[rgmerk]

The point is that there isn’t progress on the most critical part of a viable aircraft - the engine.

Some of us who weren’t born yesterday have seen this rodeo before, and when a startup aircraft manufacturer switches engines it tends to indicate their concept isn’t viable. The fact that Boom are proposing to build their own engine, rather than partnering with an established engine manufacturer, tends to suggest that the engine manufacturers don’t think it’s doable either.

Sometimes the establishment gets it wrong, but jet engine manufacture is a very mature field, and Boom isn’t proposing to do some radical new engine design. That makes me pretty suspicious.

[whinvik]

Ok I will bite. Commercial engine manufacturers are also an oligopoly so they also have very little incentive to innovate like aircraft manufacturers. The only way to incentivize them is to bring a big pot of gold. I remember Boom tried but one of the engine manufacturers initially signed on then withdrew.

[rocket_surgeron]

>Commercial engine manufacturers are also an oligopoly so they also have very little incentive to innovate like aircraft manufacturers.

Commercial airlines and military customers are so competitive that they will use single digit percentage gains in efficiency or performance to switch suppliers.

So turbofan manufacturers spend more on R&D that almost every other non-biotech sector.

Pratt & Whitney Canada, a subsidiary of US-based Pratt & Whitney (3rd largest turbofan manufacturer) routinely tops the list of the largest R&D spenders in Canada. No. 5 last year: https://researchinfosource.com/top-100-corporate-rd-spenders...

Rolls-Royce (the second-largest turbofan manufacturer, not the car maker) was No. 4 in the UK in 2019 (page 29): https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN04...

General Electric doesn't break down their R&D spending by sector but they're always in the to 50 or so US spenders on research and development and they have to compete with the massive pharmaceutical and software (which is, understandably, mainly R&D) industries in the US to get on the list.

[jabl]

Sure they have an incentive to innovate, namely taking market share from their competitors.

The reason why they want a big pot of gold is that developing a new competitive jet engine is frighteningly expensive. The established vendors, with decades of in-house knowhow, will spend a decade and billions of dollars on a new from scratch engine. It's just not a game where a VC-funded startup with a very limited runway can expect to be successful.

But sure, I'd be happy to be proven wrong. Not holding my breath waiting though.

[hef19898]

Both, aircrafy OEMs and engine OEMs, do innovate all the time. Their innovation is of the evolutionary instead of disruptive nature so.

And hey, Airbus and Boeing are flying their existings jets with SAF for quite a while now, Airbus did so with the A400M and the A330.

No idea why Boom thinks they can be an aircraft and an engine OEM at the same time when already one of things tends on the impossible side of things to begin with.