
Boom Supersonic hopes to test-fly its supersonic plane in 2021 - tim333
https://www.engadget.com/boom-supersonic-xb-1-2021-130025910.html
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kilroy123
This is one of my favorite YC companies and I'm really rooting for them. The
aviation industry really needs a shakeup and more competition. Boeing has
really lost their way.

~~~
mobilefriendly
I agree but why supersonic passenger jet (a product category with a high
profile failure) versus starting with a next-gen regional jet? Or a luxury
private jet?

~~~
lumost
Supersonic passenger jets are currently an untapped market with zero
competition. The traditional players have decided it's not a useful market to
chase. The technology of a supersonic is also sufficiently different from a
sub-sonic jet that it will be tough to chase them once they bring a product to
market.

Regional jets have been optimized over the better part of a century, are
heavily regulated and have heavy competition from incumbent players. Based on
the historic gains in commuter flight performance we're likely within 10-20%
of the optimum plane configuration for any given market. A new entrant would
take ~10 years to bring an aircraft to market, during which time an incumbent
could introduce a competing aircraft or simply leverage their existing product
lines and sales channels to compete with suboptimal aircraft.

~~~
toomuchtodo
Who is the market for supersonic travel not already served by military
aircraft that can go supersonic and space vehicles that go suborbital? I’m not
saying such a market doesn’t exist, but show me these folks with their wallet
open for this civil speed.

~~~
KoftaBob
Anyone who wants to travel to/from the US to Europe in 3.5 hours instead of
7-8 hours, and other similar length trips.

Similar to the history of regular air travel, it will be the wealthy that
indulge in the convenience of those time savings at first, and then as
economies of scale and efficiency improve, it can become the norm.

There's a reason why the term "jet-setters" came about in the 50s-60s to mean
wealthy people. Nowadays flying somewhere on a jet is accessible to anyone in
the lower middle class and up.

~~~
liability
I think supersonic flight will never become the norm. Boom Overture would, if
Boom succeeds, be more fuel efficient than the Concorde but definitely not
more fuel efficient than a modern subsonic airliner. And subsonic jets are
'fast enough' for most people who don't have cash burning a hole in their
pocket.

~~~
justaguy88
It really depends on the price, if it's 2 x subsonic-econ then I think they
have a real winner (I would personally pay that, its like doing premium
economy), but if its 5x or 10x maybe not

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dhosek
Nobody seems to be talking about the sonic boom issue. People often assume
that the sonic boom is a single event that happens when the plain exceeds the
speed of sound, but rather its a continuous event that happens at supersonic
speed which is why the Concord was used only for transatlantic service. A
supersonic plane would not be practical for any overland route.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonic_boom](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonic_boom)

~~~
liability
The premise of Boom Technologies is that the intensity of the sonic boom can
be managed by creating an aircraft with a sufficiently clever shape. I don't
know exactly how that's meant to work, but it's this premise that they hope to
demonstrate with the small-scale XB-1 in 2021.

~~~
andi999
Can one short sell a non listed startup?

~~~
liability
I don't think they're going to be a commercial success, but I don't really
have a reason to doubt the possibility of new supersonic aircraft being
quieter than older ones. Is there some particular reason to doubt this aspect
of Boom's proposal?

~~~
andi999
The supersonic boom basically comess from the medium and nobody has been able
to get rid of it. So the boom is not an engineering problem but a physics
problem. Startups can solve engineering problems but rarely invent new physics
(which might exist, mind you).

So this new product will be limited to the same routes as concorde (plus
pacific if they manage extra long haul).

~~~
liability
The supersonic boom comes from the interactions between the aircraft and the
medium, not from the medium itself. I think it stands to reason that the
properties of the boom can be manipulated by manipulating the properties of
the aircraft's shape. It's not even controversial that some aircraft design
elements can reduce the intensity of sonic booms, the only question is whether
Boom has enough know-how to achieve the house levels they promise.

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gxqoz
Have they actually solved the (non-noise) environmental concerns of SST? From
a NYT article a few years ago:

"According to a 1999 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change,
introducing 1,000 commercial SSTs more advanced than the Concorde could make
the climate impact of airlines balloon by 40 percent by midcentury. That’s on
top of the tripling of emissions already expected as more travelers take to
the sky."

[https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/11/opinion/reviving-
superson...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/11/opinion/reviving-supersonic-
jets-will-damage-the-climate.html)

~~~
apsec112
They'll make synthetic fuel by pulling CO2 back out of the air:

[https://www.globenewswire.com/news-
release/2019/06/18/187048...](https://www.globenewswire.com/news-
release/2019/06/18/1870486/0/en/Boom-Supersonic-Partners-with-Prometheus-
Fuels-to-Supply-Carbon-Neutral-Fuel-for-XB-1-its-Mach-2-2-Demonstrator-
Aircraft.html)

[https://carbonengineering.com/news-updates/aerion-
supersonic...](https://carbonengineering.com/news-updates/aerion-supersonic-
and-carbon-engineering/)

~~~
beering
You know what's better than being carbon neutral? Being carbon negative. I'd
rather Prometheus pull carbon out of the air to help cover existing fuel needs
than to just offset a huge increase in jet fuel usage.

I fail to see how building yet another luxury transport service will
meaningfully help the world compared to tackling some of the bigger problems
in energy and environment. Especially since there's no possibility that Boom
is more efficient than existing modes of travel.

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Wohlf
Would this even be carbon neutral? It will require a lot of power to process
carbon out of the air, and will go back in the air when they burn the fuel.
Not to mention the logistics and manufacturing of everything involved.

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rvz
Good. An actual company that is doing something worthy of actually "changing
things" which I can get behind.

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crispyambulance
Well, they're not changing much. It's a ~4 hour savings, max, on a
transatlantic flight.

Perhaps a passenger ICBM? That would really cut down "across-the-planet"
travel time down to a total of ~30 minutes. Why not? the Fantastic Four had
one in their Manhattan laboratory
([https://www.tumblr.com/search/passenger%20icbm#](https://www.tumblr.com/search/passenger%20icbm#)).

~~~
rbanffy
This is one of the ideas Elon Musk floated as a way to help finance
Starship+Superheavy - suborbital passenger flights.

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crispyambulance
Sounds like a good idea. Coffee service will be challenging however!

~~~
rbanffy
OTOH, vomit bags would be a lot more popular.

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kevinmchugh
Are there any other products named for their most famous externalities?

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the-dude
CockroachDB ?

You know what you are getting into : bugs.

~~~
Gravityloss
I always assumed it was a reference to the resiliency. That it should survive
the apocalypse...

~~~
the-dude
Resilient bugs are the worst. Or was that intermittent?

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heymijo
How do venture backed economics for a supersonic jet company work?

My understanding of watching VC over the past decade is that it's great for
hyper-scaling software companies, tenuous at best for hybrid tech/real world
companies, and ruinous for companies that don't enjoy the zero marginal cost
benefits of a software company at scale.

~~~
eganist
My assumption is that Boom's pitch relied on a relatively quick tech exit,
e.g. Boeing or Airbus picking them up once boom reaches a point where either
company can scale a proof of concept.

If the demonstrator proves itself next year, that's when to expect an exit. I
don't see Boom independently competing with either of the mainstream
manufacturers here; they're likely only a vehicle for proving that the concept
works, and then the whole package — patents, tooling, team, and all — is sold
to a firm that can scale it.

Would be interesting to see if any non-commercial firms e.g. Lockheed use Boom
as a way to make inroads into the commercial sector, though. My money is on a
buy-out in 2021-2022, and for bonus points, I'll include unexpected buyers who
want to make inroads in the commercial space, e.g. if Lockheed wants to add
commercial airliners to its portfolio and also see whether any of Boom's
supersonic tech makes sense in their non-commercial projects or if Rolls Royce
wants to transition away from being just an enginemaker (for Boom and others).

If Boeing buys Boom, it's a lost cause and the tech will likely just end up
being mothballed by bean counters for being too slow to scale.

~~~
lacker
Boom's pitch did not rely on a quick exit, it was much more along the lines of
"This will take a very long time to come to fruition. We're up-front about
that. But, it has the potential to be billions of dollars, if you can be
patient." VCs are often more interested in that than the quick flip....

~~~
usrusr
VC can also be interested in a company as a quick flip opportunity when the
pitch never mentions that possibility. Particularly early stage investors who
buy in low enough to still win if the eventual exit is considerably below a
meanwhile heavily inflated nominal valuation.

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whinvik
Supersonic flight is easy. Efficient supersonic flight is hard. Aerodynamics,
aerostructure, propulsion all of them are trying to break you. Controlling all
of them would definitely be an achievement.

~~~
api
As far as I know efficiency is what has kept civilian supersonic flight from
being a thing. Even military aircraft tend to only go supersonic when needed
because it guzzles fuel.

My biggest skepticism about Boom is that I don't see them even talking about
this issue much. If they can't get big efficiency improvements I see this
being a niche toy for the super rich rather than a mainstream transport
option.

I'm not an expert, but I wonder: can you get large efficiency improvements by
going to really extreme altitude where the air is thinner? Maybe that's the
long term plan. But as far as I know that may require a novel engine design or
the adaptation of military engines, and the latter is a minefield if
classification and ITAR regulations. Extreme altitude also means you're dead
if you get a major hull breach, but the increased risk there may be
statistically mitigated by decreased overall flight time... and it's still
going to be safer than driving a car.

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mpweiher
> Even military aircraft tend to only go supersonic when needed because it
> guzzles fuel.

Yep. In fact, this is one of many things that makes the Concorde so special:
being able to cruise for a long time at Mach 2+. Supercruise has only come to
fighter jets fairly recently, and there it is usually in the Mach 1.4-1.6
range. This means that if the Concorde has even a small head-start, it can
outrun most fighter jets that might want to intercept it. The SR-71 could keep
it company but is unarmed. Maybe the Mig-31, although its range also
diminishes rapidly with increased velocity.

> efficiency is what has kept civilian supersonic flight from being a thing

This was an issue, but less than you might suspect, for example it didn't
actually burn that much more than its contemporaries. The planned Concorde B
[1] was to have more efficient engines that would have allowed the same
performance without afterburners. Along with having larger fuel tanks, this
would have led to a dramatic increase in range and therefore in the possible
routes.

Alas, the US effectively killed Concorde before that could happen by not
allowing overflight, due to noise, particularly the sonic boom, and one
suspects also the fact the the US SSTs weren't making much progress. And of
course the oil price shock.

Concorde tickets were actually quite a bit cheaper than the public expected,
BA (and AF, presumably) later raised prices to match public perception, with a
nice boost to profitability.

> extreme altitude where the air is thinner

Jets in general (~35K feet) and Concorde in particular (~60K feet) already do
this. IIRC, jet engines are actually not very efficient, but they continue to
operate well at high altitudes where the air is so much thinner that the plane
becomes more efficient overall, whereas both piston engines and the propellers
they drive become significantly less efficient at altitude.

[1]
[https://www.heritageconcorde.com/concorde-b](https://www.heritageconcorde.com/concorde-b)

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rbanffy
> and one suspects also the fact the the US SSTs weren't making much progress.

I also can't quite avoid that suspicion. The Concorde was noisy, but not
_that_ noisy and Concorde B should be quieter from the aerodynamic
improvements.

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Mvandenbergh
Apparently they're targeting mach 2.2, faster than a concorde at mach 2.

Makes sense, there's no point going slightly supersonic since you gain only a
little speed over high subsonic for a lot of extra trouble.

I guess this is a competitor for a Citation X+ which can reach mach 0.93

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vikramkr
I'm curious to hear more about their carbon neutral/alternative fuel source
plan. What sorts of fuels can they use instead of regular jet fuel? Lowering
that eco impact would get rid of a big part of the concern people have with
these planes (assuming as well that the types of people to fly business/first
class aren't price sensitive and wouldn't care about more expensive tickets,
which seems reasonable)

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bryanlarsen
Looks like it'll be these guys supplying the fuel:
[https://www.prometheusfuels.com/](https://www.prometheusfuels.com/)

In a decade or so Boom might be competing with SpaceX, who are planning on
using suborbital versions of their Starship rocket for long distance
hypersonic passenger transport. Starship runs on methane, which is the easiest
hydrocarbon to generate in a carbon neutral format. Methanation is a leading
candidate for carbon capture for carbon intensive industries like cement
production.

~~~
p1mrx
Wow, that website has impressively terrible UX.

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nullifidian
They don't have a modern supersonic-capable engine as of yet, which is
basically a requirement for making progress in supersonic passenger
transportation. They have an agreement with Rolls-Royce, but if it doesn't pan
out the whole venture might flop, because we basically only have GE and RR as
the keepers of the institutional knowledge about cutting-edge engine tech.

Also, with the way our culture currently develops, producing tons of excess
CO2 for your slightly faster than ordinary business jet or first class
business trip might become a very sinful, frowned upon, bad PR thing to do. If
anything I see money in making business jets more economical.

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racnid
Don't forget Pratt and Whitney, they're still a major builder of aviation
(jet) engines along with Honeywell and others I'm sure to be forgetting.

~~~
nick_kline
What engine will they use for testing then, what are its limitations? BC they
are going > than mach 1.

Edit: reread the article, I guess it's not 100% clear if they will go that
fast but it's doable with existing jet engines of course, separate from new
potential efficient engines.

~~~
numpad0
If I’m right, turbine jet engines won’t hold up against supersonic airflow
anyway, so intakes has to be cleverly designed so as to feed them with
subsonic air of sufficient volume at all speeds. So there might be some wiggle
room between engines with sufficient TWR and durability?

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supernova87a
But note, this is just the small almost single-person sized prototype that's
planned to fly. It is a huge leap to get to the next step, the commercial
transport sized plane...

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hospadar
Don't get me wrong, supersonic planes VERY COOL and I want that for our world,
but the tone of the article is a little annoying:

"Why let a handful of people cross the Atlantic in a couple of hours when the
jumbo jets (that were developed concurrently) can do the same at far lower
cost?"

Why indeed? Maybe because people want it and it's a better idea? That being
said, I really hope I get to fly supersonic sometime

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sergioisidoro
Why should we use jumbo jets, instead of sail ships?

There is a cost function associated with time. For most people, there is a
threshold after which further gains become insignificant per hour saved, so a
Jumbo jet is not much better than a super sonic plane.

But the world has also changed since the Concorde, and maybe now there's a
bigger market for people for whom getting something or someone across the
Atlantic in a few hours is important: Let's say, for example, that a loved one
is severely ill, and you need to get there fast to say your goodbyes.

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mmaunder
The aviation industry did something worse? Nope. It invented the high bypass
turbofan engine which is quieter, more fuel efficient, and enabled affordable
mass air transport.

Concorde was incredibly noisy, unsafe (do the numbers) and only available for
a tiny number of elite travelers.

Most of the folks commenting here have never heard Concord take off or land.
It rattled the entire city.

~~~
stevehawk
What numbers? There was only one loss of life incident and it was due to parts
falling off of another aircraft on the runway prior to its departure.

~~~
mmaunder
Google it, there has been much reporting on the numbers. Aircraft accidents
are a cascade of failures. The debris was part of a chain which ended with
concord.

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abrbhat
The reason this will make economic sense is that there will be no need for
laid-back seats because of short travel times.

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bumby
I wonder if this tech is fundamentally different than what NASA has recently
rolled out with the X59

[https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-s-x-59-quiet-
superso...](https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-s-x-59-quiet-supersonic-
research-aircraft-cleared-for-final-assembly)

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mc32
Question, so this has on paper the goal of being capable of Mach 2.2. What are
the Mach speed restrictions for civ aircraft over land, if any and what impact
of any on viability?

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londons_explore
In general, the mach restrictions are based on sound complaints only.
Demonstrate you can make something that doesn't deafen millions of people, and
you'll be granted approval to fly over land, however fast it goes.

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iancmceachern
I wonder how the current contraction in the airline industry will effect their
plans or funding.

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phkahler
You may want to read the article.

~~~
iancmceachern
I did, they shared Boom's thoughts on it. I am wondering what will actually
happen.

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maltalex
This is obviously a nitpick, but when I head the word "boom" in relation to
planes, a sonic boom isn't the first thing that pops into my head. Is it just
me?

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zanecraw
yoooo this is awesome!

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tim333
>In less than 50 days, .... Boom Supersonic is planning to show off the XB-1

They're cracking along.

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holler
> In the righter-wing decades that followed its birth, we simply decided to
> walk back from the future.

Odd statement for an otherwise interesting subject. Pretty sure there were
many reasons the concorde was retired and political stripes weren’t one of
them.

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mobilefriendly
Business travel is lucrative but only like 12% of the air travel market. It
seems the market opportunity is a modern Zeppelin, not the next Concorde. An
airship that is environmentally efficient, fun to travel on, has plenty of
passenger space, and is perceived as safe. Airships could have far more
landing sites than traditional aircraft, let alone a plane with a sonic boom.
Also the future may feature SpaceX rockets for super fast global transport.

~~~
NationalPark
I'm guessing the problem with airships is that they're too slow. When they
were popular (okay, 100 years ago, some things may have changed) it took
multiple days to cross the Atlantic ocean.

But who knows, if it's cheap and more comfortable than flying, maybe people
will see the trip as part of the experience.

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msandford
Once your journey gets long enough comfort starts to trump speed for a lot of
people, especially if you're taking a vacation. For me that's somewhere in the
region of 10+ hours of travel. After that I'll consider it a full day and I'd
be very happy to trade 10hrs for 36hrs if I got a lot more comfort.

Something more akin to a recliner that I could actually sleep in, enough
legroom, a place to put a laptop that wasn't hunched over and awkward and
maybe enough room to get up and stretch for more than 3-5min at a time.

I don't know if it would be feasible to make a really wide, fat winged lifting
body dirigible that you can put a huge amount of solar cells on top of but if
you could do that and also make it somehow go ~150mph you're getting pretty
close to 1/3 the speed of an airliner with the added advantage that you might
not need anywhere near as much fuel.

I go from Texas to Florida semi-regularly There's 2-4 hours of pre and post
flying travel and sitting around plus about 2-2.5 hours of travel for a total
of 4-6 hours of total travel time. If the flying time went to more like 6
hours and you kept the pre and post travel flying times the same it wouldn't
make a huge impact on me. I might actually ask if they could slow the "plane"
down so that I could make it an overnighter and hopefully get enough sleep!

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nopzor
you need to consider headwinds which could make it much slower than 1/3 the
speed.

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msandford
Yeah good point! I wonder if it's possible to dodge the Jetstream by being at
an altitude where the Jetstream isn't blowing.

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dingaling
Airships used to follow 'pressure routing' which sought out air pressure
gradients to slingshot them around adverse weather. Meteorology and radio
broadcast of data were just sufficient in the 1920s, today it could be
automated.

