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 Post subject: Re: Aerion shuts down
PostPosted: 25 May 2021, 22:05 
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Username Protected wrote:
even battery powered locomotives for the ultimate in stupidity.


I think you just went too far....

Maybe not for electric battery powered locomotives unless 50 of the cars in tow are batteries or they can frequenly couple fresh power and uncouple drained power from the hump yard.

What seems a bit more promising are the already existing for many decades hybrid electric locomotives with batteries for cruise and regenerative braking. Some have big capacitors as well.

It's funny how we had electric street cars, electric cars, and electric locomotives nearly 100 years ago. We just lacked the good battery technology and clean power.

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 Post subject: Re: Aerion shuts down
PostPosted: 25 May 2021, 22:26 
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Disappointing that Aerion could not come up with enough capital to continue this project. Not too difficult from a technology standpoint. Kind of surprising that it turned out this way considering all the back orders.


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 Post subject: Re: Aerion shuts down
PostPosted: 26 May 2021, 01:09 
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Question to the engineers. Is it cheaper to make an airplane that goes Mach 2, or a rocket that goes out of the atmosphere and can make it anywhere in 2 hours? I know nothing….. but the later would make more sense.

Not sure which is cheaper. Militaries have been building both for a long time and an ICBM might come in a bit cheaper than a fighter, although the latter has better avionics and a longer life cycle :D

The big price jump is going from high subsonic to supersonic but the price jump from Mach 1+ to Mach 2 isn't nearly as high.

Look at all the true Mach 2 airplanes from about 1960 on (from all countries). The overall shape of something you're trying to push that fast through the air hasn't changed greatly- a lot of the differences are tactical more than aerodynamic, and the aerodynamic improvements have been incremental and evolutionary rather than revolutionary. Propulsion has evolved but the basic proportions have changed little (how big the engines are compared to the airframe).

What you're left with is a package with fairly predictable proportions of the airplane itself, the fuel it requires, and the payload it carries. What made the Aerion special was the noise-attenuating aerodynamics but aside from that it seems to have more in common with the many large, fast, long-legged Russian Cold War aircraft than it does with modern business jets.

I thought it was a really neat concept and I'm sorry to see this news.


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 Post subject: Re: Aerion shuts down
PostPosted: 26 May 2021, 01:32 
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I think what keeps killing supersonic civilian aircraft is cost / efficiency.

Supersonic aerodynamics is less efficient than subsonic, for pretty fundamental reasons. So you need more fuel to travel the same distance. As an example a early 747 L/D was 17 and concord was 7 (at cruise speed)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lift-to-drag_ratio

Emperical L/D supersonic (see above) is L/D ~ 4*(M+3)/M, so Mach 2, expect L/D around 10, about 1/2 of a modern subsonic aircraft.

Supersonic doesn't buy you much time on short flights, so its useful on those same flights where fuel is starting to eat into your useful load, so not only do you spend 2X on fuel but you carry less - so its even worse.

Above about mach 2, lots of things get hard (engines, thermal etc)

The market just seems to prefer slower, but much larger / more comfortable planes at the same cost. A supersonic biz jet sounds great - but if the choice is a business class seat at Mach 2, or a full suite with a bed, etc at Mach 0.85, most people will choose the latter. Get to your destination in 12 hours rather than 6, but after a nigth's sleep, and with a comfrotable place to work during the trip.


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 Post subject: Re: Aerion shuts down
PostPosted: 26 May 2021, 09:55 
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Quiet supersonic jet company shuts down...quietly.

Will Boom be next to go Bust?

Film at Eleven.

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Last edited on 26 May 2021, 10:13, edited 1 time in total.

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 Post subject: Re: Aerion shuts down
PostPosted: 26 May 2021, 10:13 
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News today from inside GE- they are shutting down the engine development program that was intended to produce Aerion's engines. There is no other customer on the horizon for the unique engines required, at this time.

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Last edited on 26 May 2021, 10:48, edited 1 time in total.

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 Post subject: Re: Aerion shuts down
PostPosted: 26 May 2021, 10:27 
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Username Protected wrote:
even battery powered locomotives for the ultimate in stupidity.


I think you just went too far....


This "locomotive" only exists because California threw a $22 million dollar grant at it. Which is more than four times the cost of a conventional locomotive. It can't do anything without being coupled to at least one other locomotive. It's basically a regenerative brake power absorber, storing energy from braking. Otherwise that energy is dissipated through resistor grids. So it's not really an independent locomotive at all, it doesn't have enough battery to move a real train, and it't too big to be a yard switcher. If it were even able to be a switcher, it would spend half the time at a charging station the size of a neighborhood substation. This project is primarily intended to reduce emissions, but even that can be done far more effectively by using natural gas as a supplemental fuel.

FWIW, I am in a business of providing alternative fuels for locomotives, and other large diesel engines, with patented engine control technology, so I'm well versed in what is possible, what is practical, and what is just stupid.
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Last edited on 26 May 2021, 11:20, edited 1 time in total.

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 Post subject: Re: Aerion shuts down
PostPosted: 26 May 2021, 10:59 
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Username Protected wrote:

I think you just went too far....


This "locomotive" only exists because California threw a $22 million dollar grant at it. Which is more than four times the cost of a conventional locomotive. It can't do anything without being coupled to at least one other locomotive.


I was really referencing another well known BT'rs work on a battery powered locomotive, I think just for switching yards?

But could be read as a joke.... it can't go very far.

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 Post subject: Re: Aerion shuts down
PostPosted: 27 May 2021, 03:53 
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Username Protected wrote:
Would you pay double to fly twice as fast on a commercial flight?


It’s a question of comfort. People will pay double for first/business class and I’d bet spending half the time in the airplane is a similar gain in comfort.

Problem is you can’t sell 200 first class seats on one airplane, to make it only cost twice as much. There’s no case for economy.

I love the idea of supersonic flight but these guys seem only slightly more credible than the flying car guys. The $100 flight thing is the biggest red flag yet.

The only market I see is among the increasingly large number of fantastically wealthy people, but they’d have to charge hundreds of millions a copy. Not sure that set wants to pay that when they could fly slower in their own 787 for the same money.


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 Post subject: Re: Aerion shuts down
PostPosted: 27 May 2021, 09:38 
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Username Protected wrote:
Would you pay double to fly twice as fast on a commercial flight?



The only market I see is among the increasingly large number of fantastically wealthy people, but they’d have to charge hundreds of millions a copy. Not sure that set wants to pay that when they could fly slower in their own 787 for the same money.


The market is there, they had an $11 billion dollar order book at $120 million per jet. That's 91 jets already spoken for. With $4 billion expected in development costs, that leaves a good return on the table. But the environment for projects like this has changed since January.
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 Post subject: Re: Aerion shuts down
PostPosted: 27 May 2021, 09:47 
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Did they have deposits on 91 aircraft? LOIs aren’t sales.


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 Post subject: Re: Aerion shuts down
PostPosted: 27 May 2021, 11:03 
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Did they have deposits on 91 aircraft? LOIs aren’t sales.

These LOI's required a $250k deposit. Seven years ago they reported the first 50 LOI's and deposits that initiated the next development phase. I would be certain they accumulated the next 41 deposits since then in order to claim the backlog they reported.

Aerion is returning the deposits now.

Let's see who ends up with the significant IP generated so far. Dassault and Gulfstream both have said they would produce an SSBJ if the continental overflight ban was removed.

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 Post subject: Re: Aerion shuts down
PostPosted: 27 May 2021, 12:04 
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But coudl they really meet their promises specs at only 120M/plane?

Username Protected wrote:


The only market I see is among the increasingly large number of fantastically wealthy people, but they’d have to charge hundreds of millions a copy. Not sure that set wants to pay that when they could fly slower in their own 787 for the same money.


The market is there, they had an $11 billion dollar order book at $120 million per jet. That's 91 jets already spoken for. With $4 billion expected in development costs, that leaves a good return on the table. But the environment for projects like this has changed since January.


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 Post subject: Re: Aerion shuts down
PostPosted: 27 May 2021, 13:26 
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But could they really meet their promises specs at only 120M/plane?

I think you and I are thinking along similar lines.

$120m is about double to triple the price of current business jets. It's also about double the price of a new F-18. That's not a great comparison other than both are large~ish airplanes that top out just over Mach 1, in other words big pieces of metal and composite that can go a thousand miles an hour. Consider the differences that could make the price go up or down, or maybe make no difference:

- production run in the dozens (91 orders and counting) vs several hundred
- one's purpose is to carry a pressure vessel big enough for 10-12 passengers, the other's is to carry a lot of specialized mission equipment
- other airframe differences for transport category vs, uhhh, unlimited aerobatics
- Aerion is aerodynamically optimized for fast cruise, F-18 optimized for much lower cruise speed and uses excess thrust to achieve its dash speed

:shrug:

But yeah, I think it could have made the $120m price or at least come close. If they liquidate the intellectual property then somebody else will have an easier time picking it up from here and making that price.


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 Post subject: Re: Aerion shuts down
PostPosted: 27 May 2021, 15:55 
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Username Protected wrote:
Did they have deposits on 91 aircraft? LOIs aren’t sales.

These LOI's required a $250k deposit. Seven years ago they reported the first 50 LOI's and deposits that initiated the next development phase. I would be certain they accumulated the next 41 deposits since then in order to claim the backlog they reported.

Aerion is returning the deposits now.

Let's see who ends up with the significant IP generated so far. Dassault and Gulfstream both have said they would produce an SSBJ if the continental overflight ban was removed.

Lets hope the IP doesn't go someplace we don't want it to. All of the new design concepts for supersonic jets have pretty much been designed to enable supersonic flight over land. That work was going on over two decades ago with the goal of reducing the sonic boom to acceptable levels. We tested a modified F-15 at Edwards, the sonic boom level was difficult to pick out with your ears.

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