Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by zokier 2964 days ago
> So that's about an order-of-magnitude cost reduction through the power of...magic, I guess?

Power of 50 years of technological development. That's less than 5% improvement year-to-year. Considering that supersonic flight overall was still fairly new thing when Concorde was designed and CAD was non-existent back then, order of magnitude improvement does not sound completely implausible.
2 comments
brandmeyer 2964 days ago
> That's less than 5% improvement year-to-year

The aerospace industry isn't advancing anywhere near that fast. Most of the low-hanging fruit was picked over 50 years ago.

Case in point: The Pratt & Whitney PW1000G is a geared turbofan engine. From demonstrated prototype (1993), to flight testing (2008) to production (2016), it took _23_years_ to develop this engine. Efficiency improvement over baseline: 15-18%. That's quite a bit less than 1% y/y improvement.

link
Scramblejams 2964 days ago
I worked on an aircraft which flies with the GTF. Just FYI, that’s a poor example to cite in support of your point. The GTF was set aside for many years due to expected higher fuel costs not materializing for a good while. It took some major impetus to get the program going again.
link
CaptainZapp 2964 days ago
Just out of curiosity: Bombardier C-Series?

For what it's worth. As a passenger it's my preferred ride on short and medium distances.

link
Scramblejams 2963 days ago
Yep, I did stress analysis on the nacelle. Glad you like it!
link
samat 2964 days ago
It is the best passenger airplane I ever flew as a passenger.
link
sjm-lbm 2964 days ago
And even though PW1000G has been in "production" for two years, it's had constant problems. Someone else here probabally knows for sure, but I think they finally fixed all their issues and hope to start producing in volume sometime soon. IIRC, they are still trying to get all the existing engines swapped out with fixed builds.
link
philwelch 2964 days ago
Not every technology advances at the same rate as electronics. An order of magnitude improvement in supercruise efficiency over Concorde--which is one of the biggest bottlenecks--would be a significant innovation alone.
link