Boom Supersonic Picks North Carolina To Build and Test Ultra-Fast Planes (cnbc.com) 36
Boom Supersonic, which is developing ultra-fast airplanes it believes will lead to the return of commercial supersonic flights, has picked Greensboro, N.C., to build and test those planes. CNBC reports: The Greensboro-based plant, which is expected to employ 1,250 workers by the end of the decade, is the latest example of a new aviation manufacturing facility being built in the region. In the last 11 years, Boeing and Airbus have established new final assembly plants in North Charleston, S.C., and Mobile, Ala., respectively. "This is the right choice for us and we couldn't be more excited," Blake Scholl, founder and CEO of Boom Supersonic told CNBC. "Greensboro brings a significant, local skilled labor population and there are more than two hundred aerospace suppliers in the state. Many will be key suppliers for The Overture."
The Overture is Boom's first commercial supersonic plane. The company plans to start building the plane in 2024, with the first one rolling off the line in 2025 and the initial test flight set for 2026. If all goes as planned, Boom's inaugural supersonic jet would enter commercial service by 2029. While Boom is based in Denver and will continue designing aircraft at its headquarters, it chose Greensboro, in part, because of its short distance from the Atlantic coast. "The proximity to the ocean is an important factor," Scholl said. "The vast majority of our flight tests will be over the water, where the plane can speed up so there is not a sonic boom over populated areas." Boom says the Overture will fly at a top speed of Mach 1.7, or about 1,300 mph, allowing it to shave hours off of some of the longest international flights.
The Overture is Boom's first commercial supersonic plane. The company plans to start building the plane in 2024, with the first one rolling off the line in 2025 and the initial test flight set for 2026. If all goes as planned, Boom's inaugural supersonic jet would enter commercial service by 2029. While Boom is based in Denver and will continue designing aircraft at its headquarters, it chose Greensboro, in part, because of its short distance from the Atlantic coast. "The proximity to the ocean is an important factor," Scholl said. "The vast majority of our flight tests will be over the water, where the plane can speed up so there is not a sonic boom over populated areas." Boom says the Overture will fly at a top speed of Mach 1.7, or about 1,300 mph, allowing it to shave hours off of some of the longest international flights.
So is it electric? (Score:3, Interesting)
Dino juice being somewhat unpopular just now. Natural gas powered won't make the greens happy either. You could probably crack palm oil down to a decent fuel, but again the greens won't like that.
On the other hand, moving to contrails into the stratosphere should let them stick around longer, and that might cool the planet down a bit. Or does the extra water vapor up high make the greenhouse worse?
Re: So is it electric? (Score:2)
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They are claiming that they will use "sustainable" fuel: https://twitter.com/boomaero/s... [twitter.com]
That's an extremely vague statement. Presumably some kind of biofuel, but most of those are not very green or suitable for mass air transport.
They are developing new engines for it so I suppose they might have some way to reduce emissions, but I doubt it. It's going to be a business class only jet, used by corporations and rich people who generally don't care about the environmental damage.
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That's not a silly as it sounds. The operating altitude of jet powered supersonic aircraft is limited by the oxygen ingestion requirements of the engines. Electric aircraft could fly in much rarer air, benefitting from reduced air resistance. I imagine the various tradeoffs would mean the total energy per km travelled would not be that much different from existing aircraft, but it could potentially be done at substantially higher speeds, essentially without penalty.
Re: So is it electric? (Score:2)
Yeah no, it is silly as hell. You have a problem called energy density and Max landing weight.
Let's take the Concorde :
Empty weight : 80 tons
Fuel capacity : 90 tons
Max takeoff / landing weights : 185 tons / 110 tons
Thing is, the best battery out there stores less than 20 times the amount of energy as kerosene per unit of weight.
Let's assume they make their new shiny plane twice lighter than the Concorde with engine 5 times more efficient for the same thrust.
You need 400 tons of battery to get the same thrus
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Passenger electric planes are stupid.
To fly over an ocean, or more than 1000 km., sure.
But short-hop inter-city trips in electric planes could be practical some day.
Re: So is it electric? (Score:2)
If greens really had the power you ascribe to them, the world would be a very different place.
The only greens that really have power in our society to decide what happens and what doesn't are dollar bills. Hence, for instance, the free market has spoken its verdict that nuclear power isn't profitable and hence won't be invested in.
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If greens really had the power you ascribe to them, the world would be a very different place.
There is something in what you say. On the other hand, Boom didn't pick "sustainable aviation fuel" for engineering reasons.
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Dino juice being somewhat unpopular just now. Natural gas powered won't make the greens happy either. You could probably crack palm oil down to a decent fuel, but again the greens won't like that.
Current plan is to use 100% Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) which is also known as bio-fuel. The problem is that no engines yet exist that are certified for anything beyond 50% SAF. I'm guessing this isn't an impossible barrier to overcome, but technically speaking "we aren't there yet".
My impression is that a lot of the climate change Nazis won't accept any aviation at all and this won't pacify them. If you are on the wing nut fringes of environmental activism, you can always find a way to objec
Ultra-fast planes... (Score:2)
Ultra-cheap labor ! What could go wrong ? Works for Boeing.
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Bean counters instead of engineers making decisions. Will Boeing Become The Next McDonnell Douglas [aviationweek.com].
Re: Ultra-fast planes... (Score:2)
Ultra-cheap labor
In North Carolina? They didn't say Northern Mexico or something.
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Have you tried turning it off and back on again?
SpaceX point-to-point (Score:2)
By 2029 Starship point-to-point will be a thing .. assuming Elon stops annoying Biden so that his administration completes the bogus environmental review and provides launch clearance for the tests.
Re: SpaceX point-to-point (Score:2)
When was it credibly debunked? By whom? Lots of things fools claimed about SpaceX and Tesla turned out to be false.
Not physically impossible (Score:2)
When was it credibly debunked? By whom?
Not debunked in the sense of it being physically impossible, but in the sense that it doesn't make much sense from a commercial viability point of view, due to, e.g., numerous drawbacks that a "spaceport" would have compared to your average airport (e.g.: the necessary remote location) what would be necessary to have a safety rating for mass transportation, etc.
There are even some YouTubers who have developed their shtick around taking Elon's fluffing of investors at face-value and crunching the number to s
Tough time (Score:2)
Energy use? (Score:2)
Seems like a pretty optimistic time to try and build something that will burn even more fuel, at a time when the airlines are wondering how they will transition to net-zero.
I see the Boom plan - based on the Promethus fuel out of air for net-zero carbon. Can't avoid the fact that going fast takes a lot more fuel - a real word example is Concorde to 747-400 - 17.1 l/100km/seat versus 3.29 l/100km/seat. So burning 5 times as much fuel to get their in about half the time. So even if you make the fuel out of "a
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"So burning 5 times as much fuel to get their in about half the time"
Flight from London to New York:
Boeing 777: Departure 8:25, arrival 11:16 (from some google search)
"BA operated Concorde on flights BA 001 and BA 002 to/from JFK, departing LHR at 10:30 am, arriving at 9:30 am local time in New York"
With Concorde you arrived in New York before leaving London.
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Boom? (Score:2)
Is this really the best name for an aircraft company?
Just saying.
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I doubt it will be economical (Score:4, Informative)
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If these planes hold 100 passengers and make two full trips a day that will be 64,000 passengers in 320 days of service. If they spend $1,000,000,000 to develop the planes and 10 planes go into service, that is $100,000,000 in development costs per plane. Divide the development cost by the total passengers over 5 years, add in the extra engine maintenance cost and fuel cost and I think the necessary ticket prices will be sky high. I'd love to fly from the NY to Auckland in 6 1/2 hours but I don't see how they would be able to sell me a ticket for under $10,000 one way.
One of the things that killed economics of scale for the Anglo-French Concorde was NIMBY.
A lot of people still believe that supersonic aircraft over populated areas will cause smashed windows and any number of other things the supersonic military jets never have. A lot of this was created by Boeing when they lost the SST race and the FAA was happy to ban it, other authorities followed suit due to FAA pressure. So Concorde could only be used over water, meaning that it was limited to trans Atlantic routes
slim chance (Score:2)
I hear Kitty Hawk is a good place to test planes (Score:2)
Ultra fast? (Score:2)
I wouldn't call it "ultra fast", at mach 1.7 it's still slower than the previous supersonic airliners - Concorde and the Tupolev 144 both cruised at just over mach 2.
It's a pity development stopped shortly after these two planes were built, as otherwise we'd have over 40 years of incremental improvements.