As someone who travels cross-atlantic semi-occasionally my price threshold for a 50% shorter flight is 25% increased cost. This is coming from a relatively well off middle-aged software engineer.
It is hard to think that this tech will ever be common besides a few "high status" (NY->London) routes like the concord was. It is my understanding that fuel costs increase as speed increases so there is no way this could ever be cheaper than non-hypersonic flights. But of course there is a market even if it is very limited, just like there was one for the concord. I expect this tech might displace some of the private plane market.
To me it seems more likely that we will see short-haul smaller electric aircraft take over for even cheaper costs with more stops along the way. Think like NY -> Açores -> London or LA -> Hawaii -> Japan.
edit: reading about this it seems the fuel-efficiency calculation is not as simple as I thought, there are some savings to be had in fuel by going above sound-speed. It seems the lowest fuel-efficiency happens at just below speed of sound. I am no expert in the subject though.
Efficiency actually increases the faster you go at some point until a certain limit due to being able to ride the 'boom' turning the energy required to keep the plane up into energy that pushes you forward, there's also special things that happen to friction when you pierce the barrier which are still being researched. Flying higher also means less molecules hitting your cruiser.
I think those values would make it viable for a few routes, but what really matters is long term savings. Like if they can fly supersonic overland and increase fuel efficiency more than traditional sub-sonic jet engines.
To me it seems if those numbers can't get better then the endeavor is not going to pay off the investment for the few routes that would be able to work at those numbers.
It's obviously not going to be competing with prices from 60 years ago, it'll be competing with prices from today. Probably with first class tickets and private charter flights. I'm sure there's probably a suitable niche in there somewhere.
It's what a private jet charter costs now. I bet rich execs prefer that despite the longer flying time. Getting direct to your destination, not having to rub shoulders with random people, stuff like that. It's also what killed the Concorde. Not enough comfort for the price.
What engines are they using? I thought Boom was having to develop their own engines after everyone else pulled out, but assuming they haven't built their own functional supersonic engine yet?
>> In what way will this be better than the Concorde?
Well it's a modern design for one. IIRC the Concorde was given an exemption to one of the FAA standards in the US that requires that a catastrophic engine failure not be able to affect another engine. The Concorde could not meet this due to the way the engines were paired right next to each other, and that is one contributing factor to the last crash - one engine failed and took out the other on the same side. This new design is probably going to be cheaper in terms of maintenance as well, which was another problem with Concorde.
It could be better in the sense of actually flying, which the Concorde no longer does. Newer technology and lessons learned from the Concorde will probably also make it safer although that's harder to predict.
Am I the only one who wonders about the market for this? How many will actually choose 2-4x price vs business class? With inflight high speed internet, and video conferencing in general, the number of people who can’t spare 3 hours (during which they can be doing other work) seems small?
I think a lot of people here are missing the point. The idea isn't to just replicate Concorde's flights across the Atlantic Ocean - or any stretch of water for that matter. Their plan would be to have this thing flying over land. The noise issue will be solved either through some feat of engineering or political lobbying. The cynic in me believes it will be mostly the latter.
I super do not want even a muffled supersonic boom crashing over my house!
It would definitely breed some significant resentment against the rich to have my house even gently shaking day by day.
My gut tells me this is in no way a solvable problem. But I too fear that after it's built, it'll be the LLM story of "yes we had to illegally access & use every book & piece of art in existence to train this, but now that we've built it, how could we turn back?"
I'm not expecting anywhere near that level of trouble, but man, when the F-16 went supersonic over DC in 2023, my rowhouse seriously rocked. It was a vibration so wildly different than anything I'd felt in a house before, feeling like it was coming from everywhere.
Even if you can muffle that sonic boom somewhat, I'm highly skeptical it's going to be anything but very noticeable & intrusive.
You’d prefer we buy them from China? If the physics works, it works and will happen.
> military (and concord I guess) have had this technology for nearly a millennium
Since the millennium, maybe? Charlemagne wasn’t flying in a supersonic PJ.
And no, the military has not obviously solved large-body, sustained and fuel-efficient (i.e. non-afterburning) flight. The USAF didn’t get supercruise until the F-22 [1]. (The Concorde is the only non-military example.) It’s a tremendously new technology, as are modern numerical methods for fuselage and shockwave modelling.
Supersonic flight will never be more efficient than traditional flights. And sorry I meant that I don't want any super sonic plane company to be successful.
> Supersonic flight will never be more efficient than traditional flights
Efficient by what metric? Fuel use? That’s the new master of our existence, our six-proton czar?
If there is one way to kill sympathy and support for climate-change action, it’s by not only insisting but actually hoping that living standards don’t improve (or regress) because it reduces emissions.
Instead of seeing a new super-premium air-travel market that can pay for the scaling of synergic jet fuels, you’re essentially hoping that technologies that could e.g. single-handedly eliminate the organ-transplant geographic mismatch problem do not exist. I’m surprised there isn’t an element of shame to such views.
I'm the last person you'd use climate change as an argument, I'm generally just frightened by the amount of problems that the governments will have to ignore before they can have their first commercial flight bleeding into ground flights.
It's the typical cyclist versus cars problem. I like cycling and I don't like driving and nothing will change that.
oh I got distracted writing that, I meant real problems with supersonic flight lose relevance and start opening ways to have super sonic flights over ground just to save some time.
I don't know, I just never felt the pressure of time past the age of around 17 so I cannot relate anymore. I started to enjoy live significantly more by not worrying about such things.
Interesting. For me and I suspect many others, the relationship goes the other way. Time was of no importance when I was a child, but as an adult it is everything. I have finite time to spend with elderly parents, dying friends, and quickly growing children.
An hour I spend stuck in traffic we're at a airport is a conversation I'll never be able to have with a loved one when they're gone.
Umm, this is not true. Supersonic speeds allow higher altitudes, which allows for higher efficiencies. This of course only applies if the aircraft is designed to take advantage of this, but I’m sure this one will be.
The limiting speed of subsonic aircraft is Mach .96 approximately.
For the u2, at its cruise altitude, this means about 100mph of airspeed… barely above its stall speed.
But if you go supersonic, you can break through that barrier and make use of the fact that there is much less air resistance at those altitudes. Not only that, but by riding past your shockwave, you can pick up a bit of recovered energy.
In some corners of the envelope, supersonic actually uses less fuel for the trip than Mach 0.9ish travel - which is where we fly our jetliners.
Also, we nasa has been experimenting with aerodynamic shapes that all but eliminate the sonic boom effect.
If they are planning to make it more efficient than subsonic trips, it would be the first thing you would see in the website, or at least the FAQ. Supersonic flight is very cool, but for me this is just like Bugatti announcing a faster car for the rich, or an airline showing its first class luxury cabin: not very interesting.
I agree that this particular aircraft / project has limited potential. What I am most excited about is the potential for advancement of the field that could lead to realizing the potential benefits in supersonic transport.
It’s like props vs jets. Jet aircraft were less efficient but faster… until the altitude benefits made them more efficient and faster. Flying at the edge of space is the next step in that speed/ efficiency curve, and that is necessarily supersonic.
I would be exited if there were doing that, something really revolutionary, being faster with less fuel, or at least, flying at the same speed with less fuel. Unfortunately, it's something for the rich masquerading as an improvement for the entire world.
Still happy for the engineers working on this, they are probably having a great time designing a new aircraft.
The x59 would have a thing or two to say about that. The sound pulse at ground level with the aircraft at altitude is about the same as a dishwasher, below the level of street traffic.
Concorde would probably struggle in the post-9/11 airport security world; the days of showing up at the airport just before the flight are long gone for most folks.
A 2-3 hour reduction in flight time is appealing on its own, but probably not at a significant price increase.
> days of showing up at the airport just before the flight are long gone for most folks
I show up 20 minutes before boarding, often later, at my small-town airport. For international flights out of JFK, I’ll show up 2 to 3 hours before, but there is still a world of difference between a lounge you can walk around and shower in and even the most luxurious lay-flat suites.
NYC > SFO is 2 hours at Mach 1.7; if I’m not checking a bag that’s an entire day returned both ways.
Boom isn’t gonna be at small town airports anytime soon.
The lounge thing, IMO, is also a challenge for Boom. It’s gonna be a cramped plane. The folks shelling out that sort of coin for a flight expect certain amenities on it.
> Boom isn’t gonna be at small town airports anytime soon
If I’m carry-on only, I try to show up to domestic flights out of JFK an hour before boarding. Between Digital ID and Clear, it’s a fuss if security takes longer than 15 minutes from entering the airport.
> folks shelling out that sort of coin for a flight expect certain amenities on it
Less cramped than Concorde. At $20k NYC <> SFO, I could see it selling out. You’re only on board for 2 to 3 hours. At $10k or less (Concorde was $13k, inflation adjusted) it’s crossing into prices paid for a lay-flat seat as it is.
This. If time didn't matter, people would use trains instead of short distance flights. And many do! Many European cities that are a 2 hour flight apart also have an ~8-9 hour train connection, which is much less hassle and stress than the flight, but people who have to travel a lot will care about the time savings of even a few hours because it adds up over time.
Lots of people have to regularly travel between Europe and US, and if they can save 50% of the travel time, it ends up being a significant amount of time. I believe the market for these flights aren't families going on a holiday, rather people who have to travel on business 3-4 times a month.
That's a fair statement. I'm not well versed enough in commercial aviation to be able to judge how much flights would cost with externalities priced in.
The IEA have an estimate of €190 per tonne. Which is €400 per passenger on a return transatlantic flight (assuming no mark-up). But there are already some taxes and surcharges on flights, and some of that is carbon-related, so a "full cost" price wouldn't be €400 more than today's. AIUI they use a "harm" model to try and land on that number, i.e. X gigatons of carbon => Y amount of climate change => Z economic damage.
Another way to look at it is "if each tonne of carbon can be burned only once, and in a scenario where future carbon is committed towards manufacture renewables (or nuclear capacity), how many kWh of renewable/nuclear electricity can be bought with 1t of carbon". That yields a much larger number.
Or you can look at it through a carbon capture and storage lens. Industrial CCS yields a much lower number, but it's talking about capturing from factory boiler exhaust streams, where you can have the plant capture the CO2 at source. Not an option on a jet airliner. Direct air capture (ground-based stations mopping up aircraft exhaust) is an order of magnitude more expensive, currently in the $1000/tonne range, you're trying to vacuum gas out of the air that's at a 400ppm concentration by mass.
Reminder that these flights will not be accessible to normal people except for rare circumstances same way concord was effectively an attraction rather than a tool.
The Concorde was expensive because everything around it was expensive, not just the nature of high speed flight. They built 20 planes total and never actually capitalized on large scale cost savings. The planes also used afterburner and burned a ton of fuel doing it. There is nothing stopping current transcontinential flights from being supersonic. Heck, the time savings can lead to cost savings as well.
> They built 20 planes total and never actually capitalized on large scale cost savings.
They never capitalized on large scale cost savings because there was no demand for large scale operation: most of the planes built were given away at nominal fees!
Boom's stated intent is to enable the aircraft to be profitable at business/first class prices, which is absolutely targeting the 1%. The engine will have better fuel efficiency than Concorde's afterburner-supported turbojet but that isn't saying much, and everything else about the operating economics (small capacity for long haul to major airports, niche type rating, clean sheet airframe and engine design from new OEM hoping to amortise development costs over a relatively small production run) screams expensive
I would love a 2-3 hour faster flight over the Atlantic when I visit family. Or even more saving when going over the Pacific.
But yes, it will be affordable for only a very small group of people I am not part of. I can't even afford first class for these flights.
Business class is the way, it would be much cheaper if first-class didn't exist since I genuinely never felt so out of place when being there. But I guess the amount of money you can get from first-class customers surpasses the amount you can get from business class customers.
I agree it's not a big deal over the Atlantic, but over the Pacific it could really be huge.
Flights halfway around the world are looong. I've been to Australia once, and honestly not sure I'll ever be back. Just because it is a lot of time in a seat.
Over the arctic is probably the ideal route for flights like this considering it solves the problem of it being very very cold and normal flight sensors don't work in supersonic flights anyway so that wouldn't be an issue either.
Even if the noise pollution can be solved (or, as others have said, just run it only over the ocean), I don't see how this thing wouldn't pump out an immense amount of CO2. It's definitely cool and would make flying nicer, but in an era where we're trying to decarbonize, get sustainable aviation fuel going, optimize flight paths to avoid contrail warming, etc... I can't lie, there is a big part of me that hopes it doesn't work out.
You could pass a law that Boom flights must burn only synthetic aviation fuel. (How this hasn’t been proposed for private jets is interesting—every time it comes up the more-extreme “ban private jets” meme starts floating.)
You can’t do that for ordinary air travel because consumers have already anchored price expectations and it’s a mass-market product.
If you look at the Overture's website (https://boomsupersonic.com/overture), it sounds like that's exactly what they are planning to do - it's advertised as "MACH 1.7 Cruise Speed, 2X Faster over water, 20% Faster over land" - if you take Mach 0.8 as the current cruise speed of subsonic jets, 20% faster would be just barely under the speed of sound.
The biggest problem in my opinion is the same problem concord had. You had to have two planes in every source location in case one of them has problems because your customers *will not accept a delay*.
> You had to have two planes in every source location in case one of them has problems because your customers will not accept a delay
I’ve never seen this cited as a major problem for the Concorde. Assuming the tickets are under $50k, it wouldn’t be a problem today—someone paying $10 to 30k for first class isn’t kept a back-up jet for their convenience. Flying was immature in the Concorde’s era.
That makes sense - if someone plans to fly London - New York for an important meeting, arriving there two hours late because the supersonic plane was switched for a subsonic one is not an option. Of course, nowadays they could just jump on a Zoom call instead, but where's the fun in that?
The military does not have relatively silent supersonic flight. Only a few US military aircraft models are even capable of supersonic flight, and they're plenty loud. In order to avoid complaints they normally they only fly that fast over designated exercise areas.
The Boom aircraft incorporates some quiet supersonic technology but until they actually test it they won't know whether it's actually quiet enough.
> military does not have relatively silent supersonic flight
We have one plane—soon to be retired—that can supercruise, i.e. sustain supersonic flight without afterburners, the F-22 [1]. It’s absolutely incorrect to treat this technology as anything but bleeding edge.
Ability to supercruise mainly only matters for fuel efficiency. It makes little difference to the shock wave volume on the ground. If a Raptor cruises overhead at Mach 1.5 you're going to notice.
Prototypes - no. There is the X-59 but that's civilian (operated by NASA), not military. Some of the research results from the X-59 program are being used by Boom and future military designs.
Obviously as some point the military would have researched this technology, that's not even a question. We will make know more in few decades or so once that information is declassified.
I think the appeal can also be that suddenly a weekend in Paris/Rome/(choose your destination) is as feasible (time-wise, if not budget-wise) and logistically light as a trip to Cancun. I for one don't usually go to Europe unless I can spend at least 4-5 days there, just to make the lengthy journey 'worthwhile', but I'm done cross-US weekend trips numerous times.
Yes and if you're talking about economy you will never be able to set foot on a plane like this either. There are proposals to have this over land as well which I am very strongly against to the point of not wanting a company like this to be successful.
> There are proposals to have this over land as well which I am very strongly against to the point of not wanting a company like this to be successful
Air NIMBY!
On a serious note, the only way this gets overland approval is if it’s comparably loud to existing options. Which given the work that’s been done on sonic booms, and some of the old kit that still flies, isn’t as hard as you’d think.
You can in fact hear super sonic flight above you even at 30 to 40k feet, think of the noise that spacex falcon rockets produce, but it's hard to compare legitimate explosions going off every millisecond to a needle piercing the sky.
I've completely forgot about this! It also affects other airplane systems (mostly pito tubes) which can cause the autopilot to disconnect or master caution to go off which have been known to lead to confusion and major incidents in the past.
And for many people in that bracket there's the possibility a chartered private jet will be better for their kids to sleep on, and they might more than make up the time going to the nearest airfield to their actual destinations rather than NYC-LHR
Even if Boom achieves their goal of bringing a certified airliner to production, it's still going to be a relatively small plane. 64-80 passengers according to their website.
That means the cost of the plane, crew, fuel, etc. will be split among a small number of passengers. Fuel burn at supersonic speeds is also going to be higher per passenger mile than traditional airliners.
No matter what this is going to end up as a premium option with a premium price tag. Modern high capacity airliners are optimized for efficiency and that translates to low ticket costs.
I'm sure you're right that they're overselling with the vision of bringing tickets down to $100, but if what you say about number of passengers is strictly true no airline would fly the Embraer 175 or CRJ-900, right?
According to the data I could find, the Overture is advertised as having fuel efficiency similar to the Embraer 175, while carrying the same number of passengers.
Having to drive in bumper to bumper traffic versus chilling in a large chair either working on a laptop, watching a movie or just sleeping (or well if you can't afford it in which case this is very irreverent due to ticket prices).
You have no reliable way to project the cost of supersonic flight 50 years in the future. It will come down. That's all I'm certain of.
I'm sure people told the Wright brothers similar things. You're simply being extremely short-sighted. Which is very ironic since you're also talking about climate change concerns around this post.
There are known, demonstrated ways to reduce rush hour traffic that decrease energy and emissions per person.
Supersonic flight will likely increase emissions per person by a larger proportion than the time saved per person. It's a brute-force energy-wasting solution to the problem.
As someone who travels cross-atlantic semi-occasionally my price threshold for a 50% shorter flight is 25% increased cost. This is coming from a relatively well off middle-aged software engineer.
It is hard to think that this tech will ever be common besides a few "high status" (NY->London) routes like the concord was. It is my understanding that fuel costs increase as speed increases so there is no way this could ever be cheaper than non-hypersonic flights. But of course there is a market even if it is very limited, just like there was one for the concord. I expect this tech might displace some of the private plane market.
To me it seems more likely that we will see short-haul smaller electric aircraft take over for even cheaper costs with more stops along the way. Think like NY -> Açores -> London or LA -> Hawaii -> Japan.
edit: reading about this it seems the fuel-efficiency calculation is not as simple as I thought, there are some savings to be had in fuel by going above sound-speed. It seems the lowest fuel-efficiency happens at just below speed of sound. I am no expert in the subject though.
Efficiency actually increases the faster you go at some point until a certain limit due to being able to ride the 'boom' turning the energy required to keep the plane up into energy that pushes you forward, there's also special things that happen to friction when you pierce the barrier which are still being researched. Flying higher also means less molecules hitting your cruiser.
Essentially supercavitation in the air?
You can call it that, I guess.
I believe boom has suggested it would only cut about 30% of the time off, and cost 3x.. not to mention needing to refuel to cross the pacific. :/
I think those values would make it viable for a few routes, but what really matters is long term savings. Like if they can fly supersonic overland and increase fuel efficiency more than traditional sub-sonic jet engines.
To me it seems if those numbers can't get better then the endeavor is not going to pay off the investment for the few routes that would be able to work at those numbers.
CONUS -> Honolulu -> East Asia or Australia will be a very viable setup. Especially if the refueling stop in Hawaii is well optimized for speed.
What’s Boom’s track record on accurately predicting final ticket prices?
Next thread in sequence:
Boom XB-1 First Supersonic Flight [video] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42853633 - Jan 2025 (79 comments)
I really hope they are successful. So sad not to have this option for ocean crossing flights.
It's not going to be an option, tickets will be tens of thousands of dollars
> tickets will be tens of thousands of dollars
So about what a Golden Era international flight cost, inflation adjusted [1]. Not bad.
[1] https://www.travelandleisure.com/airlines-airports/history-o...
It's obviously not going to be competing with prices from 60 years ago, it'll be competing with prices from today. Probably with first class tickets and private charter flights. I'm sure there's probably a suitable niche in there somewhere.
It's what a private jet charter costs now. I bet rich execs prefer that despite the longer flying time. Getting direct to your destination, not having to rub shoulders with random people, stuff like that. It's also what killed the Concorde. Not enough comfort for the price.
> what a private jet charter costs now
No, it’s not. A domestic non-transcontinental charter costs about as much as a top-of-the-line international first-class ticket (~$25k).
True but I was thinking about what a boom ticket would cost. Should have clarified though.
But also that charter is more expensive than I thought then yes. Though top execs rarely travel alone of course.
What engines are they using? I thought Boom was having to develop their own engines after everyone else pulled out, but assuming they haven't built their own functional supersonic engine yet?
The XB-1 prototype is powered by three General Electric J85 engines; mentioned in this writeup: https://boomsupersonic.com/flyby/xb-1-pilot-profile-tristan-...
Related:
The only photo of the Concorde flying at supersonic speed
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42834341
https://boomsupersonic.com/
https://www.youtube.com/live/-qisIViAHwI
In what way will this be better than the Concorde? Definitely not cheaper.
>> In what way will this be better than the Concorde?
Well it's a modern design for one. IIRC the Concorde was given an exemption to one of the FAA standards in the US that requires that a catastrophic engine failure not be able to affect another engine. The Concorde could not meet this due to the way the engines were paired right next to each other, and that is one contributing factor to the last crash - one engine failed and took out the other on the same side. This new design is probably going to be cheaper in terms of maintenance as well, which was another problem with Concorde.
It could be better in the sense of actually flying, which the Concorde no longer does. Newer technology and lessons learned from the Concorde will probably also make it safer although that's harder to predict.
> Definitely not cheaper
Why?
A cautionary video "Is Commercial Supersonic Doomed to Fail?"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=je5R3_br8So
Boom is having to develop their own engines, which is a huge ask, especially on the schedule they are promising.
(spoiler: the video's answer is "yes")
That must be mistaken, it is a violation of betteridge's law
Am I the only one who wonders about the market for this? How many will actually choose 2-4x price vs business class? With inflight high speed internet, and video conferencing in general, the number of people who can’t spare 3 hours (during which they can be doing other work) seems small?
[dead]
I think a lot of people here are missing the point. The idea isn't to just replicate Concorde's flights across the Atlantic Ocean - or any stretch of water for that matter. Their plan would be to have this thing flying over land. The noise issue will be solved either through some feat of engineering or political lobbying. The cynic in me believes it will be mostly the latter.
RTF-Website. The intention is to remain subsonic over land:
https://boomsupersonic.com/overture
I super do not want even a muffled supersonic boom crashing over my house!
It would definitely breed some significant resentment against the rich to have my house even gently shaking day by day.
My gut tells me this is in no way a solvable problem. But I too fear that after it's built, it'll be the LLM story of "yes we had to illegally access & use every book & piece of art in existence to train this, but now that we've built it, how could we turn back?"
A literal case of “move fast and break things”
On the plus side you might only need to replace your smashed windows on windy days.
I'm not expecting anywhere near that level of trouble, but man, when the F-16 went supersonic over DC in 2023, my rowhouse seriously rocked. It was a vibration so wildly different than anything I'd felt in a house before, feeling like it was coming from everywhere.
Even if you can muffle that sonic boom somewhat, I'm highly skeptical it's going to be anything but very noticeable & intrusive.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-65808194
[flagged]
> don't want boom supersonic to succeed
You’d prefer we buy them from China? If the physics works, it works and will happen.
> military (and concord I guess) have had this technology for nearly a millennium
Since the millennium, maybe? Charlemagne wasn’t flying in a supersonic PJ.
And no, the military has not obviously solved large-body, sustained and fuel-efficient (i.e. non-afterburning) flight. The USAF didn’t get supercruise until the F-22 [1]. (The Concorde is the only non-military example.) It’s a tremendously new technology, as are modern numerical methods for fuselage and shockwave modelling.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercruise
Supersonic flight will never be more efficient than traditional flights. And sorry I meant that I don't want any super sonic plane company to be successful.
> Supersonic flight will never be more efficient than traditional flights
Efficient by what metric? Fuel use? That’s the new master of our existence, our six-proton czar?
If there is one way to kill sympathy and support for climate-change action, it’s by not only insisting but actually hoping that living standards don’t improve (or regress) because it reduces emissions.
Instead of seeing a new super-premium air-travel market that can pay for the scaling of synergic jet fuels, you’re essentially hoping that technologies that could e.g. single-handedly eliminate the organ-transplant geographic mismatch problem do not exist. I’m surprised there isn’t an element of shame to such views.
I'm the last person you'd use climate change as an argument, I'm generally just frightened by the amount of problems that the governments will have to ignore before they can have their first commercial flight bleeding into ground flights.
It's the typical cyclist versus cars problem. I like cycling and I don't like driving and nothing will change that.
> first commercial flight bleeding into ground flights
?
> I like cycling and I don't like driving and nothing will change that
Nothing has to. If you started advocating for banning cars, on the other hand, you’d expect to see an anti-cycling lobby crop up.
oh I got distracted writing that, I meant real problems with supersonic flight lose relevance and start opening ways to have super sonic flights over ground just to save some time.
> super sonic flights over ground just to save some time
That’s the intention. My question is why others’ time is of so little value to you?
I don't know, I just never felt the pressure of time past the age of around 17 so I cannot relate anymore. I started to enjoy live significantly more by not worrying about such things.
Interesting. For me and I suspect many others, the relationship goes the other way. Time was of no importance when I was a child, but as an adult it is everything. I have finite time to spend with elderly parents, dying friends, and quickly growing children.
An hour I spend stuck in traffic we're at a airport is a conversation I'll never be able to have with a loved one when they're gone.
> Efficient by what metric? Fuel use? That’s the new master of our existence, our six-proton czar?
If it can be cheap at supersonic speeds, it will be much cheaper at subsonic, always. And use less fuel. The only advantage you get is speed.
Umm, this is not true. Supersonic speeds allow higher altitudes, which allows for higher efficiencies. This of course only applies if the aircraft is designed to take advantage of this, but I’m sure this one will be.
The limiting speed of subsonic aircraft is Mach .96 approximately.
For the u2, at its cruise altitude, this means about 100mph of airspeed… barely above its stall speed.
But if you go supersonic, you can break through that barrier and make use of the fact that there is much less air resistance at those altitudes. Not only that, but by riding past your shockwave, you can pick up a bit of recovered energy.
In some corners of the envelope, supersonic actually uses less fuel for the trip than Mach 0.9ish travel - which is where we fly our jetliners.
Also, we nasa has been experimenting with aerodynamic shapes that all but eliminate the sonic boom effect.
It’s not all bad.
> I’m sure this one will be.
If they are planning to make it more efficient than subsonic trips, it would be the first thing you would see in the website, or at least the FAQ. Supersonic flight is very cool, but for me this is just like Bugatti announcing a faster car for the rich, or an airline showing its first class luxury cabin: not very interesting.
I agree that this particular aircraft / project has limited potential. What I am most excited about is the potential for advancement of the field that could lead to realizing the potential benefits in supersonic transport.
It’s like props vs jets. Jet aircraft were less efficient but faster… until the altitude benefits made them more efficient and faster. Flying at the edge of space is the next step in that speed/ efficiency curve, and that is necessarily supersonic.
I would be exited if there were doing that, something really revolutionary, being faster with less fuel, or at least, flying at the same speed with less fuel. Unfortunately, it's something for the rich masquerading as an improvement for the entire world.
Still happy for the engineers working on this, they are probably having a great time designing a new aircraft.
>nasa has been experimenting with aerodynamic shapes that all but eliminate the sonic boom effect.
Yes, they've been trying to do that since the 1960s. I haven't seen any signs that they've been what I would call successful.
The x59 would have a thing or two to say about that. The sound pulse at ground level with the aircraft at altitude is about the same as a dishwasher, below the level of street traffic.
A 2-3 hour reduction in flight time is appealing for approximately everyone who needs to fly.
Concorde would probably struggle in the post-9/11 airport security world; the days of showing up at the airport just before the flight are long gone for most folks.
A 2-3 hour reduction in flight time is appealing on its own, but probably not at a significant price increase.
> days of showing up at the airport just before the flight are long gone for most folks
I show up 20 minutes before boarding, often later, at my small-town airport. For international flights out of JFK, I’ll show up 2 to 3 hours before, but there is still a world of difference between a lounge you can walk around and shower in and even the most luxurious lay-flat suites.
NYC > SFO is 2 hours at Mach 1.7; if I’m not checking a bag that’s an entire day returned both ways.
Boom isn’t gonna be at small town airports anytime soon.
The lounge thing, IMO, is also a challenge for Boom. It’s gonna be a cramped plane. The folks shelling out that sort of coin for a flight expect certain amenities on it.
> Boom isn’t gonna be at small town airports anytime soon
If I’m carry-on only, I try to show up to domestic flights out of JFK an hour before boarding. Between Digital ID and Clear, it’s a fuss if security takes longer than 15 minutes from entering the airport.
> folks shelling out that sort of coin for a flight expect certain amenities on it
Less cramped than Concorde. At $20k NYC <> SFO, I could see it selling out. You’re only on board for 2 to 3 hours. At $10k or less (Concorde was $13k, inflation adjusted) it’s crossing into prices paid for a lay-flat seat as it is.
This. If time didn't matter, people would use trains instead of short distance flights. And many do! Many European cities that are a 2 hour flight apart also have an ~8-9 hour train connection, which is much less hassle and stress than the flight, but people who have to travel a lot will care about the time savings of even a few hours because it adds up over time.
Lots of people have to regularly travel between Europe and US, and if they can save 50% of the travel time, it ends up being a significant amount of time. I believe the market for these flights aren't families going on a holiday, rather people who have to travel on business 3-4 times a month.
"have to" being, to some extent, a function of these flights being priced at a heavy discount relative to their environmental impact.
That's a fair statement. I'm not well versed enough in commercial aviation to be able to judge how much flights would cost with externalities priced in.
It's debatable.
The IEA have an estimate of €190 per tonne. Which is €400 per passenger on a return transatlantic flight (assuming no mark-up). But there are already some taxes and surcharges on flights, and some of that is carbon-related, so a "full cost" price wouldn't be €400 more than today's. AIUI they use a "harm" model to try and land on that number, i.e. X gigatons of carbon => Y amount of climate change => Z economic damage.
Another way to look at it is "if each tonne of carbon can be burned only once, and in a scenario where future carbon is committed towards manufacture renewables (or nuclear capacity), how many kWh of renewable/nuclear electricity can be bought with 1t of carbon". That yields a much larger number.
Or you can look at it through a carbon capture and storage lens. Industrial CCS yields a much lower number, but it's talking about capturing from factory boiler exhaust streams, where you can have the plant capture the CO2 at source. Not an option on a jet airliner. Direct air capture (ground-based stations mopping up aircraft exhaust) is an order of magnitude more expensive, currently in the $1000/tonne range, you're trying to vacuum gas out of the air that's at a 400ppm concentration by mass.
Reminder that these flights will not be accessible to normal people except for rare circumstances same way concord was effectively an attraction rather than a tool.
This whole 1% focus is just silly.
The Concorde was expensive because everything around it was expensive, not just the nature of high speed flight. They built 20 planes total and never actually capitalized on large scale cost savings. The planes also used afterburner and burned a ton of fuel doing it. There is nothing stopping current transcontinential flights from being supersonic. Heck, the time savings can lead to cost savings as well.
> They built 20 planes total and never actually capitalized on large scale cost savings.
They never capitalized on large scale cost savings because there was no demand for large scale operation: most of the planes built were given away at nominal fees!
Boom's stated intent is to enable the aircraft to be profitable at business/first class prices, which is absolutely targeting the 1%. The engine will have better fuel efficiency than Concorde's afterburner-supported turbojet but that isn't saying much, and everything else about the operating economics (small capacity for long haul to major airports, niche type rating, clean sheet airframe and engine design from new OEM hoping to amortise development costs over a relatively small production run) screams expensive
The planes are now flying slower than ever in the name of efficiency. Large container boats are sailing slower than ever for the same reason.
I would love a 2-3 hour faster flight over the Atlantic when I visit family. Or even more saving when going over the Pacific. But yes, it will be affordable for only a very small group of people I am not part of. I can't even afford first class for these flights.
Business class is the way, it would be much cheaper if first-class didn't exist since I genuinely never felt so out of place when being there. But I guess the amount of money you can get from first-class customers surpasses the amount you can get from business class customers.
Quick note that first class transatlantic doesn't really exist now. Lufthansa is the only carrier left iirc.
I agree it's not a big deal over the Atlantic, but over the Pacific it could really be huge.
Flights halfway around the world are looong. I've been to Australia once, and honestly not sure I'll ever be back. Just because it is a lot of time in a seat.
Over the arctic is probably the ideal route for flights like this considering it solves the problem of it being very very cold and normal flight sensors don't work in supersonic flights anyway so that wouldn't be an issue either.
Even if the noise pollution can be solved (or, as others have said, just run it only over the ocean), I don't see how this thing wouldn't pump out an immense amount of CO2. It's definitely cool and would make flying nicer, but in an era where we're trying to decarbonize, get sustainable aviation fuel going, optimize flight paths to avoid contrail warming, etc... I can't lie, there is a big part of me that hopes it doesn't work out.
> in an era where we're trying to decarbonize, get sustainable aviation fuel going
You don’t see an ultrapremium flight option improving chances for synthetic jet fuel?
Not sure I follow, unfortunately.
You could pass a law that Boom flights must burn only synthetic aviation fuel. (How this hasn’t been proposed for private jets is interesting—every time it comes up the more-extreme “ban private jets” meme starts floating.)
You can’t do that for ordinary air travel because consumers have already anchored price expectations and it’s a mass-market product.
True! I like that idea.
> just run it only over the ocean
If you look at the Overture's website (https://boomsupersonic.com/overture), it sounds like that's exactly what they are planning to do - it's advertised as "MACH 1.7 Cruise Speed, 2X Faster over water, 20% Faster over land" - if you take Mach 0.8 as the current cruise speed of subsonic jets, 20% faster would be just barely under the speed of sound.
The reasons why planes don't fly faster is efficiency.
I'm aware of that, but if your selling point is speed, you'll have to sacrifice the efficiency, CO2 emissions be damned...
CO2 emissions aren't the problem, mostly the cost of operation making these that much more inaccessible to even the 1%.
The biggest problem in my opinion is the same problem concord had. You had to have two planes in every source location in case one of them has problems because your customers *will not accept a delay*.
> You had to have two planes in every source location in case one of them has problems because your customers will not accept a delay
I’ve never seen this cited as a major problem for the Concorde. Assuming the tickets are under $50k, it wouldn’t be a problem today—someone paying $10 to 30k for first class isn’t kept a back-up jet for their convenience. Flying was immature in the Concorde’s era.
That makes sense - if someone plans to fly London - New York for an important meeting, arriving there two hours late because the supersonic plane was switched for a subsonic one is not an option. Of course, nowadays they could just jump on a Zoom call instead, but where's the fun in that?
The military does not have relatively silent supersonic flight. Only a few US military aircraft models are even capable of supersonic flight, and they're plenty loud. In order to avoid complaints they normally they only fly that fast over designated exercise areas.
The Boom aircraft incorporates some quiet supersonic technology but until they actually test it they won't know whether it's actually quiet enough.
> military does not have relatively silent supersonic flight
We have one plane—soon to be retired—that can supercruise, i.e. sustain supersonic flight without afterburners, the F-22 [1]. It’s absolutely incorrect to treat this technology as anything but bleeding edge.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercruise
Ability to supercruise mainly only matters for fuel efficiency. It makes little difference to the shock wave volume on the ground. If a Raptor cruises overhead at Mach 1.5 you're going to notice.
'commercial' military planes - no, prototypes - yes.
Prototypes - no. There is the X-59 but that's civilian (operated by NASA), not military. Some of the research results from the X-59 program are being used by Boom and future military designs.
Obviously as some point the military would have researched this technology, that's not even a question. We will make know more in few decades or so once that information is declassified.
This is just luddism out of envy
I guess you've missed the hint.
I think the appeal can also be that suddenly a weekend in Paris/Rome/(choose your destination) is as feasible (time-wise, if not budget-wise) and logistically light as a trip to Cancun. I for one don't usually go to Europe unless I can spend at least 4-5 days there, just to make the lengthy journey 'worthwhile', but I'm done cross-US weekend trips numerous times.
Have you done an 8 hour flight in economy? It's absolutely miserable. Noise pollution over the Atlantic affects literally noone.
Yes and if you're talking about economy you will never be able to set foot on a plane like this either. There are proposals to have this over land as well which I am very strongly against to the point of not wanting a company like this to be successful.
> There are proposals to have this over land as well which I am very strongly against to the point of not wanting a company like this to be successful
Air NIMBY!
On a serious note, the only way this gets overland approval is if it’s comparably loud to existing options. Which given the work that’s been done on sonic booms, and some of the old kit that still flies, isn’t as hard as you’d think.
Are you unfamiliar with the work NASA is doing on sonic boom reductions? Or are you too cynical to care?
Very familiar, but even regular planes are loud as hell already since I happen to live between the airport and a holdover route.
Idk what altitude planes are at in a location like yours, but there is certainly going to be an altitude limit on supersonic flight over land.
I don't care if I can't, some people can. Good for them.
You can pay for business or first class. Supersonic flights won’t be cheaper.
Didn't say they would be.
It likely has an affect on whales and other marine animals as shown by a number of studies previously.
It's not like they are flying at 1000 feet above the ocean. at between 30-40k feet, if you can hear the jet engines, you are a lucky whale!
You can in fact hear super sonic flight above you even at 30 to 40k feet, think of the noise that spacex falcon rockets produce, but it's hard to compare legitimate explosions going off every millisecond to a needle piercing the sky.
I've completely forgot about this! It also affects other airplane systems (mostly pito tubes) which can cause the autopilot to disconnect or master caution to go off which have been known to lead to confusion and major incidents in the past.
> the entire premise of 2-3 hour faster flights over the atlantic is just not that appealing
Clearly you don't have kids.
Or aren't interested in buying $10k+ tickets for their kids. For most people this would simply not be an option.
And for many people in that bracket there's the possibility a chartered private jet will be better for their kids to sleep on, and they might more than make up the time going to the nearest airfield to their actual destinations rather than NYC-LHR
I was assuming the end goal was to make supersonic flight way cheaper than it was for Concorde?
Even if Boom achieves their goal of bringing a certified airliner to production, it's still going to be a relatively small plane. 64-80 passengers according to their website.
That means the cost of the plane, crew, fuel, etc. will be split among a small number of passengers. Fuel burn at supersonic speeds is also going to be higher per passenger mile than traditional airliners.
No matter what this is going to end up as a premium option with a premium price tag. Modern high capacity airliners are optimized for efficiency and that translates to low ticket costs.
I'm sure you're right that they're overselling with the vision of bringing tickets down to $100, but if what you say about number of passengers is strictly true no airline would fly the Embraer 175 or CRJ-900, right?
According to the data I could find, the Overture is advertised as having fuel efficiency similar to the Embraer 175, while carrying the same number of passengers.
[flagged]
Those are pretty short flights though. My kids get antsy when the flight is 7+ hours. I agree though that short (<6h) flights are no issue.
Are you lost? Do you know where you are?
I just love spending time in rush hour traffic \s
Having to drive in bumper to bumper traffic versus chilling in a large chair either working on a laptop, watching a movie or just sleeping (or well if you can't afford it in which case this is very irreverent due to ticket prices).
> chilling in a large chair either working on a laptop, watching a movie or just sleeping
Are you talking about trains?
They're comparing to first class on existing airliners.
Large????
The original comment was comparing this service to current first-class airline service.
I'm assuming large here because that's what the tickets will cost for super sonic flight.
You have no reliable way to project the cost of supersonic flight 50 years in the future. It will come down. That's all I'm certain of.
I'm sure people told the Wright brothers similar things. You're simply being extremely short-sighted. Which is very ironic since you're also talking about climate change concerns around this post.
There are known, demonstrated ways to reduce rush hour traffic that decrease energy and emissions per person.
Supersonic flight will likely increase emissions per person by a larger proportion than the time saved per person. It's a brute-force energy-wasting solution to the problem.