1. We will never have another SST.

Today, in an e-mail newsletter, Flight Global writes:

“For a realistic successor to Concorde to emerge, the aerospace industry must find an economical way around the immutable laws of physics.” #

This is correct, but the rest of the article talks about the wrong laws of physics. The challenge is not inlet geometries, sonic boom management, or exotic materials. The challenge is Moore’s Law.

In mid-1976, when Concorde launched, the price for a round-trip ticket between New York City and London was about $8,0001. Through a corporate account, these could usually be bought on a same-day basis, or at worst, next-day. Total flying time was about three and a half hours each way. It was a long day, but you could leave New York in the morning, have a few meetings in London, and get home for a late dinner.

Now, today, we would hop on a quick Zoom call or something if we needed to have a last-minute meeting with someone in London. In 1976, there was no amount of money that could have purchased a last-minute video call with someone in London. The state of the art was about $30,000/ hr, and required four to six weeks advance notice to get the satellite channels set up. Further, this was not an on-site facility; you would have had to go to the Bell System’s building in New York, or the BT building that-didn’t-really-exit in London.

In this context, Concorde was a major improvement over the status quo. Where there was simply no possibility, now there was something. The world is not the same today. Videoconferencing capabilities have been standard on smart phones for the past decade. They destroy what was probably Concorde’s core use case and, critically, a clear path to profitability. People just don’t need the three hour Atlantic crossing any more2; it’s replaced by a little rectangle everyone has in their pocket.

And that is why I don’t think we will ever have another SST.

2. Until there is an engine, it’s all smoke and mirrors.

Almost always, it is the engine that drives new airplane development. The A380 was enabled by the Trent 900. The 787 was enabled by the GENx. The CSeries was enabled by PW GTF3. Argueably, Concorde was enabled by the Olympus.

Boom says they have an engine. But it’s not going to be delivered to the first customer until 2027, and that’s a power generation customer. Weight doesn’t matter there. Cooling doesn’t really matter that much. It’s an entirely different certification regime.

I’ll believe when I see a real path to an engine.

  1. All prices are listed in constant 2024 dollars. ↩

  2. In many ways, this echos Airbus’s foundational mis-understanding of why airlines liked the 747. Airbus thought airlines liked the capacity of the 747, but they actually liked the range. The A380 offered the capacity and range, the 787 offered a lower capacity, but the same range. ↩

  3. In contrast, the A320neo was disabled by the PW1100G. ↩

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