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So - question - how much initial capital/expertise would be needed to make a new ground-up competitor to McDD-oeing, but with the engineering/quality focus of the old Boeing? I'd imagine there must be enough disgruntled aerospace engineers to create a fresh company w/ a blank slate rethink of airliner design.

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It would be enormous. Getting airlines to buy from even medium-sized aerospace companies is a challenge. Bombardier couldn't sell its CSeries over fears that it would not be around for the multi-decade lifespan of the plane. Same plane under Airbus is a hot commodity.

So enormous that musk won't touch it. He's said a plane company is something he wants to do but can't. And that wouldn't even be large airliners.

It would probably take less capital/expertise to make a space rocket at this point then a airplane. There is so much red tape that unless you buy an existing airplane company you're probably never going to get sales. US gov has proven it will protect Boeing with massive tariffs if anyone besides Airbus threatens it, means you cannot sell to US companies. So you'd have to start with EU probably, and there is a fair number of established players already.

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