Supersonic BOOM

Screw that $250,000 quicky into space and back to where you started.
Four hours to almost anywhere on earth for 100 bucks. That would be awesome.

Brek said:

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Back at ya.

i hope they succeed. been watching their videos for a while now.

Whatever happened to the Concord ??

I thought that was going to be all the shit.

still not gonna be permitted to fly over land any faster than a 737 or 320. Soooo....
Not much use. Concord never made any money for anyone and the things that made it impractical haven't changed. No one is going to let you go BOOM over their house multiple times a day. Or even once in a while.
Also the current business model of large passenger carriers doesn't even have room to fly supers, hence the demise of the 380. At least Boeing had the foresight to recognize that cargo would be the way supers made money and made every 747 convertible to freight cheap and easy.
No place to fly it, no reason to buy it.


Even so, it'd be cool to reduce travel times significantly. Flying anywhere is like riding a city bus except you can't bail midway and catch the next one to get away from the smell for a while.
I do like traveling by train when possible, I can walk around, hang out in private, and there's a bar. Hell, if you're nice to your car attendant they have access to the booze and will hook you up.

Jymbopalyse said:

Whatever happened to the Concord ??

I thought that was going to be all the shit.

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Progress?

Jymbopalyse said:

Whatever happened to the Concord ??

I thought that was going to be all the shit.

Click to expand...

It was, until it wasn't.
Too costly, complaints of noise... pretty much restricted it to oversea flights, so it never carried the volume needed to get the pricing to reasonable levels.
Impractical for short hops, but couldn't be used for routes such as from the UK to Hong Kong, which would have made it a solid platform.

Jymbopalyse said:

Whatever happened to the Concord ??

I thought that was going to be all the shit.

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reality hit:
rising fuel costs
128 passenger max
extremely limited routes
no way to turn a profit

The whole concord program was a money pit from day one.

I got to go inside a Concord at the Museum of Flight in Seattle. It was like a metal cigar tube with seats. I'll pass on this one if it is anything like that.

I will wait for this

Jymbopalyse said:

Whatever happened to the Concord ??

I thought that was going to be all the shit.

Click to expand...

It does seem like we've gone backwards in commercial travel capabilities. I thought back in the un-iconic 90's, the Concorde was just the beginning. Surely by 2021, every jet would be at least as fast as the Concorde. Instead what happened since then is you have to wear flip flops in the airport and TSA has to X-Ray your butthole, you get charged nearly the price of another ticket just to bring a bag with you, your in flight snack has been reduced to 9 peanuts and a 4 ounce pour of Coke, and it takes as long, if not longer to fly anywhere than it did 30 years ago. WTF?

PeteK said:

It does seem like we've gone backwards in commercial travel capabilities. I thought back in the un-iconic 90's, the Concorde was just the beginning. Surely by 2021, every jet would be at least as fast as the Concorde. Instead what happened since then is you have to wear flip flops in the airport and TSA has to X-Ray your butthole, you get charged nearly the price of another ticket just to bring a bag with you, your in flight snack has been reduced to 9 peanuts and a 4 ounce pour of Coke, and it takes as long, if not longer to fly anywhere than it did 30 years ago. WTF?

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I agree.

fett said:

I got to go inside a Concord at the Museum of Flight in Seattle. It was like a metal cigar tube with seats. I'll pass on this one if it is anything like that.

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yup. That thing is ridiculous. I'm 5'8" and my head was damn near brushing the roof. My kid Nathan who was 6'10" at the time stepped in, laughed, said "fuck this" and headed back down the stairs. People think there's no legroom on a 737 or 320? Nah, bro. You got acres of room on those compared to concord. And the seats are something like 7/8 the size of standard steerage seats as well. No thanks. Whoever thought that was luxury travel had their head up their ass.
And never ever forget, Lucas Electric was a British subcontractor of BAC.

CB91710 said:

It was, until it wasn't.
Too costly, complaints of noise... pretty much restricted it to oversea flights, so it never carried the volume needed to get the pricing to reasonable levels.
Impractical for short hops, but couldn't be used for routes such as from the UK to Hong Kong, which would have made it a solid platform.

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The folks at Boom think they have many of the problems associated with the Concorde sussed. The shape and wing design promises a much quieter sonic boom. The engines and fuselage material promise much better fuel economy and much quieter performance with no afterburners.

I don't know if they're correct, but they already have preorders and commitments if they get it right.

cjpeck said:

reality hit:
rising fuel costs

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Yep
The SST first flew in 1969... we were paying maybe $0.35/gallon for gas.
It didn't go into service until after the first "energy crisis", and the poor economy of the late 70s, and fuel cost spike in 1980 didn't help matters.

KSG_Standard said:

The folks at Boom think they have many of the problems associated with the Concorde sussed. The shape and wing design promises a much quieter sonic boom. The engines and fuselage material promise much better fuel economy and much quieter performance with no afterburners.

I don't know if they're correct, but they already have preorders and commitments if they get it right.

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Oh absolutely.
Engine tech has really progressed a LOT since the smoky noisemakers of the early 70s (I still don't know how well flight crews will accept a 4-engine variant of the B52 to keep it flying another 50 years).
But a sonic boom is a sonic boom... no matter how gentle.
Living in SoCal 60 or so miles from Edwards, it was a regular thing growing up... Sometimes a loud crack, but usually we'd just hear the windows "thud"

But people won't tolerate that. They'll crank their subwoofers and piss off everyone for 5 houses, but let someone set off a firecracker 8 blocks away and they light up Facebook, Ring, and Nextdoor.

It's about time they replaced the Concorde