yes they are not making a car or a new cell phone. The last clean sheet transport category aircraft took 8 years and bankrupted the company. The MC-21 and C-919 conceived around the same time are taking much longer get on their feet.

doubt a small privately funded group can pull this off. If takes really deep pockets to pull off a Part 25 certification. Especially on a new design. Even more so with a design that goes beyond the traditional airframe/power plant.

like was said before. Best they can hope for is to pull off a technology demonstrator and sell it.

 

I would not consider those an apples-to-apples comparison, neither RU or PRC has built a modern NB airliner. In the west a startup can just contract for needed expertise, they don't have to try to re-invent the wheel (or steal it).

I'm pretty sure their game-plan has been collaboration (or perhaps acquisition) all along.

Business plan: The big guys would have trouble selling the expense of such an R&D program to their BoD and investors. So get some VC to fund it, build something plausible and then the IP has value to traditional airframe mfgs.

If they pull it off, they can perhaps settle in as a bleeding-edge design bureau, kind of like Scaled Composites. Or sell the shop to one of the bigs.

What is actually different today is the development philosophy, enabled by very advanced computer tools, where production and mx are baked into the design from the beginning. In the old days you'd design the plane, fly prototypes, and then figure out how and if you could build (and mx) it in a cost-effective manner. Today they can in theory answer all of those questions on the digital drawing board. This is what the USAF is doing with the B-21, they are expecting the prototype to essentially be a production plane and very quickly ramp up from flight test to production. They took their time getting the design right, we'll see how it all works out.

 

Looking at other recent subsonic airliner developments, Boom is on an impossible timeline, and the order is a useful PR stunt for United that gets them regular attention with every news article. They won’t ever take the plane. And United has the nerve to say this will be a green aircraft because it can operate long thin routes - supersonic aircraft are never “green” and many of the advertised routes are served anyways.

This video from Real Engineering does a great job covering this topic:

Supersonic Air Travel Return?

The conclusion is not much has fundamentally changed since the Concorde, engines for supersonic flight have made little progress, this paper aircraft still has no engine to power it, the advertised fuel savings are mainly from slowing the airplane down, and it can’t even fly the Pacific routes it advertises.

 

I have no doubt they’re baking that stuff into the design, I’m more skeptical that they can ink deals and create the supply chain needed to build a fleet of these things instead of one or two bespoke aircraft to prove the tech and get certification. Airbus, Boeing, and I guess Embraer have the relationships and expertise, I think it would be hard for a startup to get the constellation of suppliers lined up well. Like you said, I think they’ll end up needing some kind of help getting into production once they have a final design.