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Transportation

Aerion Shuts Down, Halts Work On Proposed Supersonic Business Jet (flyingmag.com) 35

Despite $11.2 billion worth of orders, and partners like Boeing, General Electric and Berkshire Hathaway, Aerion says it still couldn't raise enough money to head into production "in the current financial environment," according to a Flying magazine shared by schwit1: The Aerion SST — the most promising effort in years to represent the next step in supersonic travel since the demise of the Anglo-French Concorde — has reached the end of the line after the company said it had run short of cash. The Reno, Nevada-based aircraft builder said Friday it is closing its doors for good according to a story in Florida Today...

In March 2021, NetJets offered Aerion a vote of confidence by ordering 20 of the SSTs as well as agreeing to become the exclusive fractional business jet operator for the new aircraft. Each AS2 was priced at $120 million in today's dollars.

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Aerion Shuts Down, Halts Work On Proposed Supersonic Business Jet

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  • Another supersonic passenger contender, they seem to be making good progress, but the capital requirements have me worried.

    Here's a look at their plane for the interested: https://boomsupersonic.com/xb-... [boomsupersonic.com]
    • by vix86 ( 592763 ) on Sunday May 30, 2021 @02:42PM (#61437562)

      Boom has a way better chance. Wendover Productions did a video [youtube.com] on the 3 super sonic jet makers (Aerion was one them) and outlined their strategies. Aerion and Spike are ('were' in Aerion's case) making private jets and banking on new advances in engineering in air frame design to help lower the "impact" of the sonic boom. The hope is that they can reduce the boom enough to get countries to allow them to fly over populated areas.

      Boom's strategy however is to just do what Concord did and operate Trans-Atlantic and Trans-Pacific routes. They'll be making a passenger plane (vs a private jet) that doesn't intend to worry too much about the advances in "boom shaping" or changes in regulation and simply go in the direction that is already safe. For anyone worrying about profitability because -- "Wasn't Concord unprofitable?" -- Wendover (maybe it was someone else?) in his video on the Concord pointed out that British Airways actually reached profitability with the plane at the end of its lifetime primarily by lowering the ticket prices from First-Class only to All-Business class, which let them get more consistent passenger numbers.

      I suspect with advances in material sciences and in engine design as well, it'll probably be easier for Boom to be successful in this century compared to Concord in the previous one.

      • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        Nowadays there are bigger taxes on aviation fuel and emissions though. If passengers were sensitive to price, as BA's experience suggests that they were, and we can reasonably assume that such taxes are only likely to increase, it doesn't look good for the economics of supersonic passenger flights.

    • The first question to ask, did they run out of money doing the hardware and needed research or did the management suck up all the money. Many f what I consider scam companies today the management walks away with millions and I mean tens and even hundreds of million while the company has no money to meet it's goals. Where did the investment money go this time?
    • Or become a boomdoggle :)
  • in the current financial environment

    Short term lending is toast, this is probably the beginning of the domino effect

  • by Rosco P. Coltrane ( 209368 ) on Sunday May 30, 2021 @01:20PM (#61437346)

    The only commercial supersonic airliner that ever existed only did because it was developed by two countries pouring a kajillion fuckton of taxpayer's money into the project, then mandating their respective national airlines to buy the planes and operate them at a loss for decades. What chance did a two-bit company from Reno have eh?

    Not to mention, this isn't the 60s anymore: people don't have to fly so much thanks to the internet. And the modern airport experience isn't that of the 60s either: you lose more time on the ground waiting in line to be groped by creepy TSA employees than in the air, even on subsonic cattle-class flights. And COVID-19 travel restrictions...

    • by Anonymous Coward

      There are already several big companies out there who are in the business of building aircraft. They have many decades of experience. The fact that they aren't building something like this tells you everything you need to know.

      The cost is too high and the demand is too low.

      • by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

        There are already several big companies out there who are in the business of building aircraft. They have many decades of experience. The fact that they aren't building something like this tells you everything you need to know.

        The cost is too high and the demand is too low.

        Both of them aren't building a lot of aircraft. I mean, pilots need to learn to fly, and neither of those companies make airplanes that are suitable for training in. In fact, the little aircraft sector is of no interest to them.

        Yet during

    • The only commercial supersonic airliner that ever existed only did because it was developed by two countries pouring a kajillion fuckton of taxpayer's money into the project, then mandating their respective national airlines to buy the planes and operate them at a loss for decades.

      The first part is true, but the airlines bought the planes at a discount (a classic example of big business getting a leg over on the government and taxpayers) and they were making a profit within a decade [apnews.com].

      Whether they ever would have broke even "overall", i.e. recouped development costs, is more of a consideration. Probably not.

      You lose more time on the ground waiting in line to be groped by creepy TSA employees than in the air, even on subsonic cattle-class flights.

      Supersonic was never about domestic flights (sonic booms pretty much ruled that out), it was primarily about crossing the Atlantic (and occasional Far East flights). The choice betw

    • by amorsen ( 7485 ) <benny+slashdot@amorsen.dk> on Sunday May 30, 2021 @02:38PM (#61437554)

      The difference is that new supersonic jets would be private, not something you could buy tickets for. There are enough super-rich people today to make supersonic private jets viable.

      This solves the TSA problem and some of the travel restrictions.

      The big questions are technical, not economic. Supersonic private jets are only worth it if they can land in most airports and fly supersonic over land.

      • The super rich have their own private jets they can sleep on, or can fly in a first class cabin with a bed and a shower, so who cares how long it takes?

        • The super-rich care. As pointed out in TFA, if this class of exclusively wealthy clientele cared about cost or comfort, they'd fly commercial in a first class suite. At this level they want speed &, most of all, prestige.

    • by Sique ( 173459 )
      There were actually two. And you can see them side by side in a small German town, in Sinsheim [technik-museum.de].

      Admittedly, the first one to ever fly did so on less than 50 commercial flight, but for the sake of correctness, it was a commercial supersonic airplane.

    • by evanh ( 627108 )

      Concorde operated at a large profit once they got the pricing right. Which took less than two years to sort out.

      And before you ask where is it now? Post-9/11 airport security wiped out its advantage. And that'll be a problem for all attempts to go faster and charge more. The time to board destroys the time gained with speed.

      • Post-9/11 airport security wiped out its advantage.
        That is nonsense. Air Port security did not change in Europe after 9/11. It was always very strict.

        • It really did get worse, not that it was good before. They really ramped up the theatre after 9/11 and now they make a point of seriously inconveniencing everyone for the illusion of security.

          • I have no idea how it is in the US.
            But I'm flying since roughly 1990.

            There is no real change in Europe regarding security at airports.

            Perhaps you can say: mini airports in outskirt islands in the Aegeis now have strict security and 40 years ago, you could walk over the tarmac. However for a majour Airport like Frankfurt/M (FRA) there is no difference at all.

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Concorde did make a profit, and it would have been a decent investment for the taxpayer if it hadn't been attacked with lies and exaggerations from competitors.

      It was also a first generation product and would doubtless have improved over time if supersonic passenger travel had been more popular.

      Not that that would necessarily have been a good thing. It wasn't very environmental friendly and supersonic travel probably never will be. Noise isn't really the issue now, efficiency and emissions are.

  • Well, I guess all of the workers from this failed supersonic plan, can go head over to work at Venus [slashdot.org]...

    • Why wouldn't you link to an actual article ffs?
      • Why wouldn't you link to an actual article ffs?

        Because I thought it was more humorous to highlight two stories about similar companies posted so close together... in fact that was kind of the completion of a doubly linked list (though with only two elements).

  • is Space Plane Startup Pormises One Hour Rides to Anywhere on Earth at 9000mph [slashdot.org]

    Who needs your crappy supersonic when you can go ludicrous speed in *space*!

  • Trump wants one, dammit! Make it happen!
  • These people [slashdot.org] will do it!
  • by joe_frisch ( 1366229 ) on Sunday May 30, 2021 @02:16PM (#61437490)
    I think people had put down 250K deposits to reserve positions representing 11B if the plane went into production, but typically those are refundable deposits, and are not a commitment to actually order the $120M plane. These are people basically saying "if you can actually build it for that price I probably want it" but don't represent any confidence that can actually happen. It would be great if supersonic transport became viable, economics kill it over and over again.
    • The common approach to citing orders in the commercial aviation press is to cite the list price - articles about Airbus and Boeing do it as well. Actual deposits held, profit margins etc can be gleaned from the companies filings with the various financial regulatory bodies (depends on which country for example), but actual sales figures are a tightly kept secret for each company - eg Airbus and Boeing can discount significantly off the list price, in some cases vastly more than 50%. But articles are alway

  • "In the current financial environment"? Interest rates are effectively zero, there are trillions of dollars in stimulus money, and investors are sitting on piles of cash desperate to find somewhere to invest it.

    If no-one is willing to invest, it sounds like their technology simply isn't viable.

  • "How do you make a small fortune in the aerospace business?"

    answer: "Start with a large fortune..."

    Here is the problem:

    Aerospace is challenging enough, and therefore expensive, but it is also one of the most-heavily regulated businesses there is (not far behind medical stuff). To do something in this field of business you need massive piles of money because you need very expensive technical people, you're building very expensive machines from very expensive parts, you must test everything thoroughly (freq

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