Unsure on funding, but this is a proof of concept. It'll show that the modeling, design practices, manufacturing, etc are working. The "meta" of the plane. For example, while as you point out the air frame of the final production model isn't being tested, they are testing the ability to model the stresses and strains an airframe would undergo throughout the speed envelope. And that's huge
They don't need to do that on their own though. They just need customers who want a supersonic plane who are willing to put their backing to overturning the ban. If a few dozen super rich people say they'd be able to create a million jobs by shaving 20 minutes off a trip 'the people' will often listen.
Overture is an airliner [1]. With a $5k price target (I’d guess $10k), their market is habitual business-class travellers. Not even the low-end private jet crowd.
Going after business class travelers in a world with Zoom and 'doing more with less' being the zeitgeist of corporate spending is starting to sound like doubling down on making gold-plated horse buggies five years after the first Model T rolled off the assembly line.
> business class travelers in a world with Zoom and 'doing more with less' being the zeitgeist of corporate spending
Not sure if you’ve flown recently, but the front cabin is full, increasingly of leisure travellers who can work remotely. (Not upgrades, either. RASM is up and growing.)
Also, Zoom meetings are great for middle management and start-ups. But middle management wasn’t being flown around in business anyway. If you’re pitching a billion-dollar LP, you’re flying to meet them.
> Not sure if you’ve flown recently, but the front cabin is full, increasingly of leisure travellers who can work remotely. (Not upgrades, either. RASM is up and growing.)
It seems like US legacy carriers have gotten a lot better at offering discounted business class fares vs. simply throwing it open to upgrades and standbys when they can't fill the cabin with full fare pax.
I suppose maintaining exclusivity is less of a concern these days; they've probably figured out that competing with Middle Eastern and Asian carriers on luxury is a losing battle.
> Also, Zoom meetings are great for middle management and start-ups. But middle management wasn’t being flown around in business anyway.
Many companies still allow business class for transcontinental flights, for all employees. Big Tech is kind of an exception here from what I've heard.
IMO for domestic US travel business is rarely worth the premium anyway vs. premium economy; I'd rather grab a window seat with added legroom and work (or game on my Steam Deck) through the flight. Business class service is often a distraction, and in return you get food that's frequently worse than what you can find in the airport.
It seems unlikely that airlines are going to lead the way here, just due to economics I think it's going to be the bizjet market leading the way(1).
So the obvious choice for domestic flights would be Russia: rich oligarchs, huge country, loose enforcement of laws. Unfortunately for the world that is impossible for the foreseeable future.
The next best target is going to be transpac- IFF they can get sufficient range. So wealthy businessmen who have to do a lot of travel between Asia and North America is a reasonable market, so long as they can do supersonic the entire way. If you have to stop and refuel I suspect that the numbers don't work so well. If they can only do a translant without refueling the market is going to be people who want the prestige of having the coolest toys, and Boom is stuck trying to compete with Gulfstream G650 on prestige.
1: R.E.G. Davies explained it best, the problem with commercial supersonic is that the earth is rotating. For commercial airlines, the killer app for selling "expensive but gets you there faster" flights is the ability to get someone to a meeting the same day versus having to travel the day before. If you can save an executive a day that is hugely valuable and worth the company paying a premium for. If you can't, paying extra for a faster flight just isn't worth that much.
As a thought experiment, let's say that everything else is exactly the same, but at the end of the runway a Star Trek transporter beams the plane directly to the runway at the destination. So the executive wakes up in NYC at 5:30AM, is out of the house by 6AM, takes an hour to get to the airport, that's 7AM. It's an international flight so they need to go through extra checks, it's 8AM when their flight leaves for Paris. It is beamed directly to CDG, thanks to time zones it's now 2PM. Then it takes another hour to get through passport control etc. and it's 3PM, and another hour for ground travel in Paris and even without the flight taking any time at all it's already 4PM after waking up at 5:30AM. That's tough to make meetings work. (Obviously the return trip can achieve this meeting on day 1 effect, but a commercial airline you can only charge good prices for on half of its legs is going to be tricky to earn its money back.)
What about the Gulf States? Also lots of money, lots of ocean if they're traveling to South Asia/South East Asia, opportunity for subsonic to Europe, etc
For bizjets, that's another good use case, thanks.
I don't know how much travel there is along these routes, but you could probably shrink Dubai-Mumbai, say, from 3 hours to 1 hour, and that would be handy for meetings- only a 1.5 hour time difference with IST. But regular subsonic flights can also give you meetings in a day over that, so I'm not sure how much extra companies would be willing to pay for a commercial flight along those routes.
Concorde was very popular with business travelers, though. 3-4 hours in the air is a lot easier to deal with than 7-8. Maybe you don't get to a formal meeting on the same day but it still frees up time in the evening to meet with local colleagues, and leaves you much more fresh for that meeting the day after.
According to stories I heard, BA was able to turn a small profit on Concorde, but Air France never did(1). That was with each plane being given away for free (excuse me, 1 pound/franc each) subsidized by their governments. So with the prices that they charged (2) and free planes both airlines were close to break-even in operating costs. Presumably Boom is planning on charging more than 1 dollar for these planes, which means that the prices are going to have to be even higher than Concorde's were decades ago. And that means that people are going to have to justify it to their company even harder.
Believe me, I would love to have flown on one. I know a couple of guys who did, and it sounded really cool. But if the economic case doesn't close, then the only way they get sold is as toys for rich people, hoping to eventually trickle down to us mere mortals. Eventually. Maybe.
1: This is why after the crash AF decided to retire the Concorde, and going from having to pay half of the maintenance facility upkeep to paying all of it pushed BA from small profit into the red, hence BA following AF into retirement.
2: Which were high! Back as a teen in the 1990's I looked into it, hoping to talk my parents into flying one for a translant we were doing, and the cheapest ticket on a Concorde was like 3x more expensive than even 1st class on a 747. We flew steerage on a 747 instead.
3-4 hours in the air is a lot easier to deal with than 7-8 hours on a 1960s B-707.
On a Dreamliner with modern entertainment, higher cabin pressure, satellite internet, big windows, far better seats and much, much quieter engines? Meh, NBD.
I think this is really tough especially since the US is a big market and usually airlines don’t like to buy planes that only fly in specific countries.
