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Topic: The "Boom" airliner - the most unfortunate product name in history?
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Leo Enticknap
Film God
Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000
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posted 03-22-2016 11:32 PM
If we weren't still a week out from April Fool's Day, I'd have thought that this site was inspired by it.
An airplane called the Boom? Really?! Firstly, if I were launching a new supersonic airliner, the boom is the absolute last aspect of it I'd want to draw attention to (it was why Concorde was never able to fly any overland routes at supersonic speed, and campaigns to ban it sprung up at virtually every airport it operated service to). Quite apart from that, the word evokes crashing, blowing up, 9/11, and a general "Oh, the humanity!" sort of feeling.
It would be like Ford naming their newest model the Impact, or Chanel calling their latest perfume Sewage. The people behind this aircraft may be brilliant engineers, but their expertise sure as heck isn't in marketing!
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Scott Norwood
Film God
Posts: 8146
From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas)
Registered: Jun 99
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posted 03-23-2016 05:57 AM
There actually is a car called the "Impact": see here. It was some sort of early electric car model, although I doubt that any were actually sold (especially with that name). Pretty much every article that I read about it at the time indicated that the name was ridiculous.
As a side note, it will be interesting to see if this can succeed. One of the issues with the Concorde (in addition to the boom thing) was that it used so much jet fuel that its range was limited to, effectively, an NYC to Europe flight, and not the truly long flights where supersonic speed would be most advantageous. Also, video conferencing and such have removed some of the need for business travel (the only type of travel that can usually justify paying extra for speed).
Somewhat annoyingly, the trend in aircraft design seems to be to move toward slower crusing speeds for reasons of economy. The modern 787 crusies at about 30-40 mph slower than the 707 of the late 1950s. Also, since the 787 is a twin-engine aircraft, it is somewhat more restricted in routing than a four-engine plane would be. This regression is kind of sad. Which is not to say that the 787 isn't a much better better aircraft...just that it is unfortunate that the product category has gotten worse in some aspects over the last few decades.
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Leo Enticknap
Film God
Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000
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posted 03-23-2016 03:51 PM
My wife reminded me that there was a Chanel no. 2, but it was invented long before dual flush systems turned #1 and #2 into euphemisms for human waste.
As for Concorde, my $0.02 is that the Internet basically killed it. It was only even close to commercially viable (and even then, only to cover its operating costs - no way ever could it have covered the R & D costs, and it wouldn't have existed if the British and French governments hadn't picked up that tab) because during the '80s and '90s, there were enough senior businesspeople willing to pay whatever it cost to be able to make a return trip in one day across the Atlantic. Once telecommunications and data communications became fast, reliable and cheap enough to remove the need for most of Concorde's customers to do that, its market fell out from under it.
The "Boom" guys claim that they can, in effect, research, develop and bring into production a replacement that will enable supersonic transport at a much lower cost. I guess it's a case of watching this space to see if they can deliver; and if they can, whether there's a viable market even at the prices they're talking about ($5k a ticket).
quote: Scott Norwood
Somewhat annoyingly, the trend in aircraft design seems to be to move toward slower crusing speeds for reasons of economy. The modern 787 crusies at about 30-40 mph slower than the 707 of the late 1950s. Also, since the 787 is a twin-engine aircraft, it is somewhat more restricted in routing than a four-engine plane would be. This regression is kind of sad. Which is not to say that the 787 isn't a much better better aircraft...just that it is unfortunate that the product category has gotten worse in some aspects over the last few decades.
Paul would probably be able to speak more authoritatively on this, but my understanding is that there are now very few routes that can't be flown by an ETOPS-certified twin, most of them being across the South Atlantic (e.g. Buenos Aires to Johannesburg), which is a tiny market anyways. As for speeds reducing, again, I guess this is market driven: the vast majority of long-haul air passengers would prefer lower cost and/or higher frequency on major routes to higher speed.
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