's not as radical as a supersonic jet.
Any new design is going to take years to get certified. Major updates on existing vehicles also take forever. It's just the way it is, and helps keeps these things from falling of of the sky. Which you want even more if the vehicle is supersonic and might kill a lot of people if it failed in flight.
Mostly, supersonic projects are stuck at the mercy of their engine supplier. There is always only one such supplier and any delays or problems there delay everything else. It's really only recently that some common airliners have even had an option for engine suppliers and you still have to choose in advance who will make them.
The key to making this project work. (Score:2)
The key to making this project work is the advanced battery technology described in other Slashdot stories. As soon as those batteries are commercially available, this project will take off.
We want more (Score:1)
Give us Warp 2.2 and we can talk. Mach 2.2 is just another Concorde.
Safety (Score:1)
Re:PERSECUTION (Score:5, Funny)