Smaller than Concorde

Slower than Concorde

Later than Concorde

Wow the USA is really excelling.

MAGA MAGA MAGA

And only 20% of the range - assuming that it achieves the range in the brochure AND assuming a brand new supersonic aircraft gets the same ETOPS rating from the FAA as a 787 - it might just about be allowed to fly across the Gulf of Mexico Cuba America

and they even had to use a French-made Mirage F1 as chase-plane. Or is that an homage ?

Do we get petty here in the UK and stop it from going supersonic close to our shores like the is did to Concorde?

Of course! NIMBY is not US-only any more. Maybe, in my life time, we will see supersonic aircrafts which don't boom (lowercase b here). Technique, math and tests already proved it works, the rest is a question of money and possibly politics.

It has a range of <1000nm so to reach our shores they would need to install their own airbases in Canada, Greenland and Iceland

Well, they are all US territories now. C'mon as if he doesn't want Iceland as well now. Make cheap burgers great again!

He gets confused and orders the invasion of Aldi

> He gets confused and orders the invasion of Aldi

But that's forgivable as it's only a Lidl mistake

> He gets confused and orders the invasion of Aldi

And Aldi does what Aldi does: Serve all customers!

Range of less than a thousand nanometres?

Might need a few more refuelling stops just to get to Canada!

1000 nm (nano metres)? That would require 192 million airbases within the length of one XB-1.

Methinks they meant either nmi or NM, either of which stand for Nautical Miles. However, nm is used (in error) by a surprising number of sources to mean Nautical Miles.....

Suspect the easiest way to achieve that will be to require it to land at a UK airport as a condition of using UK airspace. Naturally, like the Americans did initially that airport probably needs to be a bit out of the way and not Heathrow.

Of course the real question is not "Did it do it" but "how loud was it while doing it" ?

In theory less thrust spent making noise --> more thrust pushing it along --> smaller engines on the real thing.

BTW the Firebee II drones over Vietnam were supersonic with a thrust level ~50% of launch weight (from a wing pylon on a Hercules) excluding a big-ass rocket booster to punch them through the sound barrier first.

Not an option for a viable commercial biz jet.

The joker in the pack for all of these concepts is the engine.

Time will tell if Boom can sort out a viable unit. The trouble is AFAIK no one makes pure large(ish) turbojets any more, even those on the old Phantoms and Ardvarks were low bypass ratio turbofans.

If successful they will have a true USP. X-->Y at > M1 with passenger > 1. Nothing exists in this space at this time.

Has someone done the math on this? Assuming they get their 80 passenger version up and running, what price a ticket to make this economically viable? That's assuming it's even environmentally accepted as a means of transport: it'll be a tough assignment for a PR company to 'sell' this in many countries.

From memory it took hypergalactic accounting to make Concorde profitable. And that was only by "forgetting" the untold billions spent on R&D.

A little like claiming Apollo 11 cost "a few million" to get to the moon by doing the same.

Let's not fool ourselves here. If this turns a profit, it will be because the Musks of this world are paying $100,000 a ticket.

The Olympus engines used by Concorde were also meant for the RAF's supersonic TSR-2 military aircraft, which got canned by the British Government father day in favour of the USA's F-111 (IIRC). They had a really expensive engine with nothing to put to on...

"The TSR-2 was to be powered by two Bristol-Siddeley Olympus reheated turbojets, advanced variants of those used in the Avro Vulcan. The Olympus would be further developed and would power the supersonic Concorde."

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BAC_TSR-2

"And that was only by "forgetting" the untold billions spent on R&D."

When working on a project that leads to a product/service, one has to analyze two things separately. There's the R&D and then there's the incremental cost of the product. With the Apollo program, there was a tremendous amount of basic research done (science) to be able to do the engineering. That science may not have wound up in the finished product, but still has an enormous amount of value on its own. Of course, there needs to be an ROI on the R&D, but that's different than the costing for the other half. It can even come to pass that the R&D leads to something that pays for all of it that is different than the intended product. The product still needs to earn a profit to keep doing it.

>That's assuming it's even environmentally accepted as a means of transport:

That's it's big advantage - by using more fuel you demonstrate that you aren't one of these woke liberal hippies. It's the airborne equivalent of rolling coal.

Assuming they get their 80 passenger version up and running, what price a ticket to make this economically viable?

Boom claims the ticket costs will be at the same level as current business class, so ~$5000 for a transatlantic crossing. Time will tell...

Only $5000... that's great if you don't mind only making it about a 3rd of the way across the Atlantic in their plane...

The low passenger count never gets proper attention in any Boom Overture article - journalism died a long time ago and most news today is just lress releases or propaganda - even the most obvious or basic who-what-where-when-why-how questions never get asked nor answered.

While I don't understand why the Overture is designed for only ~80 instead of 300-400, the fact that it has more than 100 orders and the military sniffing around for a potential reaction force version, makes me hold back my criticism - obviously the airlines know what will work, right? And it's probably a given that the return of supersonic flight will still not include the average flyer.

> and the military sniffing around for a potential reaction force version

60 passengers that’s what 6~10 tonnes of payload, thinking of the Vulcan, that’s probably interchangeable with a bomb bay… shame about the range…

> Concorde did indeed require billions of dollars in government funding

No it didn't. It required £1.5 – 2.1 billion in Pounds Sterling and Francs, no smelly dollars involved.

With the arrival of the information and internet, the need for high speed trans-Atlantic crossings is way down. I never did get to fly on Concorde, but it was a bucket list item strictly for fun, not business. There's a big question surrounding whether there's enough people going for fun can support such a venture. If they don't fly everyday, it doesn't work well for business since the reason to use it would be to get somebody a long distance quickly. If that's not for a couple of days, they might as well go right away on something slower. Just like me, taking a supersonic flight might be a bucket list item for many and once it's crossed off, they'd be unlikely to go again.

The closest I ever got to Concorde was when my flight was next in line to take off at Heathrow. Even inside our MD80, the noise as Concorde opened up her engines to take off was incredible. I was lucky enough to be on the correct side of the aeroplane to watch the take off as well.

The flight test was with a single seat test aircraft. Still a long way from a certified plane that can take passengers.

"that made a safe and successful first supersonic flight possible."

How very old fashioned.

Why is there so much negativity on that here? Jokes fine, but it is a great achievement. And great first step.

Concorde went out of usability, for one it was never profitable, and it was not safe enough. Add fuel prices and a few new technical requirements in there and you end up with a plane which was fine as a technical demonstration for two decades.

Now they go again, with todays tech, with better fuel economy, with less noise too. The sonic boom of the XB-1 seems to be less than others, including Concorde, maybe they can get is even lower with future versions.

All that negativity here is, actually, unamerican. Even as a German I find this strange, 'cause 'muricans are definitely on the "You have this idea? Looks good! Great! Go for it! I hope it will be successful!" side.

Or.... Is this just envy from non-muricans? (<- that will trigger tons of down votes, if not the first sentence triggered it already...)

> Concorde went out of usability, for one it was never profitable, and it was not safe enough.

Until the Paris incident, which sealed its fate, Concorde had an excellent safety record.

Concorde was operationally highly profitable, but like all things, it was wearing out and maintenance and replacement costs were going to exceed profits…

Yes it is a scientific and engineering achievement to design an airframe (and engines) that reduces noise and increase efficiency, however, this is only a single seater version, Concorde from the outset was designed to carry 92 to 128 passengers (depending on seating configurations). Hence it is too early to say whether this will be significantly more fuel efficient and quieter. It is also too early to say what it will require operationally, which may preclude it from using many airports.