Boom Supersonic to break sound barrier during historic test flight today

https://www.space.com/space-exploration/tech/boom-supersonic-to-break-sound-barrier-during-historic-test-flight-today-watch-live

by bemmu • 1 year ago

75 120 1 year ago

space.com

mzs• 1 year ago

https://boomsupersonic.com/

https://www.youtube.com/live/-qisIViAHwI

kachapopopow24• 1 year ago

[flagged]

nom• 1 year ago

A 2-3 hour reduction in flight time is appealing for approximately everyone who needs to fly.

kachapopopow24• 1 year ago

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.

short_sells_poo2• 1 year ago

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.

ceejayoz2• 1 year ago

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.

ghc4• 1 year ago

the entire premise of 2-3 hour faster flights over the atlantic is just not that appealing

Clearly you don't have kids.

kachapopopow24• 1 year ago

[flagged]

stetrain5• 1 year ago

Or aren't interested in buying $10k+ tickets for their kids. For most people this would simply not be an option.

bongodongobob3• 1 year ago

Have you done an 8 hour flight in economy? It's absolutely miserable. Noise pollution over the Atlantic affects literally noone.

kachapopopow24• 1 year ago

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.

Peanuts99• 1 year ago

It likely has an affect on whales and other marine animals as shown by a number of studies previously.

mmustapic4• 1 year ago

You can pay for business or first class. Supersonic flights won’t be cheaper.

RetpolineDrama• 1 year ago

Are you lost? Do you know where you are?

jack_riminton• 1 year ago

This is just luddism out of envy

kachapopopow24• 1 year ago

I guess you've missed the hint.

cnlevy• 1 year ago

I just love spending time in rush hour traffic \s

kachapopopow24• 1 year ago

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).

stetrain5• 1 year ago

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.

ipdashc3• 1 year ago

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.

kachapopopow24• 1 year ago

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*.

JumpCrisscross14• 1 year ago

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?

rob743• 1 year ago

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.

rqtwteye2• 1 year ago

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.

kachapopopow24• 1 year ago

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.

JumpCrisscross14• 1 year ago

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

kachapopopow24• 1 year ago

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.

crazygringo• 1 year ago

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.

kachapopopow24• 1 year ago

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.

nradov4• 1 year ago

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.

kachapopopow24• 1 year ago

'commercial' military planes - no, prototypes - yes.

JumpCrisscross14• 1 year ago

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

agloe_dreams• 1 year ago

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.

kachapopopow24• 1 year ago

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.

notahacker2• 1 year ago

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

mguerville• 1 year ago

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.

jrexilius• 1 year ago

I really hope they are successful. So sad not to have this option for ocean crossing flights.

HeatrayEnjoyer• 1 year ago

It's not going to be an option, tickets will be tens of thousands of dollars

JumpCrisscross14• 1 year ago

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...

rqtwteye2• 1 year ago

In what way will this be better than the Concorde? Definitely not cheaper.

JumpCrisscross14• 1 year ago

Definitely not cheaper

Why?

nradov4• 1 year ago

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.

phkahler• 1 year ago

> 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.

pfdietz• 1 year ago

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")

cozzyd• 1 year ago

That must be mistaken, it is a violation of betteridge's law

tjpnz2• 1 year ago

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.

jauntywundrkind2• 1 year ago

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?"

tjpnz2• 1 year ago

On the plus side you might only need to replace your smashed windows on windy days.

UniverseHacker• 1 year ago

A literal case of “move fast and break things”

everybodyknows• 1 year ago

RTF-Website. The intention is to remain subsonic over land:

https://boomsupersonic.com/overture

DanielHB2• 1 year ago

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.

kachapopopow24• 1 year ago

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.

tstrimple• 1 year ago

Essentially supercavitation in the air?

zhoujianfu• 1 year ago

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. :/

tiahura2• 1 year ago

What’s Boom’s track record on accurately predicting final ticket prices?

DanielHB2• 1 year ago

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.

ls612• 1 year ago

CONUS -> Honolulu -> East Asia or Australia will be a very viable setup. Especially if the refueling stop in Hawaii is well optimized for speed.

ChrisArchitect• 1 year ago

The only photo of the Concorde flying at supersonic speed

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42834341

tiahura2• 1 year ago

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?

dang• 1 year ago

Next thread in sequence:

Boom XB-1 First Supersonic Flight [video] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42853633 - Jan 2025 (79 comments)

crowcroft• 1 year ago

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?

matheweis• 1 year ago

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-...

Boom Supersonic to break sound barrier during historic test flight today

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