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Comment by nl | Hacker News Reader

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"How could anyone be stupid enough to fund Facebook. They'll never make money" - HN.

"VC's never fund anything but social media apps and advertising companies" -- HN.

"Yes of course SpaceX is going to make Musk money" -- HN.

"Funding a supersonic plane is a stupid idea" -- HN.

(And yes, also "$41M funding for color.com is stupid" --HN.)

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I would fund a supersonic plane if the company behind it wasn't living in another dimension. There is nothing wrong withe something taking 10 years to build. Under promise over deliver.

> "VC's never fund anything but social media apps and advertising companies" -- HN.

Well, they also occasionally fund stupid shit like uBeam.

> "Yes of course SpaceX is going to make Musk money" -- HN.

Isn't it? Except that money is wisely reinvested into the Mars transportation project.

> "Funding a supersonic plane is a stupid idea" -- HN.

Supersonic passenger plane is not a smart idea for various technical and economical reasons. I don't think that's just "HN opinion".

Supersonic passenger plane is not a smart idea for various technical and economical reasons. I don't think that's just "HN opinion".

AFAIK, the technical and economic reasons boil down to: "Too expensive to build, too expensive to fly, people object to the sonic booms".

I don't know if there is a way around the sonic boom problem, but for the first two there's an "easy" fix: make it cheaper. I don't have a clue how to do that, but and I have no particular opinion on Boom, but if someone came up with a way around that "small" problem then everything else falls into place.

As far as I can tell, the argument boils down to all that you wrote, relative to what you gain. AFAIK a supersonic passenger plane doesn't shorten your total trip enough, compared to regular passenger planes, to create a new quality class of travel.

E.g. taking 5 hours to go to a place (2h flight + airport overhead on both sides) by a plane vs. 12+ hours by bus makes many destinations suddenly accessible to people to visit for a weekend. Except maybe on intercontinental, I don't see a supersonic passenger plane enabling another quality class of travel.

A 16 hour flight dropping to 6 hours is a very noticeable difference, the question is if the economics work out. From an energy perspective ultra high altitude flight at Mach 2+ is surprisingly efferent. Though getting up there and up to speed is pointless for D.C. to NYC or other commuter flights.

Trouble is when it's 16 hours in a relatively comfortable seat that turns into a bed overnight with a choice of departure times (even including business jets in the price brackets we're currently talking about) versus 6 hours of relative discomfort with only one flight a day, it's less clear-cut a decision. Sure, there'll be some demand for it, but you need full aircraft on a very large number of routes for it to be a viable commercial aircraft programme.

Your assuming seats cost significantly more. That's not nessisarily true as the fuel costs are offset by need 1/2 the aircraft and far less crew time etc. So, if someone is looking at say a twenty percent premium and thinking about trying to sleep in coach that's an easy choice.

I think it's absurd to assume that supersonic flight will only be a 20% premium over coach class in a conventional aircraft with 3-4x the carrying capacity doing less work against physics and subjecting its more components to less physical stress.

If the price point comparison is (more plausibly) between business class in one of several A380/777 flights, chartering a flight and leaving exactly when and where you want if there's a group or coach class in a Boom, I think the choice is rather less straightforward. I'm not saying there's no demand - obviously Concorde filled seats - but I am saying it might not be sufficient to make a viable commercial aircraft programme even without restrictions on where they can fly.

From a physics standpoint ultra high altitude supersonic flight is not that much more expensive. The problems are mostly around economies of scale, but as soon as you get something that's competitive you will expect the price to fall quite a bit. A 400 passenger super sonic jet might use 2x the fuel per flight, but when it can make twice as many flights per day that's huge from capital standpoint.

That said, the concord was much closer to a prototype than what economical supersonic aircraft will look like. But, nobody is trying to build thousands of 400 passenger supersonic aircraft which makes your comparison more realistic.

Sure, a 400 passenger supersonic jet that only used twice as much fuel per flight but operated twice as many flights per day with comparable annual capital and maintenance costs could sell tickets at similar prices to coach class in a subsonic jet (assuming no barriers to operation on the same range of routes)

But I'd imagine there's a reason that jet doesn't exist even in the realms of the most hyperbole-filled press releases of supersonic jet ventures...

A 16 hour flight where there is a bed to sleep on in the plane would be better than a 6 hour flight crammed into a tiny seat like on a Concorde. Other than some 0.1%er stuff on really big jumbos you just don't see that. Where are the planes with the Fifth Element style sleeping bunks? I would be all over that if airlines could offer it at a reasonable price.

NY -> SFO is 6 hours+ commercial. Cutting that in half makes it possible to do a return flight in a day.

There are lots of people who do that already, they just take a red eye in one direction.

So their quality of life may go up if they could take a super sonic, but I'm not sure it would expand the market much: either way it's a crappy day and you only do it if you absolutely need to.

I think you underestimate the price elasticity of business travel.

And the security overhead just keeps getting higher. Many of the people with the money for supersonic flight would like to go to or via the Middle East, but won't be allowed to bring laptops now?

As far as I can tell, the argument boils down to all that you wrote, relative to what you gain

So.. the case for it is arguable? Which no longer makes it a "not a smart idea" - it might be a very smart idea, depending on numbers which we don't know but presumably investors have seen.

I dunno - maybe it'll end up a stupid idea. But I just don't see it being so obviously crazy as all the initial comments were making out.

Investing in general is hard. Investing in unproven business models or futuristic ideas is harder. Putting money where your mouth is hardest :)

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