WHAT’s Going On with BOOM Supersonic?! Will it Fail?

boom supersonic is promising to create a new supersonic airliner to follow in the footsteps of the awesome Concorde but lately some questions have started to rise around the viability of the project and specifically around who is going to make their engines stay tuned [Music] the question which is your favorite aircraft of all time has a lot of possible answers there are several aircraft who have revolutionized commercial aviation in its own way throughout the history the Douglas DC3 the Boeing 707 and of course the Boeing 747 are some examples that immediately comes to mind but no airliner have ever looked as different and being as different from everything else than the Concord was the Concord was a Sleek pointy nose delta wing beautiful looking aircraft with four of the burning turbojet engines that could fly at twice the speed of sound as high as 60 000 feet so I am willing to bet that even if the Concord isn't your all-time favorite aircraft it is slightly high on your list and it certainly is on mine so I think it's really sad that the Concord was retired without anything to replace it back in 2003. it was sad but not entirely surprising and why is that you might ask well there is still some debate whether or not Air France and British Airways ever really managed to run their Concord fleets with any consistent profit although talking about pure profit from an aircraft type is a bit unfair on Concord as a design because some of its high cost simply had to do with the small number of planes that were ever made and the limited number of routes that they were able to fly on it also had to do with the unique experience that the passengers expected when they flew on them and I'll give you one example of that so both British Airways and the Air France needed to keep extra Concord and Crews on standby such each of their route because if one had a technical problem its passengers wouldn't just accept a ride in a replacement 747 for example since that would take more than twice the time although that meant some huge costs for the airlines it also created some unique opportunities for example when the original aircraft had departed which it usually did then especially towards the end of the concord's career British Airways and Air France would use the standby aircraft and crew to offer Concord trip experiences on those trips the passengers would fly a short but still supersonic flight lasting just over one and a half hours and since the planes needed much less Fuel and the passengers had no luggage on these flights it made the aircraft very light and this meant that the airlines could make a bit of money and still offer these trips at lower prices to anyone who wanted to experience supersonic flight now when I say lower price I mean relatively speaking because in today's money those experiences still costed around 1500 Euros or fifteen hundred dollars these flights also served another purpose as they helped British Airways and Air France to keep their Crews current and qualified on the aircraft but for normal flights the economics of keeping these yes profitable were more challenging they burned an enormous amount of fuel per passenger and the noise footprint would not be acceptable today another issue was that even if Concord made some money for its Airlines and that's a big if it still didn't nearly cover the cost of its development that development just wouldn't have been possible without substantial government support this kind of government backing wasn't unusual for the 1960s and 70s Boeing's 2707 supersonic transporter or the SST also got substantial U.S government funding before its cancellation but here we come to the first hurdle so realistically at 21st century successor to the Concord can't expect to get similar support they will have to bear the cost of development entirely by themselves and their investors and they must be able to recoup those Investments through the sales of the aircraft also environmental considerations mean that those supersonic trip experiences that the Concord was able to do would likely meet some Fierce resistance today if there's even a market for them over the years there have been some studies and proposals for other supersonic Airlines but none has led anywhere but that all changed when the American startup boom supersonic entered the picture in 2014. boom is planning to use the huge technological leaps that aviation industry has enjoyed in the decades since the Concourse launch to produce a fitting Concord replacement one that could be truly profitable and still relatively green by making sure that the aircraft can be Run 100 on sustainable aviation fuel today the boom Engineers are benefiting from things that the Concord designers could only dream of things like Advanced Composites for lightweight structures with unusual shapes much more knowledge on Advanced aerodynamics and of course hugely more efficient engines the aircraft that boom is working on is called the Overture and we have already seen a few design iterations of it initially it was supposed to be fitted with three engines two under the wings and another one installed in the tail kind of like on the DC-10 but boom eventually moved away from that design partially because that configuration might have required a different engine to be fitted in the tail than those under the wings and operationally and in terms of maintenance this would have been far from ideal I don't know if I've ever heard about an aircraft that runs different engines on the same airframe so boom modified the Overture revealing its definite design in July this year 2022. in his final form the aircraft now has four engines all under the wings and has many similarities with the Concord but also some crucial differences the orbital will for example be able to carry between 65 and 80 passengers and that's to be compared with Concord who was able to carry 100 passengers and its Cruise speed would be Mach 1.7 which is slower than Concorde who typically Crews at just above Mach 2. the Overture and the Concord will have the same maximum Cruise altitude of 60 000 feet but the Overture will have a bit longer range 4250 nautical miles to the Concord 3900. size-wise the aircraft are almost identical in length the Overture will be 201 feet or 61 meters long and that's just one feet or 30 centimeters shorter than the Concorde was but the overtures wingspan will be 106 feet or 32 meters where Concord was only 84 feet that's 25.6 meters finally unlike Concord boom's Overture will likely have horizontal stabilizers and elevators this fact also makes the final configuration of the orbiture quite similar to Boeing's all the signs for the 2707 SST which was scrapped back in 1971. that aircraft also had horizontal tail surfaces but the SST would have been much bigger and much faster carrying more than 200 passengers at a speed around Mach 2.7 faster even than the Concorde so now that you know a little bit more about the Overture what's the latest news about its development and why would it be any worry about its engines well before we get to that here's a short message from a sponsor who makes it possible for me to create these videos before we continue let me share something with all of you as an airline pilot mastering several languages can be really handy and for quite some time I've been on the hunt for a great language app that allows me to learn as quickly as possible and teaches me how to sound natural you know like a true local when I found speakally today's sponsor I knew I'd found something really special speaking it teaches you words and sentences based on the relevance in real life situations this unique mythology elevates you from zero to solid speaking skills in around three to four months with just 30 minutes of daily learning practice there are eight languages available including Spanish French Italian German Finnish Russian Estonian and English the app's creators 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propulsion system with boom's Flagship supersonic passenger aircraft but like I said in September Rolls-Royce announced that its contract with boom was now completed the engine maker said that it delivered various engineering studies for boom's Overture and in the company's press release it also included the following statement Rolls-Royce has determined that the commercial Aviation supersonic Market is not currently a priority for us and therefore we will not pursue further work on the program at this time it has been a pleasure to work with the boom team and we wish them every success in the future this likely happened because in order for Rolls-Royce to commit to boom's project as an engine supplier it would need to commit substantial amounts of its own money in developing a suitable engine in an interview with you nostro were from the air current back in August Rolls Royce CEO of Warren East said that the engine Maker's development projects at the time only involved its business jet engines and its future ultrafan airliner engine which by the way we might do a video about soon so if Rolls-Royce won't make an engine for boom supersonic maybe someone else would be interested let's look at what kind of an engine the Overture will ultimately need so boom is looking for an engine with a trust output between 15 000 and 20 000 pounds or 67 to 89 kilonewtons that's a bit less power than what the cfm56 made that's the engine that's used by aircraft like the Airbus A320 or the Boeing 737 Ng but for Boom the Big Challenge in finding the right engine isn't simply about the amount of power produced you see engines for supersonic use are very different from those that you see under the wings of subsonic airliners usually what aircraft designers want for a standard airliner is a turbofan engine with a big bypass ratio meaning that most of the airflow going through the engine doesn't actually go through the engine core instead the air goes around the main core and out the back essentially bypassing the core hence the term bypass radio this hugely improved fuel consumption and reduces noise but it also makes the engines very big with a huge front surface area The Concourse engines were turbo Jets where all of the airflow goes through the core and back when that was designed creating a turbofan engine for supersonic use was very difficult because the bigger frontal area of the turbofans becomes a problem in supersonic applications now the Soviet triple f144 actually did have turbofans but they managed to make them even less efficient than the Concord with its turbo Jets was of course that was many decades ago now and today there are more modern turbofan engine designs some of which actually are used for supersonic applications in for example large military jets so finding an engine with the right trust and bypass ratio that would suit boom's Overture would therefore be difficult but not impossible and there might actually even be one design out there that is really close to being perfect and that design is the General Electric affinity this is a conceptual ending design that General Electric was developing for the Aryan supersonic as2 Business Jet now sadly Arion closed its door last year because of lack of funding but the General Electric Affinity plans still exists and are very close to what boom is looking for it has a trust of 16 000 to 20 000 pounds that's 71 to 89 kilonewtons and it's suitable for supersonic application and because that's what it actually was made for the General Electric Affinity uses the same Core Design as the cfm56 and that's not so surprising because the core of the cfm56 originally came from a military engine the General Electric f-101 various versions of the f-101 are still powering a lot of big and small Military Jets today ranging from the F-16 to the B1 and even the B2 bomber you can think of that next time you see a Boeing 77 NG taxing out on the apron anyway the Arion as2 private jet would have been significantly smaller than the boom Overture and would have used three engines instead of four crucially the as2 was also designed to be a bit slower between Mac 1.4 and Mach 1.6 which would allow the engine to work without the use of variable geometry Engine air inlets that's something that both Concord and the Tuple 144 had and those inlets were needed in order to slow the air down before it entered into the engine and is typically needed for flights at higher Mach numbers the pictures of Boom Overture doesn't show any such variable air inlets but since the program doesn't have a specific engine yet the lack of those details doesn't necessarily mean that they won't be added later on the problem here is that the GE Affinity engine is only a conceptual design this was an engine that GE could make by adjusting updating and combining Technologies from its Military and Commercial jet engine designs so is there a possibility that GE might fund development of such an endium for boom and its Overture unfortunately it turns out that the likely answer is no in an interview with leeham news General Electric stated that it is not interested in working on an engine for the boom Overture pratham Whitney aren't interested either and the same seems to be true for saffron in France now we contacted boom Aerospace to ask them about this issue with Indian suppliers and other challenges facing the program but they politely declined an interview and I would have really liked to hear what they had to say but if boom can't expect to get an engine from Rolls-Royce General Electric pratham Whitney or saffron then which manufacturers are left well there are other companies like Honeywell Williams and a few others who make jet engines but none come to mind that currently offer an engine of the kind of size that would be appropriate for this project now it is worth pointing out here that in case it isn't already obvious for any airliner the engines it will use are a make or break factor in its success if you don't have an engine you don't have an aircraft if you look at Concord for example the engines were vitally important in making it possible the Concord used the mighty Rolls-Royce snecma Olympus 593 engines and snegma is today known as Safra the precursors of the Olympus 593 variant poverty Avro Vulcan and the council BSC tsr2 bombers and evolving this military turbo jet engine into a point where it was powerful and reliable enough for the Concorde was a huge deal for the Indian designers Rolls-Royce snakema and the other designers of the Concord had to among other things engineer a clever engine Inlet system like I talked about before which could use early computers to keep the engines operating safely that was known as an inlet by wire system that was used together with the early flyby wire that the Concorde also was equipped with it was a true Marvel of early Aviation engineering but all of these new systems required substantial Innovation and investment similar to what an engine manufacturer for a new supersonic engine also will have to make still there are a lot of things that will likely be easier this time around for example boom's Overture uses Technologies in its airframe that Concords Engineers didn't have Composite Materials makes it easier to have a pressurized cabin with a variable cross section that can follow what we refer to as the area rule making the aircraft more efficient in supersonic flight Concourse Engineers also knew about this principle but they just couldn't build such a fuselage out of aluminum and keep it light enough to be practical boom is taking advantage of a lot of new technologies like this but it really needs a good engine partner to take advantage of similar or even more crucial Technologies around engine development it is actually quite troubling to see that the company has finalized its aircraft design seemingly without having an engine supplier in place now there might also be the question believe it or not if Mach 1.7 is actually fast enough for the boom Overture to work well for its Airline customers and I'll explain why obviously Mach 1.7 is an amazing cruising speed more than twice as fast as the Boeing 737 that iFly and it clearly would be a big selling point for the passengers but for this speed to provide a substantial benefit for the airlines it would need to make it possible for them to use these jets in multiple transoceanic routes per day that was the reason why Boeing initially aimed for its ill-fated 2707 SSD to fly at Mach 3. later versions of that design lowered those targets down to Mach 2.7 and early in the development of Boom supersonic aircraft there were studies about what the ideal Cruise speed for this aircraft would be and factoring in the distances between popular city pairs that are separated by oceans plus factoring in the desirable times of day for arrival and departure at Key airport analysts determined that boom supersonic yet would need a crew speed of Mach 2.2 to be viable for its desired number of routes boom eventually lowered its Target speed to Mach 1.7 and this probably had to do with limitations on composite materials at high temperatures or perhaps to avoid design details like those variable geometry engine inlets which could add quite a bit of complexity and weight boom also didn't pursue an aerodynamic design that would minimize aerodynamic noise over land NASA and Lockheed Martin are working on a test aircraft or exactly this purpose called The x-59 Quest again avoiding such characteristics likely makes boom design simpler but it also limits its roots to City pairs that are across oceans and that's because if supersonic speeds cannot be maintained over land which is not allowed at the moment but could be allowed if the noise is shown to be low enough the speed of the ocean would need to be fast enough to enable these root pairings as I mentioned before and then Mach 1.7 might not be high enough it is however good to see the boom or trying to keep the complexes down on the design in order to make the reintroduction of a supersonic airliner more realistic but we will have to wait for the company to announce who its engine supplier or engine partner will be to see if it can actually stick to its ambitious development timeline boom hopes to have a prototype where it's over to ready by 2026 so the goal to enter service before the end of the decade and although things might look a bit Bleak at the moment I am actually really rooting for boom to succeed I think that we need companies like this who shoot for the stars and push us our imagination and nothing would make me happier than seeing something with a similarly Sleek design as the Fantastic Concord return back to the skies now if you want to see a really fascinating story then check out this video up here and consider joining my patreon crew or buy yourself some merch if you want to support me and my team have an absolutely fantastic day and I'll see you next time bye

Channel: Mentour Now!

Views: 187,247

Keywords: boom, overture, supersonic, super sonic, boeing, concorde

Id: rzyOIwjYK7E

Length: 19min 59sec (1199 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 20 2022