American Airlines puts down deposit on Boom Overture Aircraft

Just trying to grab headlines. Nothing to see here.
 
Cap'n Jack said:
United Airlines also bought into these, too.
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Commercial carriers investing in early research & development is nothing new. Some of that R&D might not pay off...that is also nothing new.

Nauga,
who has been a beneficiary
 
Nobody has bought any. The aircraft is a pipe dream and the engines are vaporware. They just started over with a complete redesign and switched from 3 to 4 engines, dropped the speed plus gave up flying supersonic over land.
 
 
Yeah, I don't think they even have a flying prototype. A pity, they claim their technology can reduce the sonic boom to something less than window rattling. But if you can't get US or European overflights the ship isn't that useful really.
 
steingar said:
Yeah, I don't think they even have a flying prototype. A pity, they claim their technology can reduce the sonic boom to something less than window rattling. But if you can't get US or European overflights the ship isn't that useful really.
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I don't quite get the issue. 95% of the trip from NYC/DC to London/Paris and vice versa is over the Atlantic. Can't they just wait til over water to put the hammer down? Same from SF/LA to Japan, China, etc.
 
Ed Haywood said:
I don't quite get the issue. 95% of the trip from NYC/DC to London/Paris and vice versa is over the Atlantic. Can't they just wait til over water to put the hammer down? Same from SF/LA to Japan, China, etc.
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There isn't an issue. Someone just not thinking things through or even reading the article before posting. Especially since the article said:

Overture is being designed to carry 65 to 80 passengers at Mach 1.7 over water
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And examples they gave were Miami ==> London and LA ==> Hawaii. This is why one doesn't try to land at cruise speed. Imagine the damage from the prop strike. (Yes, I know, no props on this)
 
How many times recently have we seen some new upstart company, with a fancy artist rendition of an aircraft, making all kinds of unrealistic claims about cost, performance, and capability? This is what happens when an aspiring entrepreneur thinks they can fundraise and buy their way into engineering and certifying an aircraft, with no real concept of physics or engineering.
 
midwestpa24 said:
How many times recently have we seen some new upstart company, with a fancy artist rendition of an aircraft, making all kinds of unrealistic claims about cost, performance, and capability? This is what happens when an aspiring entrepreneur thinks they can fundraise and buy their way into engineering and certifying an aircraft, with no real concept of physics or engineering.
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Well, it's not bad work if you can perpetuate it for 8-10 years at a time before you have to close up shop and start a new "amazing prototype". You could make a career without ever having to produce a working aircraft, lol.
 
Some people have a vivid imagination and the ability to convince people to join them.can’t imagine what the price of a ticket would be.
 
Ed Haywood said:
I don't quite get the issue. 95% of the trip from NYC/DC to London/Paris and vice versa is over the Atlantic. Can't they just wait til over water to put the hammer down? Same from SF/LA to Japan, China, etc.
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95% of the route is not generally over water to Europe. Depending on the winds and track placement a decent portion of the route might be overland. Departures from the SE often go right over NYC and stay over land heading up to Pick up the track. Coast in is often over the UK or Ireland and after that there is not enough space to accelerate over the North Sea or channel. Many times you are routed up over Iceland and Greenland for routes to the Western US. I doubt they want booms over hundreds of glaciers.
 
I tell you what! It's easier for me to get excited about this than an electric Beaver.

The airliner landscape is pretty boring. Virtually everything now is some A320/737 variant.. and if not then some "tube with wings and two engines hanging off it." Growing up trips to the airport were always fun, between 727, L1011, DC-10, F-100, MD-80, 747, A340, there were some great diversity out there.
 
It will happen eventually but it'll take time and most of us might not be around when something like this will become reality. However, these kind of startups have to exist and should be supported, especially by large corporations, fail 1,000s of times, learn from it and eventually hit it. This is how innovation happens, not just in aviation, but pretty much any industry. I see startups in my industry (music/tech) popping up all the time saying they'll change we track copyright and royalty payments through blockchain THIS AUGUST. It ain't gonna happen this August no matter how hard you try. The tech isn't there yet, the major gatekeepers (U.S. gov't, ASCAP, etc.) aren't there yet, etc. But, by doing small projects in the space, relevant to the industry, by having an NFT hype and crypto hype, more and more people get to know the technology, the tech is being improved, researched, further developed because someone is making money with it, hence there is incentive to work on it and in 20, 30, maybe 40 years, chances are that we will use blockchain as the primary way to track copyright and music royalties. Coming back to aviation, this airplane might be a pipe dream right now but AA and others putting down a "deposit" for the plane gives enough incentive to keep on developing the plane. This one might fail, never make it to the skies. So what, AA is going to write off the deposits, peanuts for them anyways but mistakes were made, lessons learned and the next startup is not going to make those same mistakes next time around and in 50 years, 100 years or whenever, it could well become a reality. Self driving cars, unlimited music for $9.99 per month, VR, AI, hybrid cars, worthwhile electric cars, heck even modern jets as we know them today - these were all pipe dreams back when.
 
The prototype of the SR-71 flew more than 60 years ago. 60. I know our aerospace folks aren't as smart as they were in the 60's, nor are any current business people, but I'd like to think it's at least possible that we'll be able to do SOMETHING better in the 21st century than the 20th. I know, that's a stretch.

I mean otherwise those wonderful Amish people we drive by aren't our past, but our future.
 
It’s ok. We’re living through the end of the aviation / space tech cycle (the point where it costs to much to push the envelope of the physics any further), which sucks, but rejoice that we’re still in the infancy of the virtual world. You know, where nobody actually goes outside and does anything, but you can do anything you want virtually . . . Unless the thought police move faster and ban stuff in the virtual world faster than you can think it up. Never mind, now I’m depressed.
 
We used to think Elon Musk was crazy.

Well, he might still be crazy, but he's sold over 3,000,000 EVs, has landed over 135 orbital class boosters, and is providing fast, affordable satellite internet to remote areas from low-earth orbit.

Will the Boom Overture ever fly in revenue service? I have no idea. But I'm glad they're going to try.
 
This list is odd:

“Suppliers and partners collaborating with Boom on the Overture program include Collins Aerospace, Eaton, Safran Landing Systems, Rolls-Royce, the United States Air Force, American Express, Climeworks, and AWS.”

Okay, I get the first four - they are suppliers. But what do the USAF, AMEX, and Amazon Web Services have to do with getting a new airliner started?
 
Most long haul trips involve at least one layover, possibly two. By the time you add the time spent on TSA lines, customs & immigration, parking etc.. increasing the cruise speed of one leg of that journey would not amount to much.
 
NoHeat said:
Okay, I get the first four - they are suppliers. But what do the USAF, AMEX, and Amazon Web Services have to do with getting a new airliner started?
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Computational fluid dynamics simulations on AWS are more efficient than building physical models for wind tunnel testing. Boom is also doing wind tunnel testing, but only after likely running many iterations via CFD first.

Their USAF partnership was previously announced and the Amex partnership is largely joint marketing.
 
midwestpa24 said:
How many times recently have we seen some new upstart company, with a fancy artist rendition of an aircraft, making all kinds of unrealistic claims about cost, performance, and capability? This is what happens when an aspiring entrepreneur thinks they can fundraise and buy their way into engineering and certifying an aircraft, with no real concept of physics or engineering.
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The head of engineering at Boom has prior experience leading the certification of the Gulfstream G650 and other Gulfstream models.
 
Cocorde never made any money despite its eye-watering ticket prices. When you exclude every domestic route everywhere it gets into a niche where its harder to make financial sense.
 
Jeff767 said:
95% of the route is not generally over water to Europe. Depending on the winds and track placement a decent portion of the route might be overland. Departures from the SE often go right over NYC and stay over land heading up to Pick up the track. Coast in is often over the UK or Ireland and after that there is not enough space to accelerate over the North Sea or channel. Many times you are routed up over Iceland and Greenland for routes to the Western US. I doubt they want booms over hundreds of glaciers.
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They can easily offset the track to be more over water. Just last week I flew CDG - IAD and it was more southern track that was overwater from coast out from France to coast in over mid NJ.
 
sarangan said:
Most long haul trips involve at least one layover, possibly two. By the time you add the time spent on TSA lines, customs & immigration, parking etc.. increasing the cruise speed of one leg of that journey would not amount to much.
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Uh, no.

And passengers on something like this will be treated as super premium passengers, with access to short priority lines for those things. Security might be at some stops, but customs and immigration is only upon final arrival (or arrival into EU). Same with baggage (see above about premium handling) and parking.
 
Salty said:
It’s ok. We’re living through the end of the aviation / space tech cycle (the point where it costs to much to push the envelope of the physics any further), which sucks, but rejoice that we’re still in the infancy of the virtual world. You know, where nobody actually goes outside and does anything, but you can do anything you want virtually . . . Unless the thought police move faster and ban stuff in the virtual world faster than you can think it up. Never mind, now I’m depressed.
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“We regret to inform you that your neighborhood has been destroyed by a virtual bomb in a simulated terrorist attack. Please burn your house and report to an authorized disintegration chamber within 24 hours.”
 
Maybe the Raptor dude went to work at Boom ;)
 
sarangan said:
Most long haul trips involve at least one layover, possibly two. By the time you add the time spent on TSA lines, customs & immigration, parking etc.. increasing the cruise speed of one leg of that journey would not amount to much.
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Depends if you live in a hub. I can get almost anywhere in the world non stop out of JFK
 
steingar said:
Cocorde never made any money despite its eye-watering ticket prices.
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I've seen a lot of contradictory information on this topic. Best I can figure out, Concorde was operationally profitable for both BA and AF.

Developmental costs were never recovered because only twenty were built; fourteen for revenue service. No other aircraft could have been profitable with only fourteen put in revenue service, either.
 
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