[whitej125]

20 years ago nobody thought there'd be a another US automaker beyond the big three (Ford, GM, Chrysler)... yet today here we are with Tesla and a list of others.

Are there any other US companies today that could ostensibly be viable alternatives to Boeing's spot 20 years from now?

Electric-first-and-only was the differentiator for Tesla vs big three... what differentiator will it be in the aero industry?

[dghlsakjg]

Maybe one of the private jet manufacturers?

In the US we have Cessna and Gulfstream, and in Canada we have Bombardier which designed and sort of made the CSeries/A220 in Alabama in conjunction with Airbus.

The whole Bombardier CSeries fiasco was basically Boeing using the US government to try to kill Bombardier because they had managed to put together a plane that was very competitive with with the 737-MAX in a number of categories. The takeaway though is that it is possible, with significant government support, for a small jet manufacturer to put up a feasible competitor to Airbus/Boeing.

[0xffff2]

I think you mean Textron and General Dynamics. Cessna and Gulfstream haven't been independent companies for 10 and 20 years, respectively.

[buildsjets]

Also, they did not "try to kill Bombardier", they did kill Bombardier, at least as far as the commercial jet industry is concerned. Bombardier does not sort of make the CSeries/A220 in Alabama in conjunction with Airbus. The CSeries does not exist any more, the A220 is now a 100% Airbus program, as of Feb. 2020, Bombardier has zero involvement in it.

[dghlsakjg]

Bombardier jets are not dead just their passenger airline jets, they are still making jets, just not the CSeries, and nothing for the airline industry.

The Alabama A220 production started while Bombardier was still a partner which is why I used past tense "made" and "sort of"

[buildsjets]

That’s EXACTLY what I just said. They completely killed Bombardier at least as far as the commercial jet industry is concerned.

Bombardier now makes no commercial jet aircraft. Zero. None. They still make a few general aviation jet aircraft, but that product line is also dwindling. They completely stopped production of all their Lear products in 2021.

[dghlsakjg]

Sure, if you want to play semantics: Cessna Inc. owned by Textron Aviation Inc. owned by Textron Inc., and Gulfstream Aerospace Corp. owned by General Dynamics Corporation.

Both are wholly owned subsidiaries of their respective parent corporation ownership chains, and are commonly known by Cessna and Gulfstream.

[0xffff2]

My point being that they are such small companies that they weren't even viable as independent businesses. It's a joke to think that they could even remotely scale up to a viable Boeing competitor in this century.

[dghlsakjg]

Airbus is 53 years old.

Bombardier competes in the same segment as Cessna and Gulfstream and designed a plane that is actively in competition with the 737.

A lot can happen in a century, especially when the government puts its thumbs on the scale, which is the rule rather than the exception when it comes to commercial passenger planes.

[ARandumGuy]

Probably the biggest barrier to a new creating a new commercial airline manufacturer is that there just aren't that many new planes sold each year. There aren't that many customers for commercial airplanes, and existing airplanes can last for decades when properly maintained.

Combine all that with the inherently high costs of running a commercial airline manufacturer, and there just isn't enough demand to support more companies in the space. Changing that would require huge technical breakthroughs, or fundamental changes to how passenger air travel works. Neither of those seem to be likely in the near future.

[ponector]

Imagine you've spent 20 billion USD to develop, certify and create a production line. How you're going to convince airlines to buy hundreds of new planes they have no pilots for, no maintenance facilities and no predictions of reliability?

[thehappypm]

It'd be a business decision; it'd be hard to imagine a brand-new manufacturer of a competitor to the 737 doing well for that reason. But maybe a supersonic jet, or electric-powered with lower operating costs, or more automation to reduce pilot needs.. there are many ways to innovate.

[rafale]

The barrier of entry is much higher with commercial aviation. You can get started with a lousy car but a lousy plane will never be acceptable. The MAX fiasco could have killed Boeing. Maybe Boom will succeed by getting its feet wet in the supersonic flight niche. Time will tell.

[01HNNWZ0MV43FF]

Well, you could make a small plane if it's not lousy. Lilium and Electra are betting on something like an air taxi niche opening up if the fuel savings are worth it: https://www.electra.aero/ https://lilium.com/jet

[hef19898]

At least Lilium is at least a couple of years, and billions, away from having a product they can sell.

[jowea]

Maybe start with a small plane instead of a lousy plane?

[wand3r]

Boom is taking a Tesla approach to aerospace focusing on high end first with a Concord replacement. I am sure there are others working their way up the value chain

[hef19898]

Boom still isn't dead yet?

[ghaff]

Boom has all these fans on sites like this--and to be clear I wish Boom well--who also wouldn't consider spending $10K for a comfortable lie-flat seating flight from the US to Europe.

[notatoad]

Boom won’t die until the saudis give up on supersonic flight as a method to increase the demand for oil.

[consumer451]

Has Boom found a new engine supplier yet?

[buildsjets]

Every major and minor engine manufacturer punted, so now they're making their own. https://boomsupersonic.com/symphony

Hired an experienced propulsion guy away from Boeing to run the show. https://boomsupersonic.com/team-members/scott-powell

They are not going to be able to do it, my opinion. There are very few people in the world who have deep experience doing 3D CFD on supersonic turbofans, I've talked to a few of them and none have been headhunted. The will need good analysis work, they are asking for a LOT out of a single stage fan. They certainly will not have the metallurgical research and manufacturing technologies of the engine manufacturers to use. But best of luck to Scott, his Porsche GT3 was getting kind of old and needs to be upgraded to the latest model.

[hef19898]

If they hired a propulsion guy from Boeing to develop a new super-sonic engine, Boom fucked up. Boeing, same for Airbus, doesn't develop or built engines, let alone super sonic ones.

But dor sure, said Boeing hire will be royaly paid for his service, good for them. And good for Boom, a prominent Boeing hire will make fundraising so much easier.

But sure, as if building a new commercial airframe manufacturer isn't hard enough, becoming a new jet engine manufacturer on top of that is a winning strategy...

[buildsjets]

In the specific case of Mr. Powell, I would agree that his skill set is primarily in the management of procuring and integrating of new engines from engine vendors into new airframes, and in the detail design of engine accessories and externals, and he is not experienced in the design of internal turbo machinery. And that's where the high risk for Boom is.

However you would be completely mistaken to think that Boeing, and Airbus, and my friends down there with Embraer, do not have people who actively pursue and develop the core technologies needed to develop, analyze, and test all types of turbine engines, even if they do not result in market products. It is a necessary tool in order to evaluate offerings from the different competitive engine vendors. And at the senior level of engineering, there is basically a revolving door between the airframe manufacturers, the engine manufacturers, and a few of the high-level engineering focused airlines. People are constantly jumping around between them, there is a lot of cross-pollination going on.

[hef19898]

Yeah, I know some of those engineering managers. They all work best in well-established, large orgs with people knowing the ins and outs of their jobs.

The last time they actually developed something is quite a while ago. And managing engine suppliers, and component suppliers only gets you so far in developing the engines yourself. And we are talking super sonics ones.

[consumer451]

This is a tangent, but you are well informed in the space, and I would love to read your opinion.

There is a new heli player trying to start from clean-sheet, called Hill Helicopters.[0] They are building a sleek new carbon fiber fuselage, but what I am wondering about is the fact that they are also making their own turbine engine.[1]

I have assumed that their new turbine is the hardest part of their plan, am I correct in that assumption? Is it crazy, or not crazy, that they are trying to do this themselves?

[0] https://www.hillhelicopters.com/

[1] https://www.hillhelicopters.com/gt50-engine

[buildsjets]

I would say it is not impossible for them to do it themselves if they are adequately funded, but I question the wisdom of choosing to do so rather than buying an existing certified turboshaft engine off the shelf, of which there are many in that power range. Also, that seems like an excessive amount of power for that size helicopter. A similar horsepower engine is the Pratt-Whitney PW206B, used in the Eurocopter EC135. But the EC135 is a much larger helicopter and has twice the payload capacity of this design.

The engine itself is a fairly standard centrifugal compressor design, not particularly challenging from an engineering, or material science standpoint. But with no new technology being brought to the table, there is no performance reason roll your own engine, and you are going to have to beat existing engines that have decades of refinement behind them.

I know of two other companies developing microturbines that are considerably smaller than this in an market where there is no real competition, with some cool new technologies like regenerative microtube recuperating heat exchangers. One of them is in development, one is flying their turboprop and developing their turboshaft.

https://www.turbotech-aero.com/

https://turb.aero/

There is a design/prototyping/manufacturing company called ConceptsNREC https://www.conceptsnrec.com/home that specializes in turbine engine and pump design. They do analysis work for basically every jet engine manufacturer and automotive turbocharger manufacturer, have manufacturing facilities to prototype just about every part of a jet engine, and an extensive testing facility. I would just about bet that Hill has used their services in the design and prototyping of their engine. It's a great place to work if you have a PhD in aerodynamics but want to live in rural Vermont. They also sell a CAD design and CFD analysis software package specific to turbomachinery.

If you like industrial stuff, here's a video of their prototype shop, showing some of the parts they make. My favorite is a tiny titanium impeller for a jet fuel starter system on the F-22, at 3:35. It's about the size of a quarter, and took 40 hours to machine with an 0.020" / 0.5mm diameter ball end mill. I've met both the guys in the video, they are brilliant machinists, but definitely not well polished youtube influencers, lol. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6v98_oxqY7E

[ghaff]

I wish them the best but, even if they can get the technology to more or less work, the economics and regulatory environment are pretty tough.

At the end of the day, it's almost certainly going to be an expensive airline ticket and even if United was (rather inexplicably) touting Boom in their advertising, I'm not sure how many customers there are to pay out-of-pocket for supersonic flights that are likely to be a premium over current top-end seating. I'd love to zip over to Europe a lot faster from the East Coast of the US. But I'm not going to pay as much to save time as I would for the rest of my trip.

[whimsicalism]

There's even more government protectionism/capture in plane makers than automakers.

It would have to be a horizontal play by an existing company with large amounts of capital and relationships, like a Lockheed Martin or something.

[akira2501]

Another differentiation for Tesla was not having the dealership model. Perhaps the things not acknowledged are more important than those that are.

[ghaff]

I'm not sure how big a differentiation it was. There are no haggle dealerships, a lot of people still need financing, and people still need to get their cars serviced.

[peterfirefly]

It might even be Tesla again.

Somebody, somewhere will make an electric jet that is good enough. It will be very destructive for the old manufacturers, for old airports, and for many airliners. It won't need the long airways we are used to so we will likely get more point-to-point like travel to/from city centers (multiple sites for bigger cities).

Longer-distance travel will still remain the remit of traditional jets -- but they will have a much smaller market so there won't be much R&D, except through state subsidies and military contracts.