When Concorde was first in the market the citizenry of the world had to work to get their government’s to pay attention to their environmental concerns. In this decade environmental concerns are at the forefront of governments and a lot of consumers.

I just can’t see a lot of jurisdictions saying ‘ok’ to the occasional sonic boom.

SEPilot : 50 billion is probably pessimistic, but 5 billion is a given, 10 billion very probable, and 15-20 billion would surprise noone.

So far the company doesn't have 1 billion, and 150 employees.

Wingtips56 : the windows were small in case one failed and caused a depressurisation. Since Concorde flew at FL600 having a big hole opening suddenly would be catastrophic.

LAX772LR : money is needed now not at EIS.

Revelation wrote:

Aesma wrote:

Heinkel wrote:

Boom is far, far away from having a "prototype" flying soon. Correct me, if I'm worng, but what I understand is, that they are building a scaled down (1/3 scale?) experimental demonstrator. That is far, far away from what we usually call a "prototype". It is a flyable scale model, same what is known as a "concept car" in the automotive industry.

Technology testbed I would say.

Technology testbed is a good start, but this one doesn't even have the same engine tech needed by the final product.

I'd go with proof of concept, since the only thing it would prove is the concept itself, not the actual tech to be used by the product.

Some of the tech should be proven with the scale model, otherwise it would be useless. Design tools for example. Materials.

Prost wrote:

When Concorde was first in the market the citizenry of the world had to work to get their government’s to pay attention to their environmental concerns. In this decade environmental concerns are at the forefront of governments and a lot of consumers.

I just can’t see a lot of jurisdictions saying ‘ok’ to the occasional sonic boom.

This isn't about sonic boom, as above the Boom CEO said they are not trying to solve that problem, they will not go supersonic over land.

It's more about the fact they have to burn a lot more fuel per seat to go supersonic, something that will never change.

SEPilot wrote:

The physics of supersonic flight haven’t changed. And the physics dictate the economics. At the end it cost around $12,000 for a round trip fare crossing the Atlantic on Concorde, as opposed to maybe $3,000 first class. And the end result was that both BA and AF were unable to find enough paying customers to sustain service, which is what killed it. Yes, there are always people able and willing to pay whatever it costs to get there faster, but whether or not there are enough to make it economically viable is the question. And remember, the planes themselves were given to AF and BA for free, with all development and manufacturing costs paid for by the British and French governments. That will definitely not be the case here. I have serious doubts that this venture will survive serious economic examination..

(You may see a partial version of this post above, issues with posting/editing/time limits on the latter)

Can we please bury these myths? As I mentioned before, each of the five original frames was 20% more than a 747 in 1972.
Not free. Not including development costs either, that was expected with further sales, at least that was the idea.
Many technologies of that era were helped along by government, the US was far from innocent of this, giving via research with the DoD, NASA etc, help in developing high bypass fans and wide body airframes for the C-X, Lockheed and GE won with the C-5, Boeing reaped the rewards with the 747, which to give them all due credit, was gutsy, coming out of losing the C-X competition now trying this was risky for them.

Ironically, the one Boeing did win, which had some 95% funding from the US Government, the B2707 SST, which was overambitious though how the expectation of SST's becoming widespread affected the design of the 747, since it was thought they would mostly be relegated to cargo hauling by then, is well known.

BA and AF never made money off them? So why did BA, when approaching Privatisation in the 1980's, with the residual government support ended, (which had entailed taking 80% of any Concorde operating profits since 1976), BA, and AF followed suit a bit later, make a final one off payment to the government to take on all of the costs going forward.
In fact, the CEO of BA then, had made huge cuts in BA to rationalize what had been basically BOAC and BEA stuck together, rather than properly merged, in 1974.
It seemed logical to dump Concorde when the support was taken away, what place did this state funded white elephant have in the brave new world of BA as a private company?

But the CEO, John King, was a self made and canny businessman, he created a Concorde Division to see if it could be a profit centre, with reforms to ticketing, marketing (during this regular Concorde customers, mostly on business travel accounts, were asked how much they thought their Concorde tickets cost. They almost all underestimated the price, so BA adjusted accordingly!)
As a result, in the mid 80's with BA, major investment, new interiors, livery, an aircraft in storage brought back to service.
The revenue more than made up for taking on the whole support costs, what came next was from then, to the end of the century, Concorde as a significant earner, which also attracted customers to 1st Class across the network, as well as the intangibles in positive PR.

Then the many and varied charters, some high end/high earners, most a chance for ordinary people, many of whom indeed HAD helped fund Concorde via general taxation, to experience supersonic flight at a fraction of the cost.
And we loved doing them. Even if they only made up about 9-10% of revenue from Concorde.

In my time on the fleet, it was estimated that an average pax make up on the London/New York route, was around 85% business, mostly on those accounts, about 10% 'other wealthy', which tended to mean less frequent customers, such as celebrities etc plus around 5% being airline (not only BA) staff on concessional tickets, people treating themselves after say winning a competition/lottery.
With a pax breakdown like that and it broke even at around 35-40% full.

Because of the greater business/financial links between London and New, as compared to Paris, BA mostly ran double daily flights on this route.
When demand dipped, such as in August, the second BA flight at the weekend at least, would be replaced by the challenging to develop in terms of flight operations but lucrative, non stop to BGI.
Which we also ran between early November and late April, most though without replacing the second JFK one.
These also somewhat replaced the original US scheduled route, to IAD three times a week, from 1976-94, my first Concorde flight was in November 1993 IAD-LHR, it was not very full so BA were pragmatic and did not run a route if it was not paying it's way.

So there was demand, in fact in the late 80's BA even briefly looked at putting the first production aircraft, owned by BA as part of the support buy out since 1984, though stored since 1981, G-BBDG into service as an 8th aircraft.
However it was determined the best long term use for it was for spares, there were technical reasons too;
http://www.concordesst.com/202.html

But supporting it was not easy, one particular example was when in the late 90's the Air Intake Control Unit's were becoming an issue, these early 1970's computers needed either replicating or replacing.
On the face of it, replacement made more sense, much more modern, smaller, more reliable units.
However, to fit and certify something like that, and pay to develop them from scratch, not only costly in monetary terms but we would have had to lose an aircraft for months for fitment, testing, certification.
No spare one around, G-BBDG too used for spares by then, ditto with the French counterpart, our fleet were too busy out earning.
So, replicate the old boards, that was 'fun', what with the descendant vendors going through merger/restructuring, not for the first time it was a case of calling people out of retirement.

After the loss of AF4590, the major effort to return to flight, with new investment in interiors too, the first modified aircraft, G-BOAF, after initial proving flights, was to do some others to retrain flight and cabin crews, tryout the new seats and menus, in a series of flights. The last would go to JFK and back in a day, the first, which I was on, was a full 3.5 hour simulation of a commercial flight, same speeds and altitudes, just with a turn back at 30W.
It was great, a real boost to morale too, we knew forward pax booking were good too, since all the 'pax' on these flights were BA Concorde staff across the airline.
But was on the 11th September 2001.
We took off in one world, came back in another, deep down, watching it unfold on the TV in the crew-room afterwards in the hangar, we knew that this would profoundly affect the future of the aircraft.
Remember what I said about all those regular business customers? Guess where many worked out of, were linked to, reliant on?

Sorry about the lecture, I am in total agreement about Boom, all the above shows what a unique aircraft and service Concorde was, despite all of the limitations.
To somehow think that issues around noise and emissions can be scaled down to being halfway acceptable in the world today and more to the point, going forward, is almost......arrogant.
They have no real answers to these major issues, they are a 140 person consultancy, I don't care how many investors they have (for now), where are the major vendors?

Though smaller and much less capitalized (no matter where it came from) compared to the US industry at the time, the people who designed, developed, built and tested Concorde had vast experience, honed in the rapid pace of development during and post WW2.
And that was needed to make a technically viable airliner, conceived as it was in a very different time.
A time before serious objections with noise, research into high altitude pollution and the boom, especially before the thought that an Arab nation of 6 million could lead in jacking up the price of oil by a factor of four overnight.

Do the people behind Boom even consider this?

Revelation wrote:

Prost wrote:

When Concorde was first in the market the citizenry of the world had to work to get their government’s to pay attention to their environmental concerns. In this decade environmental concerns are at the forefront of governments and a lot of consumers.

I just can’t see a lot of jurisdictions saying ‘ok’ to the occasional sonic boom.

This isn't about sonic boom, as above the Boom CEO said they are not trying to solve that problem, they will not go supersonic over land.

It's more about the fact they have to burn a lot more fuel per seat to go supersonic, something that will never change.

It gets worse! So by that massive limitation they might sell several times more aircraft than Concorde did, likely not enough to hit double figures then.
As you state, it's the fuel, not only burning more but more to the point where, at 60,000 feet.
Even with smaller (and undefined) engines burning biofuels, if even viable for a SST, the ton of serious objections to regular airliner operations in some numbers in that region of the atmosphere will be great and not just from 'greens'.

In Concorde our tiny fleet was of course guilty, if in a small way with a finite thing, some penance was on several occasions being used during service for scientific research, upper atmosphere measuring/sampling equipment being fitted discreetly in modified windows in the cabin baggage storage area.

MIflyer12 wrote:

One can't have 4x fuel burn per seat mile, comparable floor space, small fleet operating economics, and charge comparable prices to 787 J today. That just doesn't work. CRJ-200 seating for J prices? Not for me.

It wouldn't be 4x the fuel burn per seat mile. It would be 4x the fuel burn, but only for half as long, so 2x per seat mile.

Revelation wrote:

Prost wrote:

When Concorde was first in the market the citizenry of the world had to work to get their government’s to pay attention to their environmental concerns. In this decade environmental concerns are at the forefront of governments and a lot of consumers.

I just can’t see a lot of jurisdictions saying ‘ok’ to the occasional sonic boom.

This isn't about sonic boom, as above the Boom CEO said they are not trying to solve that problem, they will not go supersonic over land.

It's more about the fact they have to burn a lot more fuel per seat to go supersonic, something that will never change.

I always thought (perhaps incorrectly) based on what I have read that Concorde was most inefficient at subsonic and wasn’t too bad at supersonic cruise?

Nomadd wrote:

MIflyer12 wrote:

One can't have 4x fuel burn per seat mile, comparable floor space, small fleet operating economics, and charge comparable prices to 787 J today. That just doesn't work. CRJ-200 seating for J prices? Not for me.

It wouldn't be 4x the fuel burn per seat mile. It would be 4x the fuel burn, but only for half as long, so 2x per seat mile.

No 4 times seems right.

An A220-100 with similar seating capacity takes 21,805 litres with a range of 3450 nm.

Concorde 119,280 litres with some more range : 3900 nm.

gwrudolph wrote:

Revelation wrote:

Prost wrote:

When Concorde was first in the market the citizenry of the world had to work to get their government’s to pay attention to their environmental concerns. In this decade environmental concerns are at the forefront of governments and a lot of consumers.

I just can’t see a lot of jurisdictions saying ‘ok’ to the occasional sonic boom.

This isn't about sonic boom, as above the Boom CEO said they are not trying to solve that problem, they will not go supersonic over land.

It's more about the fact they have to burn a lot more fuel per seat to go supersonic, something that will never change.

I always thought (perhaps incorrectly) based on what I have read that Concorde was most inefficient at subsonic and wasn’t too bad at supersonic cruise?

Well yes, Concorde did do much better at high altitude than lower altitude. If we believe the talk and numbers for the engine proposed for the B model, that would have been quite a bit more powerful without afterburner/reheats and likely would have climbed a bit better.

The other proposed modifications might have made it more efficient at lower altitudes by a small but reasonable amount.

We can only estimate the actual results, unless someone with access to some good computers and the data available on B model wants to run those numbers.

There is more work to be done in this field of SSTs but it will take a big manufacturer and engine partner to do it.

Nomadd wrote:

MIflyer12 wrote:

One can't have 4x fuel burn per seat mile, comparable floor space, small fleet operating economics, and charge comparable prices to 787 J today. That just doesn't work. CRJ-200 seating for J prices? Not for me.

It wouldn't be 4x the fuel burn per seat mile. It would be 4x the fuel burn, but only for half as long, so 2x per seat mile.

Generally you can say, double speed means 4 x fuel consumption.

v (speed) comes as v². So double speed needs four time the power and the fuel, four times the speed needs 16 times the power and the fuel.

This is simple general physics. When it comes to speeds around the "sound barrier" things become more complicated but in each case the higher speed comes with a huge premium on fuel consumption. At least, as long as you are flying in the atmosphere.

Anyone ready REG Davies book on supersonic transport: Supersonic (Airliner) Non-Sense : A Case Study in Applied Market Research? From the publisher:

"Since the dramatic flight by "Chuck" Yeager in 1947, when an aircraft first exceeded the speed of sound, the dream of a successful supersonic airliner has captivated the interest of many manufacturers & of many governments. But as yet, only a few Concordes & a couple of Tupolev Tu-144s have gone into service, on a very few routes & none were ever sold. The cost of developing any supersonic airliner is prohibitive. The prospect of their being able to operate economically is remote. The market for such an aircraft (which would have to charge premium fares, even more than first class) is very small. Manufacturers & government agencies alike continue to base their multi-million research programs on inflated market "estimates" that combine substantial elements of special pleading & wishful thinking. Statements invariably include a plethora of "shoulds" & "coulds" in their predictions; but their assumptions carry little weight, as they are ill-supported by known data. The conclusions drawn to produce market "estimates" of more than a thousand aircraft neither clear-headed nor objective. This book, written by an experienced analyst who spent most of his career in commercial airline market research & traffic forecasting, explodes the myth. The analysis draws upon known facts, applies simple arithmetic & makes assumptions that are based on technical, operational & commercial sense."

As much as I'd love to see an SST in airline service again, there are many factors against its ultimate success. Fingers crossed that the technological, economic, and environmental factors can be overcome.

gwrudolph wrote:

Revelation wrote:

Prost wrote:

When Concorde was first in the market the citizenry of the world had to work to get their government’s to pay attention to their environmental concerns. In this decade environmental concerns are at the forefront of governments and a lot of consumers.

I just can’t see a lot of jurisdictions saying ‘ok’ to the occasional sonic boom.

This isn't about sonic boom, as above the Boom CEO said they are not trying to solve that problem, they will not go supersonic over land.

It's more about the fact they have to burn a lot more fuel per seat to go supersonic, something that will never change.

I always thought (perhaps incorrectly) based on what I have read that Concorde was most inefficient at subsonic and wasn’t too bad at supersonic cruise?

Very much so, as one of our Chief Concorde said, it's another aircraft, only more so. Much more so, given the greatly expanded flight envelope compared to conventional airliners.
From the link I posted upthread;

At take off and during subsonic flight, 82% of the thrust is developed by the engine alone with 6% from the nozzles and 21% from the intakes

During the Supersonic cruse only 8% of the power is derived by the engine with the other 29% being from Nozzles and an impressive 63% from the intakes.
http://www.concordesst.com/powerplant.html

Heinkel wrote:

Generally you can say, double speed means 4 x fuel consumption.

v (speed) comes as v². So double speed needs four time the power and the fuel, four times the speed needs 16 times the power and the fuel.

This is simple general physics. When it comes to speeds around the "sound barrier" things become more complicated but in each case the higher speed comes with a huge premium on fuel consumption. At least, as long as you are flying in the atmosphere.

Concorde flew at a higher altitude with lower air density, I guess the Boom aircraft is planned to do so too. So if you fly at double the speed at higher altitude compared to an subsonic aircraft at lower altitude it won't be a factor four for the drag.

GDB wrote:

Ziyulu wrote:

Regarding noise, does anyone remember if the Concorde had louder noise during take off and landing as compared to other aircraft?

With the passage of time since 2003, easy to forget or really, not be around to remember it.
Put it this way, if you lived on the flightpath, you knew when it was taking off, which if you were involved in the operation but not on shift, if you did not hear it when expected you wondered about a delay. The head of Concorde Engineering for much of my time there and probably one of the smartest people I have ever met, certainly was not above ringing in to ask 'where is it then?'

My only "encounter" with Concorde was some time in the 90's, I was sitting in Terminal 3 at JFK waiting for my DL flight to Boston and all of a sudden I hear this loud roar and everything in the terminal starts vibrating. I stand up and run to the windows just in time to watch it take off.

Revelation wrote:

This isn't about sonic boom, as above the Boom CEO said they are not trying to solve that problem, they will not go supersonic over land.
It's more about the fact they have to burn a lot more fuel per seat to go supersonic, something that will never change.

The fact that their top speed is Mach 1.7 vs. Concorde's Mach 2 might alleviate some of that.
Also in regards to take-off noise, slow speeds and new wing design might also mean, no afterburner needed at take-off?

Lingon wrote:

Concorde flew at a higher altitude with lower air density, I guess the Boom aircraft is planned to do so too. So if you fly at double the speed at higher altitude compared to an subsonic aircraft at lower altitude it won't be a factor four for the drag.

Yes, lower air density reduced drag somewhat, and colder air makes jet engines more efficient, but the same is true to a good degree for the subsonic airliner at its cruise altitude too.

A typical summation of the situation:

A Concorde uses, during the course of a typical trans-Atlantic flight, about 5650 gallons of kerosene every hour. This translates to about 6 gallons of fuel per mile flown. A Boeing 747 consumes about 5 gallons of jet fuel per mile flown.

While this difference seems very small, remember that the Concorde can only carry a maximum of 100 passengers, whereas the 747 is typically configured to carry about 400 passengers. In terms of fuel use per passenger carried, one gallon of fuel on Concorde will take one passenger 16.7 miles, but on a 747 one passenger can travel 80 miles. The 747 is 4.8 times more fuel efficient than a Concorde (and more fuel efficient than two people sharing a private car, too!).

Ref: https://old.thetravelinsider.info/2003/0411.htm

The article goes on to point out how when it was written this difference in fuel consumption didn't matter because BA was able to charge a such a premium for Concorde service that the cost of fuel was easy to bear.

What's different now is Boom is saying they won't need such a premium, which IMO is marketing tripe. It may not be needed, but if it is available it surely will be taken, because airlines exist to make money. And now we care more about the environmental impact of flying so few passengers while burning so much fuel.

airbazar wrote:

The fact that their top speed is Mach 1.7 vs. Concorde's Mach 2 might alleviate some of that.
Also in regards to take-off noise, slow speeds and new wing design might also mean, no afterburner needed at take-off?

We can't really get answers to such questions because Boom has no actual engine that can meet its goals available to it.

The demonstrator will be using decades old military engines, and these will not meet targets for thrust, efficiency or durability needed by the final product.

This is one of the main reasons so many of us are skeptical about Boom delivering on the time line they've advertised.

Heinkel wrote:

Nomadd wrote:

MIflyer12 wrote:

One can't have 4x fuel burn per seat mile, comparable floor space, small fleet operating economics, and charge comparable prices to 787 J today. That just doesn't work. CRJ-200 seating for J prices? Not for me.

It wouldn't be 4x the fuel burn per seat mile. It would be 4x the fuel burn, but only for half as long, so 2x per seat mile.

Generally you can say, double speed means 4 x fuel consumption.

v (speed) comes as v². So double speed needs four time the power and the fuel, four times the speed needs 16 times the power and the fuel.

This is simple general physics. When it comes to speeds around the "sound barrier" things become more complicated but in each case the higher speed comes with a huge premium on fuel consumption. At least, as long as you are flying in the atmosphere.

And, "Per seat mile" is simple English. It's not four times the fuel consumption per trip, but per hour. You're only burning 4 times the fuel for half as long.
And Concorde has nothing to do with it. It had horrible fuel consumption compared to a modern to what a modern M1.7 craft of the same capacity would have.

Nomadd wrote:

Heinkel wrote:

Nomadd wrote:

It wouldn't be 4x the fuel burn per seat mile. It would be 4x the fuel burn, but only for half as long, so 2x per seat mile.

Generally you can say, double speed means 4 x fuel consumption.

v (speed) comes as v². So double speed needs four time the power and the fuel, four times the speed needs 16 times the power and the fuel.

This is simple general physics. When it comes to speeds around the "sound barrier" things become more complicated but in each case the higher speed comes with a huge premium on fuel consumption. At least, as long as you are flying in the atmosphere.

And, "Per seat mile" is simple English. It's not four times the fuel consumption per trip, but per hour. You're only burning 4 times the fuel for half as long.
And Concorde has nothing to do with it. It had horrible fuel consumption compared to a modern to what a modern M1.7 craft of the same capacity would have.

You seem to be missing something - the metric is fuel burn "per seat mile" not "per seat hour". Reducing the flight time doesn't reduce the distance flown.

Nomadd wrote:

And Concorde has nothing to do with it. It had horrible fuel consumption compared to a modern to what a modern M1.7 craft of the same capacity would have.

Clearly we won't know the answer to that any time soon.

Clearly Boom needs to find an engine partner that is willing to commit to the cost, time to market, emissions, thrust, fuel burn, durability and noise parameters they need to make the Overture project viable.

It's not clear who will take on such a huge task for such a small market.

Concorde piggy-backed off military technology, Boom's main and perhaps only hope is the US DoD becoming interested in helping them develop their project and thus their engine.

It's pretty clear that by the time any Boom could be in service the next generation of subsonic jet engines should be ready for market shortly thereafter, so they will be aiming at a moving target.

GDB wrote:

At take off and during subsonic flight, 82% of the thrust is developed by the engine alone with 6% from the nozzles and 21% from the intake

I used those very figures in a lecture, until a student noticed that they do not add up to 100%.

Revelation wrote:

Concorde piggy-backed off military technology, Boom's main and perhaps only hope is the US DoD becoming interested in helping them develop their project and thus their engine.

It's pretty clear that by the time any Boom could be in service the next generation of subsonic jet engines should be ready for market shortly thereafter, so they will be aiming at a moving target.

Maybe I missed the supersonic military transport or bomber that they converted to become Concorde? Which one was that?

Your statement is very opposite what had been said by the likes of former pilot Christopher Orlebar in his book.

airbazar wrote:

GDB wrote:

Ziyulu wrote:

Regarding noise, does anyone remember if the Concorde had louder noise during take off and landing as compared to other aircraft?

With the passage of time since 2003, easy to forget or really, not be around to remember it.
Put it this way, if you lived on the flightpath, you knew when it was taking off, which if you were involved in the operation but not on shift, if you did not hear it when expected you wondered about a delay. The head of Concorde Engineering for much of my time there and probably one of the smartest people I have ever met, certainly was not above ringing in to ask 'where is it then?'

My only "encounter" with Concorde was some time in the 90's, I was sitting in Terminal 3 at JFK waiting for my DL flight to Boston and all of a sudden I hear this loud roar and everything in the terminal starts vibrating. I stand up and run to the windows just in time to watch it take off.

Revelation wrote:

This isn't about sonic boom, as above the Boom CEO said they are not trying to solve that problem, they will not go supersonic over land.
It's more about the fact they have to burn a lot more fuel per seat to go supersonic, something that will never change.

The fact that their top speed is Mach 1.7 vs. Concorde's Mach 2 might alleviate some of that.
Also in regards to take-off noise, slow speeds and new wing design might also mean, no afterburner needed at take-off?

The Concorde project was planning to ditch the afterburner as well and the improved Olympus engine was to have been more powerful anyway.

I don’t know what the American planes would have done. The GE4 engine was powerful.

cpd wrote:

Revelation wrote:

Concorde piggy-backed off military technology, Boom's main and perhaps only hope is the US DoD becoming interested in helping them develop their project and thus their engine.

It's pretty clear that by the time any Boom could be in service the next generation of subsonic jet engines should be ready for market shortly thereafter, so they will be aiming at a moving target.

Maybe I missed the supersonic military transport or bomber that they converted to become Concorde? Which one was that?

Wiki sez:

Concorde is an ogival delta winged aircraft with four Olympus engines based on those employed in the RAF's Avro Vulcan strategic bomber.

Ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concorde

I thought the context was clear, I was taking about engines.

Maybe you could have included the previous sentence:

Revelation wrote:

Clearly Boom needs to find an engine partner that is willing to commit to the cost, time to market, emissions, thrust, fuel burn, durability and noise parameters they need to make the Overture project viable.

Hope it is clear now.

Revelation wrote:

cpd wrote:

Revelation wrote:

Concorde piggy-backed off military technology, Boom's main and perhaps only hope is the US DoD becoming interested in helping them develop their project and thus their engine.

It's pretty clear that by the time any Boom could be in service the next generation of subsonic jet engines should be ready for market shortly thereafter, so they will be aiming at a moving target.

Maybe I missed the supersonic military transport or bomber that they converted to become Concorde? Which one was that?

Wiki sez:

Concorde is an ogival delta winged aircraft with four Olympus engines based on those employed in the RAF's Avro Vulcan strategic bomber.

Ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concorde

I thought the context was clear, I was taking about engines.

Maybe you could have included the previous sentence:

Revelation wrote:

Clearly Boom needs to find an engine partner that is willing to commit to the cost, time to market, emissions, thrust, fuel burn, durability and noise parameters they need to make the Overture project viable.

Hope it is clear now.

I'm going to take a risk and suggest there are huge differences between the Vulcan engines and the Concorde engines.

https://www.heritageconcorde.com/concor ... 10-engines
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolls-Roy ... lympus_101)

If only it was just so easy as borrowing the Vulcan engines and away you go.

Leeham wrote today about the demise of Boom's competitor:

Aerion’s decision May 21 to close up shop and cease development of a small SST that would have competed with Boom is sad news. This was the most realistic concept of the three small SST business cases.

At various points, Lockheed Martin, Airbus, Boeing and Spirit Aerosystems were key investors and R&D partners. The first three withdrew for various reasons and Spirit, at least publicly, hung in until the end. GE/CFM was working on the engine.

If Aerion with all this credibility couldn’t make a go of it, what does this say about the two other programs?

Ref: https://leehamnews.com/2021/06/07/ponti ... nd-aerion/

It kind of echoes my thoughts.

cpd wrote:

I'm going to take a risk and suggest there are huge differences between the Vulcan engines and the Concorde engines.

If only it was just so easy as borrowing the Vulcan engines and away you go.

Can we both play this game where we use things the other person didn't say to make snarky posts?

Ok, here I go!

I'm going to take a risk and suggest there would be no Concorde engine without the military funded Vulcan engine.

I'm going to take a risk and see if I can't inject some basic facts without ruining the game.

The Rolls-Royce Olympus (originally the Bristol B.E.10 Olympus) was the world's second two-spool axial-flow turbojet aircraft engine design, first run in May, 1950 and preceded only by the Pratt and Whitney J57, first-run in January, 1950.[1][2] dating from November 1946,[3][4] although not the first to run or enter service. It was originally developed and produced by Bristol Aero Engines. First running in 1950,[5] its initial use was as the powerplant of the Avro Vulcan V bomber. The design was further developed for supersonic performance as part of the BAC TSR-2 programme. Later it saw production as the Rolls-Royce/Snecma Olympus 593, the powerplant for Concorde SST.

Ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolls-Royce_Olympus

Given that Boom Overture would cut TATL/TPAC travel time from 3-6 hours would UA still install Polaris on it or would UA install domestic-style recliners in J?

United wouldn’t know the answer to that question yet.

We're talking about a Concorde like aircraft, which had economy seats (of the day, so not horrible pitch). If you install huge seats/beds in it, the economics that already don't work, fly out of the window !

kyu wrote:

GDB wrote:

At take off and during subsonic flight, 82% of the thrust is developed by the engine alone with 6% from the nozzles and 21% from the intake

I used those very figures in a lecture, until a student noticed that they do not add up to 100%.

The website creator got his figures from Concorde Technical Manuals, which I have hard copies of.
The figures for take off and subsonic, factor in use of reheat on take off, this will vary the figures, however they were disengaged shortly after take off, they were not re-engaged again until just prior to accelerating through the sound barrier, at this time the aircraft is at Mach 0.95, they are disengaged 10 mins later when the aircraft was at Mach 1.7, also factor in the usual variations such as airfield conditions (altitude, air temps etc).

While at cruising speed/altitudes these variations are not there, with of course no reheat.

Revelation wrote:

cpd wrote:

Revelation wrote:

Concorde piggy-backed off military technology, Boom's main and perhaps only hope is the US DoD becoming interested in helping them develop their project and thus their engine.

It's pretty clear that by the time any Boom could be in service the next generation of subsonic jet engines should be ready for market shortly thereafter, so they will be aiming at a moving target.

Maybe I missed the supersonic military transport or bomber that they converted to become Concorde? Which one was that?

Wiki sez:

Concorde is an ogival delta winged aircraft with four Olympus engines based on those employed in the RAF's Avro Vulcan strategic bomber.

Ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concorde

I thought the context was clear, I was taking about engines.

Maybe you could have included the previous sentence:

Revelation wrote:

Clearly Boom needs to find an engine partner that is willing to commit to the cost, time to market, emissions, thrust, fuel burn, durability and noise parameters they need to make the Overture project viable.

Hope it is clear now.

Correct, the initial version of version planned for Concorde was tested in an pod under the fuselage, on a Vulcan B.1, however the 593 mk610 version on production aircraft was a very different beast to the ones carried on even the upgraded Vulcan B.2 version.
And modified/improved from the version on the Technology Demonstrators (OK, 'Prototypes').
I keep banging that drum about calling the prototypes Technology Demonstrators, since this is what I consider one to be, it is still around the same size of the production aircraft, with the same type of engine albeit in a less developed version. As well as finding the need for further improvements, intake controls, wing planform, etc.
Compare and contrast to what Boom seem to think a Technology Demonstrator is.

US aerospace tradition makes it simpler, for a technology demonstrator put a 'X' in the designation.

But there were some development aircraft co-opted to support development, most notably the FD.2 from the 1950's, which became the BAC 221.
https://www.baesystems.com/en-uk/heritage/bac-221
As an aside, the flight crews for the very first flights got some delta experience on the Vulcan and just before it left USAF service, the B-58 too.

To answer posts 420 and 429;
We never got to see how the GE4 would have performed in flight, however it had a shock cone design for the intake control, similar to the SR-71. Though the eventual Mach 3 FAA requirement for a US SST was dropped to Mach 2.7, might have influenced that design decision.
However, I understand that it was not unusual for this system to cause surges in flight, not what you want for a civil airliner. Had it been built, I suspect the 2707's flight testing would have been if not quite as long but certainly as challenging as Concorde.

The intake design on Concorde had it's own long development, change to digital controls when the technology was there, from 1972. In service the testing of them was a quite major thing, luckily we had a couple of 'gurus' involved from the start, in one case in their development at BAC.

Fluidflow, the early design decision on Concorde to be Mach 2, allowed use of conventional materials, still viable at Mach 2, it was an aluminium alloy RR58, which contained small amounts of copper to aid in the expansion.
Expansion joints were fitted and both hyd. fluid and sealants were developed specifically for Concorde.
Like the SR-71 on the ground, you would see fluids under the aircraft, though not to anything like the same extent.
They were monitored, there were limits, going over them would mean an input to fix them.

Specific inputs for this were not usual, though the worst was G-BOAE, someone who was there when it was delivered to BA in 1977 told me it was like that from the start!
This reflected the small production run and that as a result, the fleet were essentially hand built. All with their own character!

Of course one positive of the heating at high speed was in corrosion prevention.

FluidFlow wrote:

The other was that the engines had to be optimised for a specific operating range and obviously it was cruise speed, but that came at a huge cost, because during take off and climb the engines were burning fuel like mad.

That affects all aircraft. For each operating altitude and speed, there's some optimum engine configuration. The faster you go, the lower the optimum bypass ratio. Any subsonic engine, however, works well across a wide range of conditions (usually the BPR is chosen slightly higher than ideal to reduce takeoff noise at the cost of a slight increase in fuel burn). But, as you pass Mach 1, a high BPR simply adds tons of drag.

Hence, a very low bypass ratio is actually the most efficient for supersonic flight. Consider the F135, for example, with a BPR of 0.57 : 1, or the EJ200 with 0.4 : 1. The issue with this is that you are - obviously - subsonic during takeoff and climb and have to make do with a very suboptimal engine.

The same affects wings; an efficient subsonic or transonic wing looks very different from an efficient supersonic wing. Concorde's delta planform is a compromise that combines decent supersonic performance with a low stall speed, albeit at the cost of high subsonic drag.

mxaxai wrote:

The same affects wings; an efficient subsonic or transonic wing looks very different from an efficient supersonic wing. Concorde's delta planform is a compromise that combines decent supersonic performance with a low stall speed, albeit at the cost of high subsonic drag.

The B1 bomber gets around that with a variable-sweep wing. Might we see the same thing on a commercial plane? It adds weight and complexity but so do the folding wing tips on the 777.

mxaxai wrote:

FluidFlow wrote:

The other was that the engines had to be optimised for a specific operating range and obviously it was cruise speed, but that came at a huge cost, because during take off and climb the engines were burning fuel like mad.

That affects all aircraft. For each operating altitude and speed, there's some optimum engine configuration. The faster you go, the lower the optimum bypass ratio. Any subsonic engine, however, works well across a wide range of conditions (usually the BPR is chosen slightly higher than ideal to reduce takeoff noise at the cost of a slight increase in fuel burn). But, as you pass Mach 1, a high BPR simply adds tons of drag.

Hence, a very low bypass ratio is actually the most efficient for supersonic flight. Consider the F135, for example, with a BPR of 0.57 : 1, or the EJ200 with 0.4 : 1. The issue with this is that you are - obviously - subsonic during takeoff and climb and have to make do with a very suboptimal engine.

With a trijet design, could the tail-mounted engine be a higher-bypass model optimized for efficient/quiet subsonic flight? The wing-mounted engines could then be optimized for added power during takeoff/climb and supersonic cruise. The tail ducting could be designed in a way that diverts airflow above Mach 1 and thus reduce drag. It would add complexity for sure, but it may be a way to achieve some of Boom's lofty goals without having three engines that sacrifice efficiency during all phases of flight.

btfarrwm wrote:

With a trijet design, could the tail-mounted engine be a higher-bypass model optimized for efficient/quiet subsonic flight? The wing-mounted engines could then be optimized for added power during takeoff/climb and supersonic cruise. The tail ducting could be designed in a way that diverts airflow above Mach 1 and thus reduce drag. It would add complexity for sure, but it may be a way to achieve some of Boom's lofty goals without having three engines that sacrifice efficiency during all phases of flight.

Something along those lines is the idea that led to the variable cycle engine: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variable_cycle_engine
GE recently built a prototype, the XA-100. However, it remains to be seen just how large the benefit of such engines is. The USAF has been funding the research that led to this prototype for nearly 15 years. https://www.aerospacetestinginternation ... ngine.html

Revelation wrote:

The article goes on to point out how when it was written this difference in fuel consumption didn't matter because BA was able to charge a such a premium for Concorde service that the cost of fuel was easy to bear.

What's different now is Boom is saying they won't need such a premium, which IMO is marketing tripe. It may not be needed, but if it is available it surely will be taken, because airlines exist to make money. And now we care more about the environmental impact of flying so few passengers while burning so much fuel.

I've highlighted before that fuel cost was not the big premium for Concorde. It was a premium, but it appears to me most people have an exaggerated sense of how much. It added hundreds of dollars to the ticket price, not thousands.

GDB has brought up some of his experiences with factors that affected Concorde. I get the impression that high maintenance needs, limited operational economy of scale, and low utilization were other significant factors. I get the impression these may have each been bigger factors than the high fuel consumption.

mxaxai wrote:

Something along those lines is the idea that led to the variable cycle engine: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variable_cycle_engine
GE recently built a prototype, the XA-100. However, it remains to be seen just how large the benefit of such engines is. The USAF has been funding the research that led to this prototype for nearly 15 years. https://www.aerospacetestinginternation ... ngine.html

Boom has already indicated they are not counting on new developments. I seem to recall they specifically said variable cycle was not planned. I would be skeptical the Air Force would even allow it.

Instead, Boom is expecting engine manufacturers will pitch derivatives of existing designs to keep development costs modest. The most obvious difference will be lower bypass ratios. In fact, the GE Affinity that they were planning to develop for Aerion before shutting down was based on the CFM56 core. It appears they were very interested in keeping development cost low and reliability high, rather than optimizing for efficiency.

After all the nature of the competition is different between 2 subsonic aircraft than between 1 subsonic and 1 supersonic aircraft. The former pairing will be similar in what they offer the passenger, so ticket price has to be the big selling point. The latter hopes to use the trip speed to garner a premium ticket price. Furthermore, the payback of development costs is a lot different when you're talking about 20,000+ engines over 20 years like the LEAP-X or GTF than when you're talking maybe 1,000-2,000 engines.

iamlucky13 wrote:

Instead, Boom is expecting engine manufacturers will pitch derivatives of existing designs to keep development costs modest. The most obvious difference will be lower bypass ratios. In fact, the GE Affinity that they were planning to develop for Aerion before shutting down was based on the CFM56 core. It appears they were very interested in keeping development cost low and reliability high, rather than optimizing for efficiency.

Your post made me curious and so I did some research on Affinity:

The high-pressure core is derived from the nine-stage compressor and single-stage turbine of the CFM56, matched to a new low-pressure section optimised for supersonic speed with a 133 cm (52in) diameter fan instead of the 155-173 cm (61-68.3in) fan of the 6:1 bypass ratio CFM56.[5] The twin-shaft, twin-fan engine with FADEC has a service ceiling of 18,300 m (60,000 ft). It lacks an afterburner, and has a combustor with advanced coatings and uses additive manufacturing technologies.[2]

The 18,000 lbf (80 kN) GE Affinity has a nine-stage HP compressor, a single-stage HP turbine and a two-stage low-pressure turbine. Preceded by fixed inlet guide vanes with movable flaps, the twin blisk fans have wide-chord titanium blades. The exhaust mixer is similar to the GE Passport ceramic matrix composite design.[10] The Mach 1.4-to-1.6 speed requires no variable-geometry inlet and the variable-area nozzle has a cone moving longitudinally, replacing a convergent-divergent nozzle.[11] The bypass ratio is around 3 to lower the ram drag, and it should produce 3,500 lbf (16 kN) at Mach 1.4 and FL500, with a cruise fuel consumption increased by 50% over the Mach 0.78 CFM56-5.[12]

Ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Electric_Affinity

So it is reusing the CFM's high pressure core (compressor, combustor, turbine) but not its low pressure sections (fan, compressor and turbine). I'm sure they were aiming for airline levels of reliability. Yet we see::

Launched in May 2017 to power the Aerion AS2 supersonic business jet, its initial design was completed in 2018 before its detailed design in 2020 for the first prototype production. GE Aviation discontinued development of the engine in May 2021.

So even starting with the existing high pressure parts, they were still in detailed design four years after launch with no prototypes yet constructed. Suggests to me it'd probably be at least an eight year overall time line to finish detailed design, get a prototype built, get some flight testing for it, make production representative engines, then get them through certification. Hard to see how Boom can make a 2029 EIS without a committed engine partner at this point in time.

The CFM-56, and even more so its core, has proven extremely versatile. It powers the B-1 and B-2, the F-14, F-15 and F-16, as well as numerous small and large civilian airliners. Even the LEAP core today is fundamentally an evolution of the CFM-56 (though significantly different).

One reason why GE may be taking their time with the low pressure sections of the Affinity is that the CFM-56 and LEAP low pressure sections are developed and built by SNECMA / Safran; the GE Passport LP compressor was outsourced to Safran as well. The other reason being obviously that nobody except Boom / Aerion needs the engine ...

Revelation wrote:

So even starting with the existing high pressure parts, they were still in detailed design four years after launch with no prototypes yet constructed. Suggests to me it'd probably be at least an eight year overall time line to finish detailed design, get a prototype built, get some flight testing for it, make production representative engines, then get them through certification. Hard to see how Boom can make a 2029 EIS without a committed engine partner at this point in time.

For the record, I reiterate that although I am enthusiastic about the idea of a new SST because it is novel and very interesting from an engineering standpoint, I am not very confident in its prospects for making it all the way to EIS. I am even more skeptical about doing so in the time frame stated.

That said, as far as I could tell, Aerion was still working on securing the majority of the funding they would need by the time of cancellation. Boom most certainly is.

With limited funding, and little prospect of engine manufacturers agreeing to risk share on a project like this, engine development was bound to be slow.

I like to hope that perhaps when XB-1 data starts to become available, it will increase the confidence in the project and bring in substantially more investment for Boom, and begin to accelerate the progress. Nothing guarantees that, of course. My hope is based more on the fact that I'd like to see it happen than any compelling argument that it should.

GDB wrote:

To answer posts 420 and 429;
We never got to see how the GE4 would have performed in flight, however it had a shock cone design for the intake control, similar to the SR-71. Though the eventual Mach 3 FAA requirement for a US SST was dropped to Mach 2.7, might have influenced that design decision.
However, I understand that it was not unusual for this system to cause surges in flight, not what you want for a civil airliner. Had it been built, I suspect the 2707's flight testing would have been if not quite as long but certainly as challenging as Concorde.

The intake design on Concorde had it's own long development, change to digital controls when the technology was there, from 1972. In service the testing of them was a quite major thing, luckily we had a couple of 'gurus' involved from the start, in one case in their development at BAC.

Fluidflow, the early design decision on Concorde to be Mach 2, allowed use of conventional materials, still viable at Mach 2, it was an aluminium alloy RR58, which contained small amounts of copper to aid in the expansion.
Expansion joints were fitted and both hyd. fluid and sealants were developed specifically for Concorde.
Like the SR-71 on the ground, you would see fluids under the aircraft, though not to anything like the same extent.
They were monitored, there were limits, going over them would mean an input to fix them.

Specific inputs for this were not usual, though the worst was G-BOAE, someone who was there when it was delivered to BA in 1977 told me it was like that from the start!
This reflected the small production run and that as a result, the fleet were essentially hand built. All with their own character!

Of course one positive of the heating at high speed was in corrosion prevention.

Great posts.

There was also a Pratt and Whitney JTF-17A engine and also a Curtiss Wright TJ-60 and TJ-70 (for a spy plane).

From a document of the day:

JTF17A which first ran on March 31. The JTF17A, a twin spool turbofan with ducted reheat, is P&Ws SST contender.

~50,000lb thrust for that engine.

JetBuddy wrote:

I don't think a single one of these will end up in United. If any of them are certified.

The contract is full of requirements and loopholes, very easy for United to get out of.

The timeline is way too aggressive. 2025 for rollout, 2026 for first flight and 2029 for carrying passengers.

EXACTLY this. ^^^

They will buy them IF their performance, safety, and reliability constraints are met.

In other words, this was just a temporary PR boost for United (and more so Boom.)

Boom reminds me a lot of Blue Origin, and not in a good way. Their "baby boom" is taking far too long for such a small aircraft, and Mach 1.7 is cool and all, but it's certainly not Mach 2 "cool".

It's possible they'll fill the thing with enough executives with deep pockets to actually keep the planes booked, BUT I highly doubt they'll be allowed to fly the routes that such passengers will demand. Even if they do, it'll be hard to squeak out a profit.

Edit: Yup, first flight was supposed to be 2017. For the 17-foot-wide tech demonstrator!

I see this whole thing going the way of the Concorde and every other SST.

https://youtu.be/HiKHb4g57kg

Didn’t see this WSJ video posted in this thread. Apologies if it’s a duplicate post.

estorilm wrote:

JetBuddy wrote:

I don't think a single one of these will end up in United. If any of them are certified.

The contract is full of requirements and loopholes, very easy for United to get out of.

The timeline is way too aggressive. 2025 for rollout, 2026 for first flight and 2029 for carrying passengers.

EXACTLY this. ^^^

They will buy them IF their performance, safety, and reliability constraints are met.

In other words, this was just a temporary PR boost for United (and more so Boom.)

Boom reminds me a lot of Blue Origin, and not in a good way. Their "baby boom" is taking far too long for such a small aircraft, and Mach 1.7 is cool and all, but it's certainly not Mach 2 "cool".

It's possible they'll fill the thing with enough executives with deep pockets to actually keep the planes booked, BUT I highly doubt they'll be allowed to fly the routes that such passengers will demand. Even if they do, it'll be hard to squeak out a profit.

Edit: Yup, first flight was supposed to be 2017. For the 17-foot-wide tech demonstrator!

I see this whole thing going the way of the Concorde and every other SST.

Except that Concorde did enter service, did carry pax, for over a quarter of a century.
Boom isn't even the B2707, from the biggest planemaker in the world at the time and backed by 95% government funding.
Nor even the TU-144, which flew, was hugely redesigned but did not fly commercial pax at least in the commonly accepted fashion, but only for a very short time.

If designing and building a new, environmentally acceptable SST, large, medium or small, that was also a commercial prospect, why haven't Boeing, nor Airbus, nor for a potential SSBJ, (Biz Jet, not the fastest version of the so called 'mile high club'), one of the major Biz jet makers, none of which seem to have any interest in the idea.
I do have a brochure from Boeing from the 1990's looking at future SST's, that brochure was likely as far as they took it.

So what does Boom have that these companies don't?

An announcement via Twitter:

BREAKING: United announces that Boom Supersonic planes will take off from that freaking circular runway that some friend who knows you're into aviation shares with you on Facebook every six freaking months.

Ref: https://twitter.com/windbagmiles/status ... 3226218496

Note: edited to meet our standards here...

GDB wrote:

estorilm wrote:

JetBuddy wrote:

I don't think a single one of these will end up in United. If any of them are certified.

The contract is full of requirements and loopholes, very easy for United to get out of.

The timeline is way too aggressive. 2025 for rollout, 2026 for first flight and 2029 for carrying passengers.

EXACTLY this. ^^^

They will buy them IF their performance, safety, and reliability constraints are met.

In other words, this was just a temporary PR boost for United (and more so Boom.)

Boom reminds me a lot of Blue Origin, and not in a good way. Their "baby boom" is taking far too long for such a small aircraft, and Mach 1.7 is cool and all, but it's certainly not Mach 2 "cool".

It's possible they'll fill the thing with enough executives with deep pockets to actually keep the planes booked, BUT I highly doubt they'll be allowed to fly the routes that such passengers will demand. Even if they do, it'll be hard to squeak out a profit.

Edit: Yup, first flight was supposed to be 2017. For the 17-foot-wide tech demonstrator!

I see this whole thing going the way of the Concorde and every other SST.

Except that Concorde did enter service, did carry pax, for over a quarter of a century.
Boom isn't even the B2707, from the biggest planemaker in the world at the time and backed by 95% government funding.
Nor even the TU-144, which flew, was hugely redesigned but did not fly commercial pax at least in the commonly accepted fashion, but only for a very short time.

If designing and building a new, environmentally acceptable SST, large, medium or small, that was also a commercial prospect, why haven't Boeing, nor Airbus, nor for a potential SSBJ, (Biz Jet, not the fastest version of the so called 'mile high club'), one of the major Biz jet makers, none of which seem to have any interest in the idea.
I do have a brochure from Boeing from the 1990's looking at future SST's, that brochure was likely as far as they took it.

So what does Boom have that these companies don't?

I guess you're agreeing with me? My point of "the way of every other SST" was that they were never commercially successful, and EU govts dumped insane money into the aircraft and essentially FORCED their airlines to buy it. Also the sonic boom itself became an issue and routes were quickly removed due to intense backlash from homeowners near the routes. I know they've apparently "reduced" the sonic boom, and there will only be one, but this is also 2021. People could shut this whole thing down in no time.

But yes, I think the answer to your question is that there IS no new secret. You can't defy the laws of physics - this plane will still SUCK DOWN fuel, be very loud, and have a limited capacity with (likely) limited comfort. For what they'll have to charge on these hypothetical flights, I'd MUCH rather have a sweet lay-flat business class pod on a conventional wide body. Heck, it might even be cheaper still.

GDB- I've said it before but it bears repeating, thank you!

I've really enjoyed your posts on this subject, given your own rich experience in this arena. Great stuff!!

estorilm wrote:

I guess you're agreeing with me? My point of "the way of every other SST" was that they were never commercially successful, and EU govts dumped insane money into the aircraft and essentially FORCED their airlines to buy it. Also the sonic boom itself became an issue and routes were quickly removed due to intense backlash from homeowners near the routes. I know they've apparently "reduced" the sonic boom, and there will only be one, but this is also 2021. People could shut this whole thing down in no time.

The point often gets made that the US also had a very expensive government funded SST program as well which is of course true. What often gets skipped is giving the same government credit for realizing the SST had no commercial future and shutting it down before money was spent constructing aircraft that the airlines would not want to operate. We often read about how BA eventually figured out a way how to make money on their service, but little mention is made of the losses that occurred before they figured out how to soak the wealthy and the fortunate.

slider wrote:

GDB- I've said it before but it bears repeating, thank you!

I've really enjoyed your posts on this subject, given your own rich experience in this arena. Great stuff!!

Despite the differences in our opinions, I agree, I love reading GDB's posts and am glad he is sharing both his experiences and his opinions.

Quite a take down by WW:

@IATA chief Willie Walsh on Boom Supersonic: No, I wouldn’t be buying one. I have the nice position of seeing what the profitability of Concorde was. If it had still been flying when I became BA CEO, [grounding it] would have been my first decision

Ref: https://twitter.com/MaxK_J/status/1402983597645107212

Undermines a lot of the a.net narratives about Concorde's profitability at BA, IMO.

Revelation wrote:

Quite a take down by WW:

@IATA chief Willie Walsh on Boom Supersonic: No, I wouldn’t be buying one. I have the nice position of seeing what the profitability of Concorde was. If it had still been flying when I became BA CEO, [grounding it] would have been my first decision

Ref: https://twitter.com/MaxK_J/status/1402983597645107212

Undermines a lot of the a.net narratives about Concorde's profitability at BA, IMO.

Funny that, when he joined BA in 2005 he expressed regret it was not still flying.
Then again, he went on to use Covid to punish BA for being the only profitable member of his own creation, IAG.
Last year, other IAG airlines, in Spain, in Ireland, were offered and got assistance from their governments, which Walsh accepted, the UK also offered the same to BA. Walsh refused and it is thought that caused the CEO of BA to resign, the man Walsh had appointed.
My career at BA was curtailed thanks to that, oddly enough my old post was on offer again recently, I was notified as were all staff and those who left last year.

I contacted my former Team Leader (who was angry I had gone last year, not that they could do much about it), if I applied they and another I knew well would be doing the interviews but would not make the final choice, asked whether the same 'managers' who had clearly let too many go were still in charge the answer was yes. I don't trust their competence and neither does my former TL.
Thing is, I start getting my BA Pension soon having adjusted it forward 10 years and I was pleased when I got the figures for how much I would be getting per month.

But, if I was employed again by BA I would have to readjust the pension back again, I would have until near the end of this month to advise them of this. I know only too well that they take weeks or sometimes months in my former department to fill a post from it being advertised.
What to do?
I have the certainty of the pension heading my way, against the risk of applying for a job I might not get and from what I was told, it's chaos there in my old department, (hence the job).

After 15 years of full time working after my Rheumatoid Arthritis diagnoses in 2000, from early 2016 I switched to a three day week, it was beginning to get a bit much.
This role is full time, so there's that and my ex TL reckoned they could ask for shared working but could not say for sure.
I did think about it long and hard, it just sounds a total shitshow there and let's face it, the industry is still massively vulnerable to the pandemic or a future one.

Sorry about the diversion, however if Walsh with all his duplicity and bad faith towards the airline that put him in the big CEO league is shitting on Concorde's legacy, that's a plus - for Concorde.
(He likely only saw the final years figures in that reduced service, post 9/11 environment, he wasn't around when it was operating fully and he's no Lord King, the man who made it work for BA. King had to make deep cuts to BA in the early 80's and was under orders to privatize it, yet Concorde survived and thrived. Years after his leaving and death King is still a respected figure at BA, Walsh? A nasty jumped up little prick who cynically 'returned' from retirement to use Covid to stick it to BA, citing opposition to handouts which as I mentioned, he happily accepted for his Spanish and Irish operations).

To the 2707, it was cancelled in 1971 after several attempts by Nixon to save it.
What did for it was not an enhanced business nous, it was that wildly over ambitious spec they drew up, Mach 3, later 2.7, meaning you could not use alloys like Aluminium, it would have to be expensive, hard to work and hard to get Titanium, it was one thing to have the CIA set up front companies to get it from the main supplier, the USSR, for the small number of A-12/SR-71's, quite another for the 2707.

Then there was the major delays and cost overruns, not least caused by the Boeing winner of the US SST competition being a V-G design that was found to be so heavy it's payload would be zero.
So on to the final tailed delta, by then of course those concerns about noise, the boom, emissions were now looming larger.
Had a more practical Mach 2 non VG design been picked, it might well have not entered service but at least a prototype would have been built, NASA may well have found a use for it.
As early as 1956, in the UK, a Supersonic Transport Advisory Group, seen as the inception of the idea, ruled out speeds higher than Mach 2.2 for these reasons.
So why this spec?
We have to go back to what created the US SST project, in 1963 Pan Am took out options on Concorde and Juan Trippe warned the US government they risked being left behind.

Like my favorite documentary maker Adam Curtis often says in his films.....'it is a strange story'.

I was just reading up on the history of SSTs and I was intrigued about the testbed NASA used based on a re-engined Tu-144. They used Russian NK-321 engines that appear to have better performance specs (thrust and fuel consumption) than the Olympus engine that was powering Concorde. No way Boom uses Russian engines, but it would be interesting to understand the differences.

https://www.nasa.gov/centers/armstrong/ ... -DFRC.html