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Is pax SST on the verge of making a comeback?

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Is pax SST on the verge of making a comeback?

Old 05-09-2021, 12:53 PM
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I just wish I understood the funding aspects better. As in, how the hell does someone convince the venture capital community to invest money in startups developing supersonic biz-jets?

Making a biz-jet has been done. Making a supersonic jet has been done. Making a supersonic biz-jet hasn't been done, but in theory there are no big showstoppers (no need to discover some unobtanium material, no need to develop any new branch of science and technology, etc).

On the face of it though, if I were a venture capitalist, and Boom Technology approached me about funding, I don't understand how it could possibly be an attractive investment. You're building an aircraft manufacturer from the ground up, to develop a product with an incredibly niche market, that will require years of capital investment before you could even hope to turn a profit. Maybe they'll succeed and you'll make money, but aren't there 100s of other, more attractive investments out there?

This article from Dec 2020 states Boom has raised 210 million, and has a "valuation" of $1 Billion. Not exactly sure how that works, how could a private company be "valued" at $1 Billion, when they've only received $210 million in funding?
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Old 05-10-2021, 07:10 AM
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Originally Posted by fasteddie800 View Post
On the face of it though, if I were a venture capitalist, and Boom Technology approached me about funding, I don't understand how it could possibly be an attractive investment. You're building an aircraft manufacturer from the ground up, to develop a product with an incredibly niche market, that will require years of capital investment before you could even hope to turn a profit. Maybe they'll succeed and you'll make money, but aren't there 100s of other, more attractive investments out there?
VC is not looking for safe bets, if that's what they wanted they'd just have Warren manage their money. Also most VC's are really rich guys who can afford to lose what they venture and still be fine. In fact VC groups would typically reject a partner/participant who was bringing too much of his net worth to the table... don't want hard feelings and lawsuits if somebody loses everything they got.

The general idea is that VC invests in multiple lomg-shots and if one of them hits it out of the park, they still come out way ahead.

Also the emotional factor plays with some VC, so thing like climate, social justice, and even cool factor can add to the appeal of a business. SSTs have cool factor. Since their bets are pretty nebulous and non-quantifiable in the first place they can get away with emotion in the mix (that clearly doesn't work well in the financial markets).

Originally Posted by fasteddie800 View Post
This article from Dec 2020 states Boom has raised 210 million, and has a "valuation" of $1 Billion. Not exactly sure how that works, how could a private company be "valued" at $1 Billion, when they've only received $210 million in funding?
Intellectual property counts, and potentially the percieved momentum of a company towards bringing something to market.

Ie, a smart guy in his garage with a patent to accomplish XYZ would have a value associated with the patent.

A functional company with employees, the same patent, and apparent momentum towards production would have a higher perceived value. Having the team assembled counts, and so does the roster (just like a pro sports team).
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Old 05-11-2021, 06:52 AM
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I’ve had a fair amount of experience in the bizjet field and doubt a SST bizjet will be built. The latest Donnybrook is the super long range bizjet—I doubt there’s room for three of them at $70+ million a piece but Dassault just entered the field.

OTOH, when Grumman designed the G II, they estimated if they sold all they could, it would be 90; went on to sell 254; then about 1500 of the follow-on versions. The Global was planned for 250 frames, now stands at a 1,000 planes delivered. So, who knows.
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Old 05-13-2021, 10:03 AM
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SST's will be the rage for billionaires who can't afford spaceships.
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Old 05-21-2021, 08:03 PM
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Well, so much for Aerion.....

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/05/21/aeri...ness-jets.html
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Old 05-22-2021, 06:27 AM
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Originally Posted by fasteddie800 View Post
Sounds like financing vice technical challenges... although you'd think if they had the technical stuff in the bag and could articulate that, they could get the financing.

Maybe the VC's are steering clear of politically incorrect projects. Bitcoin just took a big hit when tesla said they won't accept it any more for environmental reasons... the processor-intensive digital "mining" of cryptocurrency uses a LOT of power and is now actually causing retired fossil power plants to be placed back in service for the specific purpose of mining bitcoin
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Old 05-22-2021, 09:45 AM
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Aerion always seemed to be a strange endeavor.

It was originally founded (and funded) by billionaire Robert Bass. Believe he originally made his fortune in the oil industry or something similar.

All the press releases over the years were promising (to me at least) in that they seemed to be doing a lot of "partnering" with established aerospace giants. Both aerospace primes and sub-tier suppliers. After all, if you got the bucks, the aerospace industry is more than happy to take your money and do all the R&D you want. I have to believe it's a hell of a lot easier to fund that work at an existing company, as opposed to building all that R&D capability from scratch. It seemed like Aerion wanted to position themselves as somewhat of a prime contractor who would do the final assembly, testing, sales, etc.

All that said, their partner list seemed like a revolving door. From Wikipedia:

Aerion initially partnered with Airbus on the project in September 2014. In December 2017, Airbus was replaced as a partner by Lockheed Martin. Its General Electric Affinity engine for the AS2 was unveiled in October 2018. In February 2019, Boeing replaced Lockheed Martin as a partner.

So, Airbus, to Lockheed, to Boeing, to insolvent. Have to wonder how you go through all three of those companies in such a short period of time. Can't imagine that's an efficient way to do business.

Following them on Linkedin had me scratching my head a bit too. All kinds of updates about their move from Reno to Melbourne FL, and the big beautiful "campus" they would build in Melbourne. It was going to be the greatest, greenest manufacturing facility the world ever did see. They seemed to be putting the emphasis on everything except, you know, designing and building a supersonic airplane.

I dunno. I'm typing out a lot of words on a Saturday morning just cause I'm jaded and cynical. There just seems to be an incredible amount of aviation-related vaporware out there, of which Aerion is just the latest example. Urban Air Mobility, Electric-powered aviation, unmanned passenger and cargo transport, etc. I want to read about real, tangible advancements and developments, and not just the latest impressive bit of computer animation.
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Old 05-26-2021, 02:48 PM
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First words out of his mouth were, 50 years, no real progress in aviation. Interesting way to spark interest for new investors.

https://youtu.be/TIfrL2Arj5o
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Old 05-26-2021, 05:51 PM
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Originally Posted by Air Guitar View Post
First words out of his mouth were, 50 years, no real progress in aviation. Interesting way to spark interest for new investors.

https://youtu.be/TIfrL2Arj5o
He has a couple good points.

Faster is better for some of an airline's significant costs... crew, some Mx, DX overhead for example.

Higher is better for fuel burn, more direct routes, and WX avoidance.

All of that offsets any higher costs associated with an SST... especially if it can do twice as many legs in a day, that much of an increase in utilization dramatically cuts the mortgage component of CASM (the reason SWA does 20-minute turns). An SST could be twice the price of a conventional airliner and still cost less per ASM.

He's taking the obvious measure of designing it for 100% SAF for carbon purposes... I can about guarantee that all future airliner designs will be 100% SAF enabled. It's not hard, the only issue with current aircraft is that soft parts in the fuel system often need to be immersed in Jet A to stay lubricated and flexible, so all you need is different material for seals, or-rings, etc. It would be costly to tear apart an existing plane to retrofit those parts, but negligible cost for a clean-sheet design.

If this (or any similar project) makes it to production, it's probably going to be via one of the established airframers. Unless Elon or Jeff gets a wild hair.
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Old 06-03-2021, 08:10 AM
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Well...

UAL just ordered 15 planes from Boom, plus 35 options. We all know that airplane orders are a bit ephemeral but it does mean that someone objective and with the right background assessed the concept as workable. Also means that they're not worried about eco-politics blowback (the SAF part helps with that).

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/06/03/unit...upersonic.html
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