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by credit_guy 510 days ago
The air density decreases exponentially with the altitude, while the drag only increases quadratically with speed. It is entirely possible that there is an altitude, maybe 70km, where it is much more economical to fly (at supersonic speeds) than the current subsonic planes. Most likely the CEO of Boom ran the numbers, and the $100 ticket price is doable, at least if you exclude things like profit, capital depreciation, insurance, etc.
1 comments
wnolens 510 days ago
> Most likely the CEO of Boom ran the numbers, and the $100 ticket price is doable

Most likely it's aspirational, something to market to investors and potential employees.

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credit_guy 509 days ago
> something to market to investors and potential employees

Neither the investors nor the potential employees strike me as gullible. By the way, the $100 ticket price target was not for the first aircraft, see [1]:

  > The four hour, $100 dream is Boom’s long-term aim, two or three generations of aircraft down the line.
[1] https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/boom-supersonic-four-hour...
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wnolens 508 days ago
Yes, and self driving cars are right around the corner!
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credit_guy 508 days ago
I don't get the analogy. The Boom CEO explicitly stated that $100 tickets are not around the corner. Two or three generations down the line means four decades at a minimum, if we think one generation takes 20 years. Lots of things can happen in 4 decades, like: significant advances in ramjet engines, rotation detonation engines become mainstream, people get comfortable with windowless aircraft (so there's no need for drooping nose Concorde-style), airports could start being equipped with arresting wires, like aircraft carriers today, airplanes without the vertical tail fin become common place, stronger and lighter composites become available, and, who knows, maybe even some jets will start running on hydrogen rather than jet fuel (hydrogen having about 3 times more energy density per unit of mass). I have to admit the even with all these things, $100 per ticket to any place in the world still seems like a stretch, but I'm willing to give the guy the benefit of the doubt.
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