Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2024/03/25/supersonic-jet-takes-off-not-with-a-bang-but-a-whimper.html
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Hard to see who this is for unless they bring the cost way down. The number of people who would pay thousands of dollars extra just to shave three hours or so off a transatlantic flight is always going to be a minuscule percentage of the market, especially when the faster plane doesn’t include all the luxuries of a regular first-class seat.
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Why not spend the time and money making planes the rest of us fly in quieter?
Nose pollution is real.
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Or, here’s a thought, let’s remove several seats and make everything roomier!
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Last I heard the intention is NOT to build an airliner, but rather a “business” jet. So the market isn’t mere millionaires but those 100-1000 times richer. And with the ever growing concentration of wealth that might be a good bet. Although it’s difficult to imagine that there is a market for more than ~100 of 'em, if that.
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Ugh, you’re probably right. Gross.
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Not especially impressive at this point. Originally they were going to build it with some custom new engines but they couldn’t find a manufacturer willing to invest in building them when it’s likely to be such a small production run. From Ars Technica:
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So Boom aims to produce a smaller, slower and less pretty plane than one that first flew in the 1960s. Strange sort of progress.
And without the engines, this is going (literally) nowhere.
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I know that beauty is subjective, but personally I love the hilariously huge schnoz on the test plane that NASA is using to experiment with quieter supersonic travel:
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A throwback or homage?
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I bet there are plenty of billionaires who would buy a supersonic PJ.
I used to live under the flightpath into Heathrow airport in west London. I saw and heard Concorde come over once a day, most days. It was noisy but inspiring, even at slow, landing speed.
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Imagine if that snoot drooped!
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Does this mean that we’re all going to be subjected to window-rattling sonic booms every time 60-80 rich people need to get to their golf date half an hour faster, or will the FAA make sure that it can only go supersonic over water?
Because if it’s the former, calling the company “Boom” is really rubbing the noses of the proles in it. Noise pollution as conspicuous consumption is really the hot new trend we don’t need (*).
(*) New York City, where I live, has a fair percentage of those asshats who have the exhausts on their souped-up muscle cars modified to make intermittent loud bangs, just to make sure that everyone knows that some overwealthy dick-head is driving past. A law has now been passed to make this illegal, and things are much quieter.
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Yet here we are…
Stop subsidising air travel. Not now. Ten years ago. No new runways. No tax writeoffs for airliners as they are “strategice”. Progressive taxes on every cumulative flight. Starting 100% levies and progressive rates on all private jet flights.
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@FGD135 Thanks for sharing that video. That line up of three Tupolev TU-144s, @1:04, looks like it is straight out of Captain Scarlet.
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Last thing we need is to get on another airplane. High speed trains maybe
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Just my personal preference, but I don’t like planes that take off with a ‘bang.’ They tend to do so only once.
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Across the Atlantic? 
Pacific?
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Is that from Jonny Quest? Cool!
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