
Boom has orders for 76 of its future supersonic passenger jets - apsec112
https://techcrunch.com/2017/06/20/boom-has-orders-for-76-of-its-future-supersonic-passenger-jets/
======
Gustomaximus
I love that a small company is and can challenge the big guys faster flight.

For risks, aside from generally achieving the promised goals is there a big
risk Boeing or Airbus copy this and have better sale channels to take over
this as soon as the concept is proven. Boom development seems to have happened
really quickly. I imagine the resources of the bigger companies can throw with
their fiance and general engineer/production systems at this quickly if boom
proves the concept.

~~~
SOLAR_FIELDS
For the end consumer in this realm there is only victory, regardless of what
happens to Boom. If 4 hour transatlantic flights become a viable option again
I frankly don’t care who succeeded or failed to get to that point.

I do enjoy watching companies like Boom, because this is the kind of underdog
chutzpah that the word “courage” is supposed to describe.

~~~
rtpg
4 hours combined with airport waits ends up becoming something like 6 hours
right?

Is there a big difference in practicality between 6 hours and 10 hours? Feels
like you still lose the day to travel for the most part.

~~~
Moto7451
If you have your routine down, fly during the work week (most business
travel), and have precheck you can pretty reliably have your wait down to 45
minutes. I fly a lot and usually breeze through the airport.

~~~
rtpg
Is that possible for international flights? My impression is that you're kinda
forced to get there super early. But maybe I'm doing this wrong.

I'm also used to doing international flights from cities where the airport is
super far away. For example Charles De Gaulle is still a 45 minute train ride
away from a lot of useful stuff. DFW's a bit out there too.

The dream is obstensibly Shinkansen-style "get there in the morning, leave in
the evening and be back before bedtime" flows. Is that doable with smaller
international flights already?

~~~
psergeant
Depends on the airport. 100% possible at LCY, which is also only 20m from
Canary Wharf.

~~~
SOLAR_FIELDS
It really does. I can reasonably go to Houston Hobby or Austin Bergstrom and
with Precheck expect to be at the gate within 15 minutes of when I walked in
the door (assuming no checked baggage). DFW or O'Hare or George Bush is an
entirely different ballgame.

------
tehabe
There were over 100 orders for the Concorde in the 1960s and when the first
prototype was flying this already went down to 74, but most of them were
canceled, so only 14 commercial planes were ever build. I would be sceptical
about this project.

~~~
k__
I once read they had serious overheating problems.

~~~
madaxe_again
They had serious problems, period.

As you say, one major problem was that the aircraft skin got really hot from
friction - hot enough that they had to build it out of a special titanium
alloy, and paint it with heat resistant paint - but that was inadequate. Due
to the heating and cooling that occurred each cycle the entire airframe would
expand and contract very substantially - over repeat cycles this lead to metal
fatigue, and would lead to failure but not for incessant expensive
maintenance. For an idea of how much the thing expands, on the final flight of
the model now at RNAS Yeovilton, the flight engineer stuck his cap between the
engineering console and the bulkhead, where it remains sandwiched by pressure
today.

Apart from the thermal issues, the entire craft suffered from “so cutting edge
it barely works” all over, from special tyre compounds to window seals to the
famous drop nose. It was an engineering marvel and nightmare, in one
improbable package. It’s frankly surprising it even ever existed.

I think the major difference will be that Concorde was a space age plane built
with 60’s tech, and these will Be space age planes built with space age tech.

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
> space age plane built with 60’s tech

Wasn't the 60's the space age, though? :)

~~~
k__
Was it?

I have the feeling much of the tech of the last century was too much for the
people living at the time.

Yes, they found out about fusion and fission, but there are no viable fusion
reactors out there and even the fission ones are highly problematic.

Yes, they build super sonic planes but they barely held together or did cost a
fortune.

Yes, the send people to space, but how many and at what price?

We even had super computers and main frames, but it took half a century to get
this tech in every home AND then some time to get it in everyones pocket.

Last century was more of a industrial mass market thing. The stuff from the
1800 was finally available for the rest of us.

The whole high tech stuff was discovered at the time but it wasn't really
usable, even if it was still used, see concord or fission based power plants.

On the other hand, the risk we took for the power plants was probably set off
by getting electricity to everyone and allowing the industrial age tech to
work more wide spread.

Anyway, I think we are in more of a space age now than we were back in the
days.

~~~
oblio
Now just wait for 2 billion+ people to actually get working on our future
problems. Say what you will about China and India industrializing, but if we
manage to transition fast enough to renewables, having so many middle class
people will have a huge impact on the world history, more than anyone is
expecting right now, I think.

------
paulsutter
> these reservations include non-refundable down payments

Interesting that they forgot to say how large is the down payment

~~~
algorias
In absence of a specific number the only sane thing to assume is that it's way
closer to $1 than to the cost of the plane. Such an easy and obvious marketing
tactic.

~~~
pc86
Probably closer to $1 million than the cost of the plane as well, though. I
can't imagine Delta putting down 10x $500 deposits or something.

~~~
tim333
There could also be terms and conditions that they only are committed if Boom
deliver by so so and so date for so and so price.

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gumby
I am typically quite skeptical about these kinds of products, but the phrase
"non-refundable deposit" made me read on. I hope they pull it off!

------
sharpercoder
I wonder about noise concerns. The concorde only reached supersonic flight on
the ocean, not on land because of the sonic boom.

~~~
doh
In USA, all supersonic flight over land by civil aircraft has been prohibited
by regulation introduced in March 1973. [0] Without changes in the
legislation, airlines can only offer supersonic flights over the ocean.

[0]
[https://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/ap...](https://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/apl/noise_emissions/supersonic_aircraft_noise/media/noise_policy_on_supersonics.pdf)

~~~
SOLAR_FIELDS
Not necessarily a dealbreaker. Concorde did ok with British airways flying out
of NY. Assuming the rules don’t change there are plenty of viable routes out
of Houston, NY, and SFO.

~~~
namelost
Concorde was a British-French aircaft, so it was allowed to fly over the UK.
If it had been American, it would have been banned instantly. It was
horrifically noisy.

~~~
knz
> It was horrifically noisy.

I saw it land/take off a handful of times as a kid. The noise was unlike
anything else I've ever experienced - you could hear it many kilometers away
and up close (on the airport boundary) you'd feel every internal cavity
vibrating when it departed. As a child it was marvellous!

------
theyregreat
Aerion, Boom, Gulfstream, HyperMach and more. It seems crowded for such a
niche product with a lengthy, costly and uncertain development cycle.

------
godelski
What I'm really curious about is how they're going to deal with radiation. At
the required altitude your pilots and attendants can't do a normal routine.
You'd get too high of a dosage, unless things are shielded. But that is
heavier.

~~~
valuearb
Extra radiation exposure is minor at those altitudes.

~~~
godelski
For passengers, yes. Workers, no.

The Concord had 12-15uSv/hr [1] (2-3x a long haul flight). The lower bound and
best case, workers are fine. Upper bound and European (which are stricter than
American, but we're talking international flights) standards are 1mSv (whole
body) or 50mSv (effective to skin) [2]. So we're between 4166hrs/yr and
66.6hrs/yr working that would be allowed.

Because it is international they'd probably go with the lowest common
denominator, at 1mSv/yr dosage allowed (50mSv/yr for American radiation
workers, 150 for Astronauts). And we're just talking flight, not adding the
nominal background radiation, which is going to reduce the number of hours
even more.

So in short, no, the extra radiation exposure at those altitudes is not minor.
It has to be considered if you are going to hire people to fly your plane and
attend to your passengers. Airlines already consider radiation exposure. No
one wants to do massive medical payouts 30 years from now.

[1] [http://aviationknowledge.wikidot.com/aviation:in-flight-
heal...](http://aviationknowledge.wikidot.com/aviation:in-flight-health-cabin-
radiation)

[2]
[http://www.radioactivity.eu.com/site/pages/Doses_Limits.htm](http://www.radioactivity.eu.com/site/pages/Doses_Limits.htm)

Addendum: 1Sv in a year is a 5.5% increase of cancer over your entire
lifetime. 1Sv in an hour will probably kill you.

~~~
johnm1019
The dose limits for radiation workers (which includes airline flight crews) is
20 mSv/yr. This is supported by the ICRP [1] and the EU [3].

British Airways carried out and published data from radiation monitoring of
Concorde crews: "Supersonic transport (SST) flights The Concorde SST... was
designed to fly at the... operating altitude of around 18 km (about 59 000
ft). Concern for potential hazards... led to monitoring equipment... being
installed in all Concorde aircraft. Many data have been derived from this,
including more than 20 years experience of the radiological environment.
...these flights indicate that the radiation exposure of Concorde flying crew
is unlikely to exceed 6 mSv/y." [2]

I will also suggest the interested reader look into "radiation hormesis" and
what data really exists to support the linear-no-threshold (LNT) model, or the
idea that any amount of radiation raises risk, below certain dose rates.
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2889502/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2889502/)

[1]
[http://www.icrp.org/icrpaedia/limits.asp](http://www.icrp.org/icrpaedia/limits.asp)
[2]
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1128520/pdf/oen...](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1128520/pdf/oenvmed00079-0063.pdf)
[3] [http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-
content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=OJ:L:...](http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-
content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=OJ:L:2014:013:FULL&from=EN)

~~~
godelski
Thanks for that. I didn't see that paper when I was quick googling for Concord
levels. That's not bad, 7.8hrs/day is the max (given the 7uSv/hr dosage they
are estimating). So no flight crew is going to undergo that.

Though it still begs the question, is Boom going to get that. As I understand
it, Concord had nickel-aluminum throughout its body, which has better
shielding properties than CF. They are also introducing more flights.
Transpolar flights means more dosages.

But given that paper I'm less concerned with the radiation dosages now. I'll
still be interested to see what the data says when they start gathering it.
We've also learned a lot more about radiation exposure, especially in flight
since '96 [1][2]. And note that these values vary quite a lot.

The real interest here will be in solar storms. I also wouldn't be surprised
if NASA straps detectors to those planes, if Boom becomes commercial. I'd be
very interested to see that.

[1] [https://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/AGU-
NAIRAS.html](https://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/AGU-NAIRAS.html)

[2] [https://www.nasa.gov/topics/aeronautics/features/airline-
rad...](https://www.nasa.gov/topics/aeronautics/features/airline-
radiation.html)

------
dingo_bat
I'm highly skeptical considering Boeing and Airbus haven't been able to make a
supersonic plane. This is not software where a couple of smart guys can code
something decent up over a pizza-fueled weekend.

~~~
simonh
Some skepticism is justified, sure, but at this point making supersonic
aircraft isnt rocket science any more. It’s a well understood problem domain
and they are using well proven engines.

Even if it were rocket science Boeing has been making rockets a lot longer
than SpaceX, who are still handed my them their ass.

------
olympus
I wish Boom the best of luck in getting a working product, but they need to
fix their marketing. There is absolutely no way that plane tickets will cost
75% less than Concorde tickets, unless something drastic changes from the norm
of air travel- either severe baggage restrictions, extremely cramped seating,
or different fuel.

Even with all the greatest computer model, one thing remains the same: it
takes a massive amount of thrust to maintain supersonic flight. EVERY airplane
that is/was capable of supersonic cruise (SR-71, XB-70, F-22, Concorde)
have/had comically oversized engines compared to what design rules of thumb
would suggest. New technologies enable slightly more efficient airframes and
slightly more efficient engines, we are talking about a few percent overall.
So, I can see tickets being 20% less than they were in the Concorde's day.

Part of the reason I think they have mis-calculated a number is that they
might be calculating a flight cost that includes fuel only and doesn't include
other things an airline has to price into a ticket- namely insurance and
maintenance. Insurance for the first supersonic passenger plane since the
Concorde is guaranteed to be higher than a 767. Maintenance is going to be
crazy as well- flying at Mach 2.2 places different stresses on an airplane,
and they break a lot. All of the current supercruising airplanes are/were
maintenance nightmares. Don't think that technology can "magic away" all the
maintenance issues that come up with sustained stress on your engines, skin
friction, and cooling issues.

Unless something else changes, there is no way you'll be able to buy a NY to
London plane ticket for 75% less than a Concorde. How might they get there?
Packing people in like sardines, or replacing normal baggage space with extra
seats, would both get more paying seats on board, but would be a big setback
from what business class passengers expect. Or maybe there is some magic fuel
out there that is lighter than Jet-A/B and delivers more thrust and is safe
enough for use in a passenger jet. The existence of magic fuel is unlikely, so
be prepared for one of two things- 1. your tickets cost more than expected, or
2. you are packed in like a sardine.

Again, I'm glad that _someone_ is trying to make a supersonic passenger jet,
but hyperbolic marketing ultimately hurts you in the long run when it becomes
obvious that you can't live up to expectations.

~~~
nether
This is the standard "engineers other than software are idiots" type HN FUD.
For the record, Boom is staffed by aerospace veterans from the likes of Scaled
Composites, P&W, Adam Aircraft, SpaceX and Boeing.
[https://boomsupersonic.com/about/](https://boomsupersonic.com/about/) They
might know thing or two about cost analysis.

~~~
notatoad
In fairness, HN usually assumes software engineers are idiots too. The general
sentiment is more "engineers other than me are idiots".

~~~
ddalex
Not here. My sentiment is 'I have no idea what I am doing'

------
sfredd1
And no mention of how bad this will be for the environment?

~~~
King-Aaron
I'm not sure if a business-focused article discussing an order of the aircraft
really _needs to_ make mention of it?

~~~
cardamomo
Simplistic counter-argument: At this point, any article _needs to_ mention the
environment if we're going to cut back on carbon pollution as much as we need
to.

~~~
valuearb
Nope. You can increase carbon pollution in one area while still reducing total
net carbon emissions.

~~~
sfredd1
You can also give food to every hungry child on earth.

------
rdl
If they can make these planes, I don't think selling them will be the problem.

------
goeric
So excited about this but I do think they may want to re-think their name,
especially given Concorde's end.

------
visarga
So, has anyone wondered what happens when a Boom plane goes "boom!" ?

How could they call a plane something that means "explosion"?

~~~
mysterydip
My assumption is the “boom” refers to the sonic boom encountered when
transitioning to supersonic speeds.

~~~
repsilat
Not when transitioning -- sonic booms ("a sonic boom"?) are/is emitted
continually at supersonic speeds.

~~~
hwillis
This is true, but there's also a significant shock when crossing the sound
barrier as the shockwave front draws up against the body of the plane. That
was one of the biggest factors in why it took so long to break the sound
barrier- you've gotta blast right through it. Around the sound barrier the
rapidly changing air pressure pulls on the plane in weird ways, for instance
literally twisting the wings off spitfires. They couldn't predict most of
those problems ahead of time.

------
mmel
Whoever chose that name for the company really didn't think things through.

~~~
greglindahl
How did you figure that out? Looks like getting permission to make quiet sonic
booms over land is a key part of their business model:

> Boom's airliner is designed to maximize efficiency while producing a “boom”
> at least 30 times quieter than Concorde's.

Did you also predict the failure of the iPad in the marketplace, due to its
unfortunate name?

~~~
beisner
I think he was referring to the fact that the name might make people think the
planes explode.

~~~
greglindahl
I got that. Some people thought that iPad would fail because it sounded like a
feminine sanitary product.

------
rwmj
Why are they designing a plane with pilots? Why not automate that, perhaps
with a remote option where a pilot sitting on the ground can take over in
emergency/unusual situations?

~~~
provost
Because we simply can't trust computers & systems engineering 100%. Go read
about Flight QF72:

[http://www.theherald.com.au/story/4659526/the-untold-
story-o...](http://www.theherald.com.au/story/4659526/the-untold-story-of-
qf72-what-happens-when-psycho-automation-leaves-pilots-powerless/)

~~~
rwmj
You've mentioned one story, but how about the countless cases where the pilots
are the problem?

~~~
javindo
As with any automated transport discussion, there's the question of liability.
If a pilot is at fault, there's an obvious liability on them. People have an
intrinsic trust of a human pilot to sort out an issue if it arises, versus
relying on a computer which is a complete black box to the passengers. If a
pilot is at fault, it's a forgivable thing - in the worst cases the families
have some closure, some level of "the pilot messed up, such is life". If a
machine or system is at fault, who's to blame? The engineer? The programmer?
The maintenance worker? The airline for procuring a cheap contract?

