[bangaroo]

there hasn't been supersonic civil aviation, as far as i am aware, since the concorde was grounded. there are no active commercial aircraft capable of going supersonic.

this is significant because it's the first civil aircraft to reach that milestone since the ending of the concorde program.

[creer]

There has not been supersonic civil aviation but "supersonic" is not the interesting point here. "Supersonic" is easy and solved often in aviation. The question is what else can they do to make it work. And there is no aircraft yet, just a scale model. Progress sure but not because "supersonic". The new engine would be more interesting.

And how is this a civilian aircraft? It is a cool one-off single seater with three military engines (oops, civilian engines derived from military and used in business jets - still not cheap for a one-seater). Two-seater for some definition of "technically". But perhaps they can sell a few of these to private pilots and then it would be a supersonic civilian aircraft. One pilot and one passenger if we insist on making it a business jet.

[adastra22]

Supersonic is “easy” in the sense that rocket design is “easy.” Orbital rockets were still out of reach of non-government-funded efforts until SpaceX, and supersonic flight is still the sole domain of government contractors now. Boom is changing that.

[creer]

Easy of course in the sense that that many aerospace engineers and aircraft have done it all over the world for many years. And most "government contractors" in the capitalist world are civilian private companies, many of which build both military and civilian aircraft and started small.

Which means, for example, that even this small private company knew pretty well what to look for in wind tunnel tests and other materials work. Their first transonic and supersonic flight was stable, did not destroy the aircraft, did not kill the engines, etc. Even, presumably, broke through the sound barrier the first time they tried - and was fully expected to.

[dmitrygr]

> there hasn't been supersonic civil aviation

There still isn’t, and this is not a very interesting stepping stone. We already knew that we could fly a plane quickly. This company has no engines for their allegedly full scale plane. The last manufacturer dropped them a few years ago, and there has been no movement in that direction. This demonstrates the easiest part of what they’re trying to do, not the hardest.

This is the equivalent of a hand drawn ui mockup for a future “AGI workstation”, while not at all addressing the “AGI” part

[WillPostForFood]

The equivalent of a hand drawn ui mockup for a future “AGI workstation” would be a hand drawn mockup of a supersonic plane, not a functional supersonic plane.

[bangaroo]

i don't disagree with any of that, i'm extremely skeptical that they will ever scale this up

however: there is, now. this is a civil aircraft flying supersonic, which is still some sort of interesting fact.

[talldayo]

"Civil" supersonic aircraft is a designation, that's it. Like the other comment said - you can fly supersonic military jets with a civilian designation as long as the jet is deemed airworthy.

The real question is whether this will ever scale up to be a passenger aircraft. There are still a huge number of unsolved problems, many of which plagued the Concorde in the best of years. I don't think a scaled demonstrator is going to give people the confidence to denounce traditional passenger jets.

[rbanffy]

This is the first supersonic aircraft in a long time that started as a civilian one and was never intended for military applications. Loses points for the military engines though.

Still impressively cool.

[talldayo]

"in a long time" kinda doesn't matter to me. America hasn't built a supersonic bomber "in a long time", you'll have to excuse me for not caring. The value of such a weapon is dubious and only made sense in a hype-laden Cold War environment.

Similarly I don't think we've learned the lessons of the Concorde yet. Not only do people not need hypersonic flight, it's going to create a premium class of hydrocarbon emissions that is already bad enough with passenger aircraft. Progressive countries will ban operation (much like they did with the Concorde) and routes will have to be changed. Removing the afterburner and making the boom quieter simply isn't going to bring these skeptics onboard, and they're right to remain skeptical.

[rbanffy]

> Not only do people not need hypersonic flight,

We do. It takes me more than 14 hours and two flights to visit my son in Brazil. Even if there was a direct flight, it wouldn't be much less than that.

At this time, very few people visit places more than 10 hours away from their homes. Knowing places faraway and different expands one's horizons. You learn that there are different ways of living, different ways of thinking, and that not everything that's different is bad, threatening, or broken, or "underdeveloped".

The more people know each other, the better we are able to work together. And the better we understand we are all on the same boat, regardless of what our governments say.

[bangaroo]

as a person who likes airplanes (and airliners in particular,) i think it's cool that a commercially-focused aircraft manufacturer has managed to return to a type of flight that has primarily been relegated to military operations for a very long time

today i am not thinking any further ahead than "wow, they did a really cool thing and made a supersonic test platform for a commercial airliner."

there will be lots of future questions and concerns but we are far off from them, because they are not even close to scaling this up and there are so many gaping holes in the plan that i don't take it seriously at the moment.

i just think the little plane is neat.

[dylan604]

Do none of the private jets like G6s or whatever fly supersonic?

[NegativeLatency]

No, you can kinda tell by the planes shape how fast it can go. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Area_rule

Certainly they're fast, wikipedia says the the G650 can get to mach 0.9, but it's called the sound barrier for a reason. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_barrier

[dylan604]

That makes sense. I've known that private jets fly faster than typical commercial jets as well as flying at higher altitude.

[bangaroo]

nope.

commercial and private jets generally cap out around mach 0.9

i am very rusty on the economics and details of supersonic commercial flight, but the general gist as i recall is:

- going much faster scales up the cost of flying at a rate that's hard to justify for how much time it saves. there is less case in the 2000s for "having to be in london in 3 hours from NY" than there previously was, too.

- noise restrictions and such limit the usefulness of planes that are set up to fly that fast as people don't like being underneath constant sonic booms, so the routes that supersonic passenger flights were relegated to are mostly over water.

it is just way cheaper and easier to fly subsonic, and if you're on a private jet anyway it's not like you're uncomfortable while traveling.

[JumpCrisscross]

> going much faster scales up the cost of flying at a rate that's hard to justify

Worse: drag in the transonic regime is generally worse than subsonic or supersonic.

[teractiveodular]

Air travel is more popular than ever and 2024 broke basically all records. Why would there be less case for faster flights?

Supersonic flight will be the preserve of the 0.1%, but the vast majority of private jets can't fly trans-continental (without stops along the way) and there are people out there paying $50k per flight for Etihad's The Residence suites. So, yes, there are people who will pay for this.

[bangaroo]

the way i've heard it explained is functionally that the ultra rich are either leaning towards things like those private suites onboard a large plane, or flying in a private jet.

people don't mind the experience of flying in a plane or the time it takes for the most part - they mind being uncomfortably crammed into a seat for hours on end with another person spilling into their lap in a loud, stuffy cabin. otherwise, it's just hanging out in a different place than you usually do.

at the point you're paying for a resort hotel room with a shower, bed, privacy, internet and a tv in the air... who cares if you spend a few extra hours? the only example of a supersonic airliner that i can point to, the concorde, was actually fairly uncomfortable and cramped because of the way it was designed. it's likely (though i've been wrong before) that future supersonic planes would make similar tradeoffs to try and minimize weight and drag and maximize fuel economy - you will trade comfort for speed.

i think most of the people you're talking about would prefer 8 hours in a private hotel room (or full on private jet) with a full bar, bottle service, a shower and fancy meals to 2-3 hours cramped in a relatively small cabin after the novelty wears off. given how much easier it is to effectively meet across the ocean without traveling, the market for ultra-fast flights to get a one-day trip over with is also likely smaller.

i can't say i know any of these facts for certain, but previously when discussing the return of supersonic flights with folks who know better than i, this was the general sentiment. it makes reasonable sense to me on its face.

[4ndrewl]

Air travel is more popular because of cheap flights, airline competition and a consolidation amongst manufacturers leading to standardisations. There's no evidence that the 0.1pct are going to swap their private jets that fly at 0.8 for sharing an aircraft flying on other people's schedules between airports they dont want to travel to/from.

[adastra22]

Would you pay $5k to fly basic economy?

Air travel is popular, but extremely price sensitive. Ryanair and its ilk have shown that people will suffer humiliation to save even $50 on ticket prices.

Supersonic will have to serve the rich, who are willing to pay to fly private. But how big is that market? Especially if you’re still going to raise prices 2-3x?

[ghaff]

And the range in which supersonic really gets interesting (to wealthy people/execs) is trans-Pacific. My dad got upgraded to the Concorde once from NYC to London and his reaction was more or less eh. Glad to have done it once but I'm now arriving in London at rush hour rather than having a nice dinner in first class.

[chgs]

There ar every few day flights from the US to Europe. A lunchtime flight arriving at 8pm is far nicer than 5 hours sleep on an overnight flight or the 7am flight.

West bound being able to leave the office at 6pm and be in New York to pay the kids to bed is great.

[mshook]

I'm not sure why you're being downvoted because you're right: they have the technology, they don't have an engine, and this just looks like a civilian version of a fighter jet pretty much (except it has 3 turbojets).

And what people always fail to mention when it comes to supersonic flights is one of the main issue is neither a technological nor an economical one nor a supersonic boom one.

Traveling west bound is great: you leave in the morning and you arrive, local time, before the local time of your origin point. But traveling east bound isn't that great: you still have to leave in the morning and you land in the evening, so the only thing you gained is a shorter flight time but not a full day of work or shopping or what not.

So on regular flights (because Concorde was profitable, at least on the French side, thanks to charter flights), people would fly Concorde to go to NYC and fly back on a red eye...

As someone who worked for and flew on Concorde, I think what they're doing is amazingly cool though and I hope they succeed. But I'm still unsure what the long term plan is...

[ghaff]

Right. Whether I arrive in London at 4pm or 8pm doesn't really make much of a difference. (Admittedly it probably lets you arrive on the continent without a red-eye--depending on supersonic over land rules--as you pretty much have to do today.)

[enra]

I still prefer shorter flight time. I rather spend those hours in hotel bed or eating at restaurant than sit/lie in the airline seat.

[ghaff]

All other things being equal, sure. But I'm probably not paying thousands of dollars to save a few hours. Maybe if that amount of money is basically pocket lint, but that's a tiny percentage of the population.

[jdminhbg]

> I'm not sure why you're being downvoted because you're right

OP is being downvoted for saying there is still not supersonic civil aviation on a video showing a civil aircraft going supersonic.

[creer]

You are right - (And it's not a civil aircraft just because it's painted white.)

[mshook]

Fair enough...

[panick21_]

> they have the technology

Having the tech sounds funny. In some abstract way maybe. Actually being able to build a supersonic airframe and everything connected.

[niklasrde]

If you solve the boom component, can you just keep going West? London, NYC, LA, Tokyo, Singapore, Dubai, London?

[mshook]

Concorde holds the world record in both directions actually.

F-BTSD did it:

- westbound in 32 hours 49 minutes and 3 seconds on 12/13 October 1992, LIS-SDQ-ACA-HNL-GUM-BKK-BAH-LIS (Lisbon, Saint-Domingue, Acapulco, Honolulu, Guam, Bangkok, Bahrein, Lisbon)

- astbound in 31 hours 27 minutes and 49 seconds on 15/16 August 1995, JFK-TLS-DXB-BKK-GUM-HNL-ACA-JFK (New York, Toulouse, Dubai, Bangkok, Guam, Honolulu, Acapulco, New York)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concorde_histories_and_aircraf...

[ctippett]

We've already been to the moon before, but I for one would be excited to see it happen again.

[rvz]

Might as well tell the folks at SpaceX to not land on the moon because it we already "knew" we could do it because it has been already been done before.

This sort of pessimism to dismiss this achievement is exactly how to lose and stay comfortable.

Ladies and gentlemen, dismiss the above take.

[dmitrygr]

And if someone proposed to run a company for flying to the moon after every rocket engine manufacturer actively and overtly dropped them and they had no rocketry experience themselves, I would be equally skeptical.

[dingaling]

> there are no active commercial aircraft capable of going supersonic.

Both the Cessna Citation TEN and the Bombardier Global 8000 were taken supersonic during test flights, as they have to demonstrate stability at speeds of M0.07 greater than max cruise.

They aren't certificated to do it in service, but structurally and aerodynamically have no problem.

Long-range business jets have been pushing aeronautical boundaries well beyond the mundane airliner state-of-the-art.