148 ms·
Boom XB-1 First Supersonic Flight [video]
- kvogt 2y agoThey worked extremely hard on one problem for 10 years straight. Incredibly impressed. That's what it takes to create great things. Congrats Blake!
- echoangle 2y agoWhy are some camera shots so dull? Is that a HDR problem?
- actionfromafar 2y agoLong tele lens - lots of air between it and the plane, I'd say.
- echoangle 2y agoIt was actually fine for the air-to-air shots but all shots from the ground/drones were very washed out.
- kristofferR 2y agoLikely LOG settings in the cameras, a color profile aimed at color correction. If LOG footage is not color corrected it looks like that. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ap8k564N_w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ap8k564N_w https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Log_profile https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Log_profile
- stephen_g 2y agoSomebody must have forgotten to load a LUT into the camera!
- stephen_g 2y agoYes I noticed this for a lot of the ground shots - looks like they've made a mistake and we're seeing the uncorrected log curve output of the camera, and they've forgotten to load (or enable) a LUT (look up table) for the conversion to linear. It's basically just missing half of the image processing, normally you'd only output to that to a recorder if you were going to apply all the grading later in post production (which obviously they're not doing here). See this random article for a bit of a rundown - https://pixflow.net/blog/difference-between-raw-log-and-rec-709-camera-footage/ https://pixflow.net/blog/difference-between-raw-log-and-rec-...
- cowsaymoo 2y agoThe camera also lost focus on the jet during the record where it went transonic for the first time ever (around 1:01). It looks like they struggled for a while to recover focus against the featureless sky because I would guess they had their lens set to auto focus, which uses a spot or grid of consensus edge detectors. There's no circular polarizer filter equipped because you can see window glare, and that momentarily caused the AF grid to choose the window as the subject because there wasn't (any?) a good enough stabilizer. For a relatively stationary subject like this, it's more reliable to pull focus manually because the camera can be jostled without confusing an AF algorithm. Even better to periodically use spot auto-focus to acquire the sharpest focal plane, then flip it to manual.
- justicz 2y agoJust awesome. Congrats to everyone who worked on this! Excited to see what's next from you all.
- blackeyeblitzar 2y agoFor those wondering, it is in flight right now
- Brajeshwar 2y agoWatching it. :-)
- mbloom1915 2y agoMach 1.1! *Xoldplay's 'speed of sound' song starts*
- dralley 2y agoIs the goal to be able to supercruise, or are they just going to be to waste tons of fuel on afterburning like the Concorde?
- doctoring 2y agoI had the same question. From their FAQ (https://boomsupersonic.com/faq https://boomsupersonic.com/faq): > Will Overture use afterburners like Concorde? > No. Overture will fly without the use of afterburners, meeting the same strict regulatory noise levels as the latest subsonic airplanes. The airliner will be powered by the Symphony propulsion system. Symphony will be a medium-bypass turbofan engine designed and optimized for environmentally and economically sustainable supersonic flight.
- foobarqux 2y ago> ... meeting the same strict regulatory noise levels as the latest subsonic airplanes Extremely dishonest: as far as I can tell (CFR title 14, B36.5) there are no specific noise level regulations for subsonic cruise flight (i.e. not take-off and landing) because you can't hear subsonic aircraft at cruise altitude. On the other hand, however, you will be able to hear sonic booms.
- stetrain 2y agoI think that statement is saying it will meet those noise levels for takeoff and landing, not during cruise which will be over the ocean.
- foobarqux 2y agoIt's intentionally misleading, they are technically saying they will meet the takeoff and landing requirements (which they are required to meet by law) but implying that the plane is going to be quiet at cruise (which they want to perform over the continental United States, not just over the ocean). Moreover, their statement falsely suggests that Concorde does not "[meet] the same strict regulatory noise levels as the latest subsonic airplanes" but 36.301 says that Concorde also has to meet the same standards as subsonic planes (standards which exclude operation at cruise which didn't matter for Concorde because it was over the Atlantic).
- dylan604 2y agoI know nothing about Boom. Why is this impressive? We've achieved supersonic for passengers before. Are we meant to be interested just because someone is taking up the mantle again, or is there some new design that makes it impressive?
- bangaroo 2y agothere hasn't been supersonic civil aviation, as far as i am aware, since the concorde was grounded. there are no active commercial aircraft capable of going supersonic. this is significant because it's the first civil aircraft to reach that milestone since the ending of the concorde program.
- dmitrygr 2y ago> there hasn't been supersonic civil aviation There still isn’t, and this is not a very interesting stepping stone. We already knew that we could fly a plane quickly. This company has no engines for their allegedly full scale plane. The last manufacturer dropped them a few years ago, and there has been no movement in that direction. This demonstrates the easiest part of what they’re trying to do, not the hardest. This is the equivalent of a hand drawn ui mockup for a future “AGI workstation”, while not at all addressing the “AGI” part
- ge96 2y agoSo funny how everything is live streamed now I like it, transparency is good
- nhoss2 2y agoPretty exiting times in aerospace these days. Seeing spacex doing awesome innovation with starship and boom making good progress bringing back supersonic air travel Can someone innovate general aviation
- HappyJoy 2y agoThere's a company called Airhart that's trying to bring Fly-By-Wire to GA. But (at least in the US) I think innovation would be better focused on regulations - looking at you aeromedical specifically.
- calmbonsai 2y agoUntil the FAA oversight and permitting regs are updated, it's far too cost and time prohibitive to bring anything (aside from avionics) truly innovative to the GA market. For a vivid example, look at the multi-year certification torture that even a minor new engine design (DeltaHawk https://www.deltahawk.com/ https://www.deltahawk.com/ ) must endure, or hell, the comical marathon of low-lead avgas adoption, or even a basic 12V https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22K-XdV7e-0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22K-XdV7e-0 lithium battery. GA is a hell of a fun hobby, but not a market conducive to venture capital timelines or returns.
- sofixa 2y ago> Until the FAA oversight and permitting regs are updated, it's far too cost and time prohibitive to bring anything (aside from avionics) truly innovative to the GA market. Unless you take a look at why those regulations came into place - literally tens of thousands of people dying in fiery crashes. Aviation safety is an incredibly complex topic, and even with the strict regulatory regimes of today, companies like Boeing manage to skirt the rules and proudly sell planes that crash themselves, or fall apart in mid air. Lowering regulatory boundaries in aviation will certainly result in more death.
- potato3732842 2y agoI know that we like to circle jerk about "written in blood" around here but your take is asinine. We don't regulate freight barges and personal watercraft the same way we regulate cruise ships and ferries. There's a pretty clear demarcation line between commercial passenger service and noncommercial non-passenger in every industry, Why is aviation not similar? Oh, that's right, because decades ago the FAA and Congress brought the entire industry (with a tiny carve-out for experimental) under the same regulatory scheme and damn near killed the GA industry. Furthermore, the whole Boeing fiasco is a great illustration of how futile the approach that you people peddle is. Boeing and their army of lawyers and carousel of lobbyists get to skirt or play right up to the letter of the the regulation while the little guy has to bend over and take it full force. So what even is the point of having the same set of rules if the big guys are the ones subject to less rules in practice? I'm not saying repeal it all or exempt GA but the current approach is clearly the worst of both worlds and ought to be changed.
- blackeyeblitzar 2y agoSuccessful supersonic test! Amazing what humans can achieve.
- esotericimpl 2y ago[dead]
- ChrisArchitect 2y agoRelated: Boom Supersonic to break sound barrier during historic test flight today https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42852077 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42852077
- Keyframe 2y ago[flagged]
- ics 2y agoFor those wanting to jump to where it goes supersonic, it happens a little after minute 11 on the flight time. The camera shots are clearer during subsonic flight, then it gets fairly blurry. The takeoff and climb were interesting to see; also before it goes supersonic the shots from the air are remarkably clear.
- cryptonector 2y ago1:01:29
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- tomaytotomato 2y agoCan't wait to live the good life of the 80/90s again with that our parents enjoyed with 5 hours flights to New York. More technology advances please so we can break through this zeitgeist of human pessimism and introspection. Onwards and upwards!
- jandrese 2y agoMy parents certainly never did that. Very few parents did, the tickets were way out of the price range of the typical passenger. It's like pining for the days when people traveled in the opulant lounges of ocean going steamer ships, forgetting that the bulk of the people were crammed into tiny cabins with few amenities for the long journey.
- tomaytotomato 2y agoNor did my parents, but I guess I should have clarified better. They at least had the option to be able to do this. It was taken away when Concorde was grounded, but now we have an opportunity for supersonic flight for people, of course with a price tag. That's a good thing in my books.
- JshWright 2y agoScott Manley posted an interesting video including some interviews and technical details on XB-1 (as well as some time in the XB-1 simulator near the end of the video). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITGgRhjcHAM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITGgRhjcHAM
- ctippett 2y agoThe plane looks so small on the runway, I thought how could it possibly hold 64-80 passengers. Hint: it's because the XB-1 is a one-third scale model of their fully fledged Overture.
- hinkley 2y agoSo it’s a jet for ants?
- papertokyo 2y agoUntil they make it at least three times bigger, yes.
- yownie 2y agoWhy would you want ants 3X bigger?! It would be horrible!
- reassess_blind 2y agoJesus, that's a lot of ants.
- conradfr 2y agoIt's kind of cute when it takes off.
- dimadjfbhf 2y ago[flagged]
- ctippett 2y agoIs it okay/usual for the test pilot to partake in a glass of champagne so soon after landing? On a side note: Channing Tatum is a shoe-in for playing the pilot, Tristan “Geppetto” Brandenburg, if this ever gets made into a movie.
- mv4 2y agoWatched it live, and it was amazing. Beautiful aircraft.
- finiche 2y agoBMW
- nwatson 2y agoTo be built in Greensboro, NC / North Carolina ... https://boomsupersonic.com/superfactory https://boomsupersonic.com/superfactory
- mrtksn 2y agoHow cool is that, hopefully will pressure Airbus into developing one too. So far they did silly concept vides only. I'm also quite worried about Airbus after winning against Boeing becoming complacent since Chinese or Russians are not even close.
- belter 2y agoHow do you make this profitable?
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago> How do you make this profitable? Selling it for more than it costs to build. Computer-based modelling, advances in our understanding of supersonic flight and sonic booms and a mature civil (and private) aviation industry make the profit case much more compelling than it was for the Concorde. (The real test will be in their engine.)
- alex_duf 2y agoI assume the question was about the questionable economics of running a super-sonic airplane profitably. The Concorde was notorious for bleeding money. Maybe the premium aspect will be enough, given that we have a bigger and bigger chasm between rich and poor, or maybe the economics of running it won't compete against sub-sonic, lower fuel consumption planes.
- ghaff 2y agoI'm skeptical. Trans-Pacific would be interesting for some because that's a long time in a plane even with lie-flat seating. But then you need a lot of range because once you have to refuel you've cut into your time advantage. NYC to London or Paris? Sure. But now you still need to find people willing and able to spend $5K+ each way. I'd like to do it but realistically I'm not going to.
- 2y ago
- kjkjadksj 2y agoSo why is this happening but SST got pilloried due to noise, vibration, moisture in the stratosphere, ozone layer, etc. Did these issues get solved with the Boom aircraft, or is the solution to route around them via marketing and hope no one opens a history book?
- stego-tech 2y agoWatched the livestream. Haven’t gotten that excited over a performance test since the early days of SpaceX, before the dark times. Wishing them all the best! Beautiful aircraft, beautiful demonstration, and hopefully more beautiful datasets that exceed their expectations. Just don’t Milkshake Duck this.
- dang 2y agoPrevious thread in sequence: Boom Supersonic to break sound barrier during historic test flight today - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42852077 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42852077 - Jan 2025 (99 comments)
- thepaulmcbride 2y agoThe angle of attack at both takeoff and touch down is pretty wild!
- actionfromafar 2y agoI can't let go of the suspicion that this could become some kind of military (drone or not) airframe.
- __loam 2y agoThe military has had supersonic aircraft since the 1950s, why would they care about this?
- actionfromafar 2y agoIf it's cheap to produce.
- __loam 2y agoThe F16 is already cheap, proven, integrated with everything, and available in great numbers. The Air Force also has a super sonic bomber in the B1 lancer, and a mass produced supersonic stealth fighter/bomber in the F35, which is actually pretty cost effective despite its public perception. Maybe there's a place for a large supersonic transport but the Air Force also has a lot of very heavy logistics aircraft already.
- nine_k 2y agoF-16 is a beauty, but it can't do Mach 2 for a prolonged time; it actually can't even do Mach 1.1 for a prolonged time. F-22 is a marvel, and can fly supersonic for much longer, but its cost is exorbitant, and it's not even produced any more. F-35 is more economical but it literally can fly supersonic for a minute or two with the currently installed engines.
- jameslk 2y agoBoom (YC W16) – Supersonic Passenger Airplanes: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11329286 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11329286 I remember seeing this post about Boom going through YC, 9 years ago. It's really cool to see the founder laying out what he wanted to accomplish in the comments and then seeing it happen today. Especially fun looking back at those comments saying it couldn't be done and all the haranguing over the name "Boom" :) Congrats to the Boom team! Such a great accomplishment.
- senordevnyc 2y agoI’ve been one of the skeptical commenters (under another username), not because I think it’s technically impossible, or because I hate innovation or bold bets, but because I don’t think the economics make sense, and their original timelines and cost estimates were off by an order of magnitude, at least. Aviation is littered with startups that burned through hundreds of millions over the course of a decade or two and then disappeared. And as others have pointed out, this is cool, but hardly novel, and after nine years and hundreds of millions, they’ve only accomplished the easiest part of what they need to accomplish in order to carry commercial passengers on supersonic flights. Regular passenger jets built by the most experienced companies in the world take tens of billions and decades to go from conception to flying. Boom has decades ahead of them before they’re going to reach the finish line.
- ghaff 2y agoNot that I care as much these days, but would I have liked routine Mach 2 flight that my company would have paid for when I was traveling a lot? Absolutely. But that wasn't in the cards. And the relatively fewer flights I take today for relatively longer trips in general, I mostly look at paying an extra $5K and think "I could do a lot more interesting things with that money than be more comfortable for some hours" (or hypothetically, save a few hours). And I suspect most people here would be in the same boat if it came to putting cash down on the barrel.
- kridsdale1 2y ago
- cubefox 2y agoSo apparently the successor to the XB-1 test plane, Overture, is planned to be mainly a luxury airplane, similar to Concorde, just somewhat smaller. I don't see a reason to be excited about this. Their CEO compared their test flight to the Falcon 1 rocket, the Falcon 9 precursor. But a better comparison would be Blue Origin's New Shepard, or Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipOne, because they also mainly offer luxury services. By contrast, the Falcon 9 rockets have real (non luxury) commercial and scientific value.
- cromulent 2y ago“Currently, all civil aircraft flights are prohibited from operating above Mach one speeds over land in the United States.” [1] Mike Bannister’s excellent book Concorde talks at length about how “handsomely profitable” the BA service was (as opposed to the Air France one) from 1984 until the 2000 crash and subsequent grounding put them in to a spiral where keeping enough people certified was too expensive. One part of this profitable change in 1984 was surveying their customers (who typically did not book their own tickets) to see what they thought the price was. About $5000 was the perception. It was actually $3000, so they quickly raised the price to the perceived one. https://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/apl/aee/env_policy/sfa_supersonic https://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/ap...
- sedatk 2y agoConcorde experiences one fatal crash in 27 years: entire product line gets cancelled. Meanwhile, Boeing 737 MAX... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
- jachee 2y agoThus is the might of the “Industrial” part of the Military-industrial Complex, of which Boeing is a significant part and which Concorde was not.
- vonmoltke 2y agoThe product line was effectively cancelled by the oil crisis of 1973 and severe economic issues in the mid 70s. It had nothing to do with a crash (of an airplane; there was a market crash involved).
- sedatk 2y agoI still feel like it was on the path to repopularization when it crashed, and wasn't given a second chance.
- youngtaff 2y agoThe manufacturer withdrew support for Concorde so the airlines couldn’t it anymore
- elamje 2y agoDo you think SpaceX or similar would be attacking this problem space if there was a business to be had here? Seems like a fun pet project that will lose money indefinitely, but love seeing small teams do big things!
- mrandish 2y agoI haven't looked into Boom's business plan but I assume they wouldn't have gotten this amount of money for this long without a plan to make money that at least looks plausible to investors. Products or technologies that launch new markets often look like 'bad ideas' until someone figures out a way to make it work profitably. Otherwise we'd already be doing them. Paul Graham wrote a good essay on this, saying basically a startup entrepreneur's job isn't just finding a good idea that hasn't been done, because anything that looks like a good idea is probably already being done. It's finding something that looks like a bad idea (so isn't being done) and figuring out it's not bad if you just do it a different way or add a certain innovation. Of course, most things which look like bad ideas are actually bad ideas but searching the edges for exceptions is the valuable thing entrepreneurs do (along with creating new jobs). Also, you might be surprised there are several companies selling high-end transcontinental private jets. One of the newer features of the latest generation is that they can fly at .9 to .95 mach instead of .8 to .85 mach. That shaves more than an hour off a flight. It's a relatively small market but this new generation has a waiting list of those lining up to pay ~$20M more to save a few hours per round-trip. Sure, it's a small market but it's profitable. Note: I have no idea if Boost's plan involves that market but paying more to go faster, and especially having the fastest option, is usually of interest to someone.
- RandomBacon 2y agoFor anyone else who finds the opening music infuriating, it stops at 35:50. If anyone from Boom is reading this, please never do that again. Or at least pick better music.
- verdverm 2y agoCongrats to Boom, but also r/killthecameraman
- ethagknight 2y agoSeems like there is 0 harm to have a 5 minute delay on the whole broadcast in exchange for a more polished production. Me, the viewer, will never know. I know SpaceX is doing it, its trendy to 'watch us make history in realtime', but SpaceX has a couple orders of magnitude more cash to work with.
- verdverm 2y agoI was more disappointed that the shot went out of focus as the plane crossed the barrier. I did find it rather amusing that as soon as they started lauding starlink, the feed dropped, which is what you are talking about I think Growing pains for their camera crew
- yapyap 2y agoholy wow!!
- joemi 2y agoI wonder if they have cameras to show the pilot everything they can't see when taking off/landing, since it looks like it has the same forward-visibility issues as the Concorde (without the Concorde's moveable nose -- I think?). Pretty cool though! It was disappointing that the Concorde (along with commercial supersonic flight in general) was retired around the time I was becoming an adult and could begin to contemplate maybe taking a trip on it someday.
- two_handfuls 2y agoThey do, yes. Visible in Scott Manley's video.
- bagels 2y agoGreat milestone, but still pretty far away from taking passengers as this is a scale technology demonstrator.
- bookofjoe 2y agoThis thread: https://www.pprune.org/tech-log/423988-concorde-question.html https://www.pprune.org/tech-log/423988-concorde-question.htm... which covers over a decade, contains many hundreds of entries from Concorde pilots, crew, flight engineers, cabin crew, maintenance personnel, and air traffic control recounting anecdotes and amazing things about the plane and events surrounding it. I started reading it and spent about three absorbing hours fascinated and amazed, unable to stop until it was time to go to bed. I'm going to resume when I have a few more hours, it's gold.
- chainingsolid 2y agoSomeone linked this a few days ago on another post and I've been reading it scene. It's been a very interesting read. I do recommend.
- carabiner 2y agoThere were rumors in the early 2000s of a QSP jet being shopped around by LM SkunkWorks to Wall Street. Also really strong rumors that Cessna was working on a similar jet. These projects probably died.
- hugs 2y agoI haven't seen anyone directly address it in the comments here (or in the video): was an audible sonic boom noticeable on the ground during today's test flight?
- scythe 2y agoNoticeable is certainly a way of putting it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oklahoma_City_sonic_boom_tests https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oklahoma_City_sonic_boom_tests >However, in the first 14 weeks, 147 windows in the city's two tallest buildings, the First National Bank and Liberty National Bank, were broken. If a sonic boom is "noticeable", that's one thing. But the problem is that even from cruising altitude they're shockingly loud. If the sonic boom is merely bearable, that's quite an improvement.
- cryptonector 2y agoGP was asking about this flight's sonic boom. That's the whole point of Boom: to make supersonic airplanes with small sonic booms.
- hugs 2y agoFirst confirmation I've found so far on this exact question: "XB-1 is supersonic! (No boom audible here, as expected)" - Jon Ostrower https://bsky.app/profile/jonostrower.com/post/3lgsvea6zbs2x https://bsky.app/profile/jonostrower.com/post/3lgsvea6zbs2x Raises more questions though, because there were two other chase planes. Did the other planes stay below the sound barrier at all times? Edit to add: Was no audible boom expected because of the planes themselves or because of where the people were watching from?
- nine_k 2y agoWith planes being long enough away from the demonstrator, and speed of sound relatively low (about 330 m/s), the booms of all three planes should be separate enough, e.g. a good 100 ms away from one another, even if all three went supersonic and were dragging their respective shock waves. The distance between the planes appeared to be around 30-50 m at the supersonic transition time, as much as I can estimate the size of the planes. A sound recording made under the flight path should allow to measure how many dB was the demonstrator's boom.
- spiantino 2y agoseems too small. where do the passengers go?
- josephcsible 2y agoThe plane they used in this test is a 1/3 scale version of the final product.
- justinator 2y agoCool! It's always fun to see the model at the Wings over the Rockies museum.
- ambicapter 2y agoAny idea why there was a "knock it off" call on the 2nd supersonic pass?
- Plasmoid 2y agoProbably getting close to the boundary of the allowed area
- ambicapter 2y agoThey had just started the run right after a positioning turn.
- class3shock 2y agoThis is literally a company designed to separate investors from money so aerospace engineers can have fun, which I guess is better than many startups. At the end of the day though there is no way they are designing, prototyping, getting FAA approval for, and going to manufacturing on a plane and engine by 2030. It's not unlikely, it's just not feasible which literally anyone who bothers to look at the FAA website would be able to tell. https://www.faa.gov/aircraft/air_cert/airworthiness_certification https://www.faa.gov/aircraft/air_cert/airworthiness_certific... "By comparison, the certification of a new aircraft type can take between 5 and 9 years." And that is just for the plane, engine certification is its own process and just as arduous.
- theodric 2y agoWait until they pull out their Trump card
- everfrustrated 2y agoYup. Moreso when you realise this scaled down prototype has basically nothing in common with their larger variant. So it's testing/validating nothing actually. Only makes sense as a gimmick to get the next funding round.
- idlewords 2y agoRemember that the biggest technical challenge to passenger supersonic flight is hacking Congress. People really don't like plutocrats in private jets cracking their windows and scaring their dog.
- Etheryte 2y agoOver land, sure, but over the ocean, I don't really see the problem? Just wait until you're clear enough of the coast and then floor it.
- idlewords 2y agoThat's been the status quo since Concorde. The problem is it's hard to make a supersonic jet that has decent subsonic performance, you kind of have to pick one flight regime or the other to optimize for. And the market for business jets that you can only really fly transoceanic is small.
- sfblah 2y agoI didn't see any data on the loudness of the sonic boom. Isn't an important part of the idea here to diminish that significantly?
- blktiger 2y agoI think you are confusing Boom with NASA’s QUESST project. https://www.nasa.gov/mission/quesst/ https://www.nasa.gov/mission/quesst/
- ballooney 2y agoThe GP isn’t, a major part of Boom’s initial PR was that they’d enable domestic supersonic by solving the sonic boom issue through technology. Over the years aviation watchers have suggested they might have failed at that and are looking to solve it through spending VC money on lobbyists to allow noisy supersonic overflights.
- ungreased0675 2y agoDoes Boom have a public roadmap? How much of a jump is it between building a fighter jet clone and building a passenger sized aircraft? I suspect it’s a massive jump. How much of the technology and testing is transferable? I also suspect not much. They’re going to spend an immense amount of money testing this aircraft, will it get them closer to passenger service as a result?
- macinjosh 2y agoIn the Q&A at the end of the video the CEO said: - Symphony engine being produced by EOY '25 - 3 years to have first full size Overture roll off the line - About 4 years to have it in the air for first time.
- mrguyorama 2y agoThere's zero chance they can make a brand new, high output jet engine in one year, when zero of the market leaders want their business. Are they going to build the engines themselves? Ask China how well that works even when have all the original engineering documentation. Building a jet engine is not a technical or knowledge or willpower or anything like that challenge. It is a pure engineering challenge. It's about building and iterating new engines hundreds of times until you've made enough iterations that things stop melting in corner cases. It's about finding out, the hard way, every single way your assembly could possibly fail, melt, explode, wear too fast, or otherwise fail. Understand that making modern engines often requires significant innovation in non-destructive testing to ensure the actual parts you are buying/making are up to spec. Understand that Russia has a portion of decades of experience building, designing, and INNOVATING in jet engines and still struggles to build modern jet engines. Understand that China struggles to produce economical modern jet engines despite massive funding, huge incentive, and literal national security concerns. The C19 jetliner currently uses an American engine. Empirically, building modern jet engines seems HARDER than building modern rocket engines! It seems to require maintaining literal decades of raw engineering experience and patience, and now scale all that effort to a company that in 9 years has been told by all existing engine manufacturers "Nope, we won't make a profit on this plan", and has instead spent their time building a single demo plane that does not demonstrate any experience in building engines.
- Animats 2y agoIt's nice, but it's basically Scaled Composites, Rutan's old company, building a supersonic fighter plane sized aircraft. That's what Scaled Composites does - build little airplanes as test vehicles. Not always little; they built Stratolaunch. There have been many supersonic bizjet projects.[1] Spike [2] seems to be the only one other than Boom still alive. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supersonic_business_jet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supersonic_business_jet [2] https://www.spikeaerospace.com/ https://www.spikeaerospace.com/
- urig 2y ago[flagged]
- ant6n 2y ago> Until then, bare in mind that most of the planet can't afford a plane ticket, nevermind the supersonic bit. And thats a good thing. The world can’t afford the carbon (equivalent) emissions of many people flying supersonic.
- timsneath 2y agoIt used to be that Hacker News was a place for the inventors, the technologists, and the futurists. What happened to our optimism and excitement for firsts? Airfares have dropped precipitously over the last fifty years: https://simpleflying.com/50-years-airfares/ https://simpleflying.com/50-years-airfares/, and it's quite possible that the trend will continue. Conversely, the speed of commercial flight has barely changed over that time (with the exception of longer flights reducing stops). Boom is innovating in this area and bringing supersonic flight within reach again -- I for one think that's something to be celebrated.
- jryle70 2y ago> most of the planet can't afford a plane ticket, nevermind the supersonic bit. Where did you get that idea from? airlines transported 4.4 billions of passengers in 2023 and 5 billions in 2024 [0]. No matter how you slide those figures, it represents more than just a minority of world population. > Let me know when this proves economically viable for low cost airfare Since when this is the goal of commercial supersonic travel? [0] - https://atag.org/facts-figures https://atag.org/facts-figures
- fnord77 2y agoThey claim this was the first 100% civil aircraft to go supersonic. The Concorde wasn't a civil aircraft? Also in the 60s a DC-8 was made to go faster than Mach 1
- tiffanyh 2y ago> Boom revealed the final production design of Overture, which is slated to roll out in 2025 and carry its first passengers by 2029. How is Boom tracking to their timelines? https://news.aa.com/news/news-details/2022/American-Airlines-Announces-Agreement-to-Purchase-Boom-Supersonic-Overture-Aircraft-Places-Deposit-on-20-Overtures-FLT-08/ https://news.aa.com/news/news-details/2022/American-Airlines...
- johncalvinyoung 2y agoThey haven't updated those predictions publicly in a little while. Definitely a huge setback from Rolls-Royce dropping out, and putting together the coalition that's developing the Symphony engine. Latest I've seen on Twitter is Blake Scholl stating the first full-size engine core should be making thrust by end of 2025. I'm guessing rollout realistically is more like 2029-2030... but even that is a tall order. Unless, of course, they're a lot farther ahead on Overture development generally than they've revealed.
- aussieguy1234 2y agoI was expecting to see something Concorde scale, but I guess a private jet is a start.
- josefrichter 2y agoIs the word aircraft feminine? They keep saying “she” and it sounds weird.
- throwaway314155 2y agoIt's a thing. You can selectively gender a creation or just a highly praised piece of property (e.g. boats). It implies fondness, respect and pride.
- davedx 2y agoIt's from when the English language had gendered nouns, which of course predates aircraft; I think aircraft being female was a carry-over from boats and ships being female
- nelox 2y agoA wonderful achievement, but the camera operator really should know how to focus for the money shot.
- fryd_w 2y agoBoom’s real challenge isn’t just showing they can go supersonic—it’s designing an engine and airframe combo that can operate at scale, hit reasonable ticket prices, and address stricter environmental policies than Concorde ever faced. The XB-1 proves they’re capable of building a small supersonic jet, but the gap between a funded prototype and a viable passenger fleet is enormous. Unless they can tackle those regulatory hurdles (especially around overland noise), keep operating costs competitive, and deliver a new engine that supports their performance claims, we’re still not much closer to a reliable Mach-plus commercial service than we were in the 1970s. It’s progress, but we shouldn’t confuse a cool proof-of-concept with a profitable flight network. Any case - truly impressed by their persistance. Pushing something for such a long time despite being so far from any commercial traction feels insance to me.
- engineer_22 2y ago> Pushing something for such a long time despite being so far from any commercial traction feels insance to me. They must have something that you ain't got...
- 1970-01-01 2y ago>hit reasonable ticket prices There's much more to this. Their biggest competition may be cheaper Meta headsets paired via Starlink. Why travel as fast as possible when you can simply be there instantly for a fraction of the cost?
- CrI0gen 2y ago
- Gravityloss 2y agoGood achievement. Also really good PR from them. If this was a team from say Switzerland it wouldn't be on every front page.
- gadders 2y agoSo cool to see this. I have forever been jealous of a colleague in the 90s that got bumped off a business flight, put on the next available Concorde flight a couple of hours later, and still arrived earlier than his original flight.
- ginkgotree 2y agoThese guys were in my S16 batch. I have worked Aerospace the last 6 years, and it is AWESOME to see this accomplishment! Surpassing Mach is a massive challenge for a crewed aircraft. Big win for the team, congratulations
- dopamean 2y agoNothing I’ve read or heard has made me believe there’s a market for supersonic airliner. This is very cool for sure but I don’t know how they’ll ever sell a full size passenger jet. I guess I’ll believe it when I see it.
- Schiendelman 2y agoHere's a quick validation of how well you're estimating the market: Without looking it up, how many commercial planes do you think are in the air right now?
- dopamean 2y agoOver the US during the day at any moment I'd say at least 5,000. Probably not more than 10? Not sure about the rest of the world. For Europe I'd guess probably half of that. Not sure about Asia, SA, and Africa though. I wonder how many routes there are that would actually be well served by supersonic aircraft.
- Schiendelman 2y agoYou're about right - 10k worldwide. So you've got at least 1000 business class seats full at any given time around the world. In terms of routes that Boom's proposed plane can serve, you've got at bare minimum New York to London and Seattle to Tokyo, and lots of connections between Asian capitals where there's much less noise regulation and lots of money. I think their point is that if they can keep noise down, they will be successful operating long haul routes within NA, like LA to New York, San Francisco to New York, Seattle to New York, probably New York to Miami, LA to Toronto. My guess is that they end up with maintenance in Seattle, New York, Los Angeles.