American Airlines Agrees To Buy 20 Supersonic Planes from Boom (cnbc.com) 116
American Airlines has agreed to purchase 20 supersonic Overture planes from Boom Supersonic, the companies announced Tuesday. From a report: The deal is the second firm order in the last two years for Boom, still years from building its first commercial airplane. United Airlines made a commitment last year to buy 15 Overture jets. "Passengers want flights that are faster, more convenient, more sustainable and that's what Overture delivers," Boom CEO Blake Scholl told CNBC. "Flight times can be as little as half as what we have today, and that works great in networks like American where we can fly Miami to London in less than five hours." Boom says the Overture jet will fly as fast as Mach 1.7, or 1,304 mph, dramatically cutting trans-Atlantic and trans-Pacific flight times. For example, a flight from Seattle to Tokyo, which typically takes just over 10 hours, could be completed in six hours in an Overture, according to Boom.
Supersonic over land? (Score:2)
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eg. Miami to London?
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Maybe Seattle to Tokyo...?
No, Over Canada (Score:3)
Basically every transatlantic or transpacific US originating route is mostly over water
Only if you are flying from the east coast. For every major city in the west (LA, San Francisco, Seattle, Denver, Chicago etc.) a half or more of your flight to Europe is over Canada because Canada is really big [youtube.com].
Also, given that the travel time saved is just a few hours vs regular planes the extra time it would take to fly to a coastal city and change planes will make that no faster than a direct flight. So unless this plane can fly supersonic over land it's unlikely to be much more successful than Conc
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Only if you are flying from the east coast.
I guess I should have been more clear - I mean western US cities heading to Asia, and eastern US cities heading to Europe.
Also, not for nothing - Seattle to London is mostly over nearly completely unpopulated land [airportdis...ulator.com] (Greenland, Nunavut) and a bunch of water - so I suppose it's possible Canada and Denmark would allow Supersonic over their land, but I am just a guy looking at maps.
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Seattle to London is mostly over nearly completely unpopulated land
I actually live pretty close to that flight route in a city of about 1 million people. I don't see a request from the US to fly that route supersonically being well received at least for the initial 2-3 hours of flight. This can be an issue for supersonic craft because often they are not very efficient at subsonic flight. However, I know NASA at one point was looking at supersonic flight with a greatly suppressed shockwave so if that research went anywhere it might be possible in the future.
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Re:Supersonic over land? (Score:5, Interesting)
Given that two of the routes mentioned were "Seattle to Tokyo" and "Miami to London," I would hazard a guess that they'll still be restricted to sub-sonic flight over land and supersonic over the ocean.
Re:Supersonic over land? (Score:5, Informative)
They say '2x speed over water, 1.2x over land', so yeah, subsonic over land.
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Re: Supersonic over land? (Score:2)
Just fly over Canada and then down the Pacific coast. They're wildlings, they don't care.
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Not that I'm really complaining, but 2x speed is only about Mach 1.5-1.8. Interesting that they are aiming lower than Concorde, and lower than the fastest ever passenger airliner the Tu-144.
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Under Mach 1.8 seems to be a sweet spot right now in terms of engines and materials. Concorde and the Tu-144 were much more expensive and noisier in order to get above the magic Mach 2.0 line.
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Regular airliners don't fly at the speed of sound. A normal cruising speed is around Mach 0.75 - multiply that by 1.2 and you're still comfortably subsonic.
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1.2x is subsonic? It seems like less than 1.0 would be subsonic.
It depends on the altitude. "Speed of sound" is defined at sea level.
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It depends on the altitude.
It depends on temperature, and altitude is a pretty good predictor of temperature.
"Speed of sound" is defined at sea level.
Although aircraft machmeters attempt to show speed relative to the actual speed of sound in their current environment.
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No, in aviation, speed of sound is whatever the speed of sound is in the aircraft's environment, and Mach number is calculated based on that 'local' speed of sound.
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Sorry, the figure was 'how much faster than a typical current flight speed'.
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The regulations have not changed.
https://www.faa.gov/newsroom/s... [faa.gov]
"Currently, U.S. law prohibits flight in excess of Mach 1 over land unless specifically authorized by the FAA for purposes stated in the regulations."
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Will this be just like it was when the SST's were brought into service (America) in the 70's where they are only allowed to travel at supersonic speed over water? I think the reason was, due to the BOOM from being above Mach. If they are only allowed that speed over water, it kind of cuts down where they can fly to.
Yet military planes get to break the sound barrier wherever they like.
That rule was introduced by the US because Boeing lost the SST race in the 70s... Expressly to make them unappealing to airlines.
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In the time since the 70s there have been a number of advances in the understanding of supersonic aircraft design and our ability to model supersonic effects with CFD. Because the limitations on SST flights over land due to sonic boom issues (which played a major role in the decision to cancel the Boeing SST development project), a particular focus has been on developing designs to minimize shock effects at supersonic speeds. There are now a couple SST startups who are pushing forward on new aircraft design
its really about time...minus the subsonic part (Score:1)
"Boom"??? (Score:5, Funny)
What marketing genius thought naming an airplane manufacturer "Boom" was a good idea?
What do they think will happen when one crashes?
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Re:"Boom"??? (Score:4, Funny)
No, it's a good idea. If something happens people won't be sure if they're saying it crashed or whether they're saying the name of the company.
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Reporter: Well, Pat, the Boom jet went boom, right after it was supposed to go boom.
Anchor: So, everything went as expected?
Reporter: No, Pat, the plane was simply supposed to go boom, not BOOM.
Anchor: (sigh) Who's on first?
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Boeing, Boom, Tschak
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Graf Twerk - Boeing, Boom, Chuck?
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They make Sonic Boom planes, so the name seems perfectly fine.
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If you can still hear these planes' reduced sonic booms (which you can), then "Boom" in the name is still probably a bad idea. "That's just another "boom" flight. Don't worry - you sorta get used to it."
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welcome to boom airlines today marks 100 days from our last boom
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What marketing genius thought naming an airplane manufacturer "Boom" was a good idea?
"Fiery Crater" was already taken.
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"Fiery Crater" was already taken.
Next generation of 737s?
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That depends; if it crashes into water, there will be a huge splash; if it crashes on land, there will be an earth-shattering KA-BOOM!
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What geek would turn down the opportunity to go Boom?
65-80 passengers? (Score:2)
There is 0 chance that anyone but the super rich will ever fly in these.
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I guess it depends on what you mean by "super rich." They are hoping to get some of the market currently taken up by business/first class commercial customers. They aren't targeting the private jet set, who wouldn't see much time savings going supersonic because they already skip the airport rigamaroll from flying private. Since the flight will be much shorter, you can increase density over a regular business class seat and possibly fly the route twice a day instead of once. That could make the economics no
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The Concorde was the same way towards the end of it’s life as tickets were like $13,000 each.
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And the Concordes weren't luxuriously comfortable. The planes were narrow and tight tubes with relatively cramped seating.
Any new supersonic planes better have the luxury/comfort part of them worked out this time or they're DOA.
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I think the time savings part could make up for some of the lack of luxury. It's not like first class for 7 hours on a JFK-LHR conventional flight is so much more awesome that a lot of people wouldn't trade it for something like a semi-luxe "comfort" coach seating at the same price if it cut the flight time to under 3 hours.
The suck/luxury angle is highly time dependent. A generic coach center aisle seat would probably be tolerable for people who would normally fly first class if it meant you only had to
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if it meant you only had to be in it for an hour compared to 6-8 hours of conventional flight time
More like have to be in it for 3 to 4 hours instead (at around Mach 2).
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Yeah, my point was that even severely reduced luxury is tolerable for the rich if there's some sense of an exceptional payback. Obviously an hour flight that takes a conventional flight 6 hours isn't particularly realistic at this point.
Which is probably a constraining element of supersonic passenger flights -- I'd guess the designs could possibly shave off another 15 minutes of flight time at a higher speed if they could really squeeze the passengers a lot. But 15 minutes less flight time on a 3.5 hour f
The Concorde sucked (Score:5, Interesting)
I was 15 or so when I flew on the Concorde. So, I have no idea about price accept the understand that it was expensive.
You actually don't have any notion of the speed, other than a longer acceleration profile. What you do notice for the entire flight however was the noise. It was ridiculously loud.
Doing combat landings and takeoffs in a C130 was more quite than flying in the Concorde.
Being only 15, I was not able to appreciate the time savings.
If I am flying business class, I also cannot really see the need to spend 10k extra to save a few hours off my trip. For that 10K, I would rather upgrade to ultra 1st class on EA or something like that and get a suite.
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When you factor in the time to get to/from the airport and the time to get through security and immigration, I think the business case for it was always quite limited.
We have video chat too now. Much better quality voice calls and conference microphones.
But then again corporations waste money on all kinds of prestige stuff.
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Concordes hay day was in the 1980s and 1990s, and mainly on the big routes - London Heathrow to New York.
Security and immigration was much quicker in those days, as was travel to Heathrow from central London, so it made perfect sense. It wasn't until after 9/11 that those things really became onerous.
What most people don't realise is that Concorde was British Airways biggest profit centre during the late 1980s and 1990s - people did buy the tickets to fly on it, so there was obviously value to being able t
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When you factor in the time to get to/from the airport and the time to get through security and immigration, I think the business case for it was always quite limited.
Dearest Americans, I mean this in the nicest possible way but please, send some of your airport execs to Europe to learn how it's done. You'll introduce them to concepts such as keeping queues moving, less security theatre, international passenger transit, customer service and efficiency.
Or hire the kind of people who run Heathrow or Schiphol (or Singapore Changi).
Granted this was in the before times, but as soon as the current staffing crisis is resolved (which is really just about pay and procedure
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I wouldn't recommend copying Heathrow, especially Terminal 5.
Japanese airports are very efficient and quite pleasant places to be.
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Well, there's _at least_ a chance, according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] NYC-London would be $5k roundtrip, vs $20k in current dollars for the Concorde.
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There is 0 chance that anyone but the super rich will ever fly in these.
There's zero chance this aircraft is ever built at all. The engines for it doesn't exist yet. Rolls Royce has a development deal, but the company has specified non-afterburning, low-bypass turbofans. There are no dry engines that can maintain level supersonic flight for anything but very short bursts. So, the unobtainium of engines, then. Until all the actual components for this aircraft have actually been created, it'll remain a wooden model at VC pitches.
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There are no dry engines that can maintain level supersonic flight for anything but very short bursts. So, the unobtainium of engines, then.
Uh, the original Olympus engines for Concorde could both achieve supersonic flight and maintain it without re-heat.
Concorde just used re-heat to accelerate to supersonic speeds because it was more fuel efficient - they spent less time in the trans-sonic region, which is the most draggy. Once at cruise speed, they shut off re-heat and the engines maintained cruise speed dry.
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What rock have you been hiding under? Pretty much all high-performance combat aircraft and strategic bombers since the English Electric Lightning (1960) as well as the Concorde have been capable of supercruise (sustained supersonic flight without reheat/afterburner). The Concorde engines were made by Rolls Royce themselves, based on the engines used in the Avro Vulcan strategic bomber, so they have direct experience designing engines for supercruise-capable aircraft. For that matter, the English Electric
0 chance anyone but the super rich will fly (Score:3)
Supersonic flight isn't necessary like it once was (Score:2)
What's the extra hurry today when you have practically instantaneous access to just about everyone on the planet via modern communications?
And do you pay $1000-$1500 from LA to New York for a 5-6 hour, first class, non-stop flight (+2 hour ground queue at the airport - luggage, loading, security, plane taxiing, etc.), or do you pay $5000+ for a presumably comparable, first class, 3 hour supersonic flight (and the same +2 hour ground queue)?
When the airline industry makes an exponential jump in tech - like a
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Re: Supersonic flight isn't necessary like it once (Score:2)
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I'd consider a 5-6 hour flight as very short.
My usual flight itinerary is 13 hours minimum if all goes well.
Reducing that to half is a big improvement. (But I'm not sure I'd fork out the cash more than once)
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You're missing the point of these planes. They're not for the average flyer, they're a means of travel for the affluent and maybe for the occasional urgent business flight. Once one reaches a certain net worth the price difference doesnt really matter anymore, meanwhile they get off the plane in half the time which is always desirable.
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they're a means of travel for the affluent and maybe for the occasional urgent business flight.
That sorta depends.
If you're affluent, there are options, like "a first class ticket plus a posh hotel stay" or "a private jet that departs more-or-less on your schedule".
Concorde tickets were more expensive than the combination of a first class airline ticket, four star hotel stay, a limo ride between the two, and a bottle of champagne to drink on the way.
Concorde's in-flight experience was...coach. For everyone. Now, there are a handful of cases where yes, saving those four hours is worth both the cost an
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Eh, we clearly have different preferences here because your favored scenario here is not at all what I would choose between the two scenarios you lay out. I've flown trans-Atlantic first class before and I was still quite eager to get the hell off the plane and on with my vacation by the time I arrived. If I was made of money I would have been happy to pay to cut a few hours off the flight.
While I've never flown on a private jet I imagine it would be a pretty similiar experience aside from better privacy on
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Actually, with appropriate airline "status" and/or a "trusted traveler" membership, the time from airport entry to the gate (or, more likely, the lounge) takes way less than that. At my local (major) airport that normally means 15 minutes.
So, the airline industry def. figured out the answer to that - but it involves more $$$ (and extra steps, just to make sure only "special" people get to do that).
I do agree with the above, however. Many frequent flyers enjoy the business class experience (provided they fly
It was never necessary, just desirable. (Score:2)
Hopefully a way can be found to scale it into a competitor for subsonic first-class rather th
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Not to mention the existence of in-flight Wi-Fi. You don't need to worry about missing a full day's worth of work and can work on the plane (if you want). it's not as big of a deal these days for a workaholic to spend a few extra hours on a subsonic flight than it was 20+ years ago since they're being productive.
In and out quick (Score:3)
Since United and American Airlines are among the worst airlines in the world and known for mistreating their customers, adding supersonic planes to their fleet is a great idea, because that way we can get in and out of the plane as quickly as possible and minimize the mistreatment from the staff as much as possible.
Totally irresponsible (Score:2)
Have you heard about the impact of air travel on global warming ?
Any reasonable human would try to REDUCE FLIGHT right now.
Airlines, thank you for making my grandchildren's life (literally) hell.
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Damned right! Sail instead. I'm flying a crew in right now to make a transatlantic crossing to a climate conference.
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Face to face, hand to hand is often required in business and politics. Frequently for both classes, a large group of people accompanies the leader. Also a cultural experience that is dramatically different from your own for a vacation requires actually being in the culture. None of this can be done very well electronically.
So, since these will primarily be used in transoceanic flight paths what do you suggest? Should everyone go back to passenger ships or stow away on the nearest cargo ship for the sake fo
Yippee (Score:2, Funny)
Now future pandemics can spread super fast.
Hopeful sign. (Score:5, Interesting)
Dirigiste? (Score:2)
It reeks of encroaching Dark Ages to go slower than in the past, so returning a supersonic commercial option would be a good thing. Hopefully this time they'll do it right and have a pathway to evolve the costs and noise factors downward. If they can avoid the rigidity and dirigiste politics of Concorde from the beginning, maybe it can scale beyond its records.
Dirigiste? Looks like somebody is making good use of that "Word a Day" calendar they got last Christmas.
Seriously, I've never heard or seen that word before so I had to look it up. Props to you for teaching me a new word.
It's been useful in a few recent topics. (Score:2)
What happens is that a government can force technological developments as part of a "dirigiste" economic strategy, but they may unwisely over-determine aspects of the design to benefit jobs. This eventually makes the whole investment go kaput if it can't be made more flexible and evolutionary to reduce cost and increase
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I'd like to either go faster, or go more comfortably.
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Aviation is now so rigid, so politically connected, and so degeneratively over-optimized that the only way they can squeeze more money out of it is by cramming more people into a given plane. Meanwhile the makers of the aircraft are so creatively bankrupt the only way they can stay profitable is to invest nothing in R&D, and skimp on safety testing even for the meager advan
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It reeks of encroaching Dark Ages to go slower than in the past, so returning a supersonic commercial option would be a good thing. Hopefully this time they'll do it right and have a pathway to evolve the costs and noise factors downward. If they can avoid the rigidity and dirigiste politics of Concorde from the beginning, maybe it can scale beyond its records.
Not really. Faster is not necessarily more advanced.
I'm not holding out for SST's not because they aren't technically possible, but really they aren't feasible. If you wanted to fly a Concorde from London to Sydney it would be 10 hours flying time... but 14 hours actual time because the range of the Concorde wasn't that great. It could just about do London to NYC, but couldn't go much further. A Concorde had a range of 7200 KM (4400 miles), this means you cant even do a cross pacific journey (Australia
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Ask a typical airline passenger if they would like the option to go faster and the answer will probably be Yes. A few of them had that option in the past, and now nobody does. That's backwards by any meaningful definition. Even if Concorde were still flying, it would represent a failure to advance due to the lack of scaling.
Concorde was developed before almost any presen
Correction... (Score:2)
Re: Hopeful sign. (Score:2)
And it wasn't American, because America tried and failed to build a competitor. (2707)
And that was back when Boeing could do engineering.
More luxurious jets (Score:2, Insightful)
The Bristol Brabazon (Score:2)
The much-derided Bristol Brabazon piston-engine prop plane was that thing, a craft the size of an A380 that carried 80 passengers comfortably.
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Why the obsession with speed? New York to London already has a 5 hour time difference on a 7-8 hour flight (leave at 22:00, arrive at 10:00). I say it's the jet lag that sucks the most. Rather than cutting the journey time, why not make a regular trans Atlantic flight more luxurious & relaxing, with decent food, comfortable beds, privacy, & soundproofing, you know, better than business class? Wake up at your destination refreshed instead. They could really lay on the quality & it'd still be cheaper & more comfortable than supersonic jets.
Maybe someone already offers this but it doesn't make the headlines as much. Maybe add some techy gimmicks to get some press coverage?
Jet lag is easy to beat.
I regularly do long distance flights, London to South America or Australia. Australia to the US. If you want to avoid jet lag there is a simple method. Arrive at a local bed time, ready to go to sleep. This often means staying up during the flight but I'm convinced you're never actually getting any quality sleep on a plane and low quality sleep doesn't help.
The ideal time (IMHO) is late afternoon or early evening. Along the lines of 3-4 PM or 6-9 PM in your destination time zon
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Delivers? (Score:2)
How does a company years away from making its first commercial plane claim to deliver anything? Maybe their tests are going well, but thatâ(TM)s still just a prototype.
They haven't even built one yet (Score:2)
So let's circle around in 2025+ when they actually build one. They don't even have a prototype flying from what I can find. (https://simpleflying.com/boom-supersonic-xb-1-flight-testing/ -- even a scale model isn't in the air yet).
I like new shiny stuff and advancements but I'm not betting that we'll ever see one of these fly.
Starship (Score:2)
Starship point-to-point is 45 minutes max to any point on earth at $4,000 per ticket.
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Despite what Musk says, Starship is never ever going to do point to point passenger service - any landing or launch site in any major developed country is going to be so far removed from anywhere useful that its going to require you to travel 5 or 6 hours to get to somewhere actually desirable. So perhaps California to Australia might be an option, but not New York to Tokyo. Any conceivable landing site for London would, for example, either be in the middle of the North Sea or Scotland.
Point to point with
Great! I'll take Amtrak to Florida and then BOOM (Score:2)
Great! I'll take Amtrak to Florida and then BOOM to Europe.
"Agrees to buy" not a strong statement (Score:2)
Yeah, But ... (Score:2)
Boom says the Overture jet will fly as fast as Mach 1.7, or 1,304 mph, dramatically cutting trans-Atlantic and trans-Pacific flight times.
Mach 1.7 is only 1,300Mph at Sea Level, so I would highly advise taking one of these "flights".
Assuming it's actually flying between 40,000ft - 60,000ft, it's more like 1,120MPH. Still fast, but, you know, 180 MPH less fast.
Will Musk get there first? (Score:2)
I have to wonder if city to city Starship flights will be a thing before Boom really starts delivering planes... Starship would be even faster and might even make many international flights obsolete.
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Airlines treat us like cattle because that's what we demanded. Too many people fly lowest-cost-at-any-cost, so the airlines have to keep cutting services in order to undercut the competition. Besides, all we did was bitch about how horrible airplane food was, so they solved that problem by skipping it altogether.
Now it's pretty much permanent, because no airline can survive whose "economy" class is 50% more expensive than the others', but with way better comfort and service. Instead, you pay about double fo
Re: And... (Score:2)
Nope. Nobody demanded to be treated this way. The airlines found that they could get away with it You may as well say that supermarkets demanded to have shoplifters.