WEBVTT - Is the Future of Flight Supersonic? 0:00:15.356 --> 0:00:22.556 Pushkin, the first airline ever, the first airline in the 0:00:22.596 --> 0:00:26.316 history of the world, started in nineteen fourteen. It flew 0:00:26.356 --> 0:00:28.996 passengers just a short hop across the Bay from Saint 0:00:28.996 --> 0:00:32.836 Petersburg to Tampa, and its maximum speed was about sixty 0:00:32.876 --> 0:00:37.076 miles an hour. By the nineteen sixties, just fifty years later, 0:00:37.356 --> 0:00:40.196 passenger jets were flying ten times as fast as that, 0:00:40.916 --> 0:00:44.116 and that increase in speed transformed the meaning of travel. 0:00:44.916 --> 0:00:49.436 But then after the sixties, air travel just stopped getting faster. 0:00:50.436 --> 0:00:52.636 A flight today takes about as long as a flight 0:00:52.716 --> 0:00:55.996 took sixty years ago. We've gone from a ten x 0:00:56.036 --> 0:01:07.116 improvement to no improvement at all. What happened? I'm Jacob 0:01:07.156 --> 0:01:09.356 Bolgstein and this is What's Your Problem? The show where 0:01:09.356 --> 0:01:11.996 I talk to people who are trying to make technological progress. 0:01:12.516 --> 0:01:15.556 My guest today is Blake Shoal, the founder and CEO 0:01:15.716 --> 0:01:19.996 of Boom Supersonic. Blake's problem is this, can you build 0:01:20.036 --> 0:01:22.836 a commercial airplane that flies faster than the speed of 0:01:22.876 --> 0:01:27.676 sound and that can turn a profit. Blake started the 0:01:27.716 --> 0:01:31.916 company in twenty fourteen. Since then, he's secured pre orders 0:01:31.916 --> 0:01:36.556 from japan Airlines, United and American Airlines, and he and 0:01:36.596 --> 0:01:39.356 his team built a test plane that flew faster than 0:01:39.356 --> 0:01:42.436 the speed of sound. Now they're working on a full 0:01:42.556 --> 0:01:45.596 size commercial jet that Blake hopes will fly at mock 0:01:45.756 --> 0:01:49.116 one point seven one point seven times the speed of sound, 0:01:49.516 --> 0:01:52.596 or roughly twice as fast as commercial jets fly today. 0:01:53.676 --> 0:01:56.796 To start, I asked Blake about the Concord. The Concord, 0:01:56.836 --> 0:02:01.116 of course, is the only supersonic commercial passenger jet ever built, 0:02:01.196 --> 0:02:04.836 ever flown with passengers on it. But the Concord stopped 0:02:04.876 --> 0:02:08.196 flying more than twenty years ago, and today it's widely 0:02:08.276 --> 0:02:09.236 viewed as a fail. 0:02:09.836 --> 0:02:14.036 I think Concord killed supersonic flight and Apollo killed space exploration. 0:02:14.916 --> 0:02:17.276 And yet at nineteen sixty nine, we had that first 0:02:17.276 --> 0:02:20.636 moon landing and we had that first flight of Concord, 0:02:21.156 --> 0:02:23.036 and at the time it looked like both of these 0:02:23.036 --> 0:02:27.756 were harbingers of huge technological progress for humanity. And I 0:02:27.796 --> 0:02:29.956 think if you stop somebody in the street nineteen sixty 0:02:30.036 --> 0:02:32.236 nine and said, in twenty twenty five, what do you 0:02:32.236 --> 0:02:34.276 think space exploration will be like? What do you think 0:02:34.276 --> 0:02:36.436 flight will be like? No one would have predicted that 0:02:36.436 --> 0:02:39.516 supersonic would be gone and moon landings will be gone. 0:02:39.276 --> 0:02:42.036 Right, But that was the peak, it wasn't going to 0:02:42.076 --> 0:02:44.836 get any better, and in fact, in terms of commercial 0:02:44.876 --> 0:02:47.156 air air travel, it was going to get worse. 0:02:47.516 --> 0:02:51.076 Yeah, everything got worse. Everything got worse. And I think 0:02:51.156 --> 0:02:57.876 that Concord and Apollo are actually brethren. Both were technologically 0:02:58.036 --> 0:03:00.756 extremely impressive, like what we did in the nineteen sixties 0:03:01.796 --> 0:03:06.556 with rockets and airplanes, with slide rolls, drafting paper wind 0:03:06.596 --> 0:03:11.596 tunnels is extremely totonal, logically impressive. Yet that the motivation 0:03:12.036 --> 0:03:16.036 as what was killer and both Concored and Apollo were 0:03:16.156 --> 0:03:20.516 Cold War era glory projects led by governments who are 0:03:20.556 --> 0:03:22.396 competing for prestige. 0:03:22.116 --> 0:03:25.196 Basically to show up the Soviet Union right, to show 0:03:25.196 --> 0:03:29.756 the superiority of Western capitalism over Soviet communism. 0:03:30.076 --> 0:03:32.596 Yes, except the deep irony is we did at the 0:03:32.596 --> 0:03:33.476 communist way, right. 0:03:33.636 --> 0:03:36.356 They were command and control projects that made no economic sense. 0:03:36.396 --> 0:03:39.156 They were command and control projects with no economic sense. 0:03:39.196 --> 0:03:42.756 And it turns out when the West copied effectively the 0:03:42.756 --> 0:03:46.716 communist approach for a little while we had technological superiority 0:03:46.756 --> 0:03:50.036 because of the momentum that we had, but then we 0:03:50.116 --> 0:03:53.836 destroyed ourselves. And so you know, Apollo didn't even pretend 0:03:53.876 --> 0:03:56.636 to have anything commercial right, like it was operating on 0:03:56.676 --> 0:04:00.236 it like a percentage of GDP, right, which is to say, 0:04:00.276 --> 0:04:03.036 an incredibly large amount of money relative to the overall 0:04:03.036 --> 0:04:04.996 economy went into getting. 0:04:04.756 --> 0:04:06.516 A very small number of people to the moon a 0:04:06.516 --> 0:04:06.836 few times. 0:04:06.876 --> 0:04:09.676 That's that's right, yeah, And you know, and and the 0:04:09.756 --> 0:04:12.156 knock on effect of that, you know, for the entire 0:04:12.196 --> 0:04:15.516 airspace supply chain, it was basically, you know, land on 0:04:15.516 --> 0:04:18.996 the mood at all costs, are at any cost, And 0:04:19.316 --> 0:04:22.716 the result was the entire space side of the supply 0:04:22.836 --> 0:04:26.316 chain got drunk on these incredibly lucrative contracts were costs 0:04:26.396 --> 0:04:29.196 was no object, right, And then after the Cold War 0:04:29.236 --> 0:04:31.316 it only got worse and we put all of the 0:04:31.436 --> 0:04:35.716 like defense industrial base on corporate welfare and they got 0:04:35.716 --> 0:04:39.516 fat and dumb. And then and then on the concord side, 0:04:39.756 --> 0:04:43.556 it at least looked better because on paper, this was 0:04:43.596 --> 0:04:46.276 a commercial airplane where people could buy tickets and airlines 0:04:46.276 --> 0:04:50.196 would buy the airplanes, and you know, the airlines would 0:04:50.236 --> 0:04:53.916 make money. But in reality it wasn't that. Here here's 0:04:53.916 --> 0:04:57.196 a hundred seat airplane, by the way, one hundred like 0:04:57.236 --> 0:05:00.876 actually pretty uncomfortable seats, and what you know, ejected for 0:05:00.876 --> 0:05:04.436 inflation was a twenty thousand dollars ticket, and you just 0:05:04.516 --> 0:05:07.076 can't find one hundred people that want to pay twenty 0:05:07.116 --> 0:05:09.236 grand to go somewhere really fast. I mean this, this 0:05:09.276 --> 0:05:13.556 is for royalty and rock stars, and especially with like 0:05:13.716 --> 0:05:16.556 eighties and nineties kind of travel demand. The thing flew 0:05:16.556 --> 0:05:20.036 half empty on the best route in the world, which 0:05:20.076 --> 0:05:21.716 is New York to London. You know, if you want 0:05:21.756 --> 0:05:22.876 to find people who want to pay a lot of 0:05:22.876 --> 0:05:24.476 money to go fast, New York London, it's the best 0:05:24.476 --> 0:05:25.436 city pair you could pick. 0:05:26.116 --> 0:05:26.236 Uh. 0:05:26.636 --> 0:05:30.196 And it doesn't work at all economically beyond that, and 0:05:30.276 --> 0:05:32.756 so and then the world drew all the wrong conclusions, 0:05:32.836 --> 0:05:35.756 you know, they concluded like supersonic flight had to be expensive, 0:05:36.196 --> 0:05:39.196 it had to be cramped and uncomfortable, it had to 0:05:39.236 --> 0:05:43.756 be noisy, it had to be uneconomic. And it's like, imagine, 0:05:44.036 --> 0:05:47.196 imagine if we built like the Univac, you know, like 0:05:47.236 --> 0:05:49.716 one of the first mainframe computers it which is like 0:05:49.756 --> 0:05:51.516 the size of the room, and you have to be 0:05:51.636 --> 0:05:55.076 like a bank to afford it. And then we stopped. 0:05:55.836 --> 0:05:58.036 And then and then fifty years later people would swear 0:05:58.116 --> 0:05:59.796 up and down that you could never possibly have a 0:05:59.796 --> 0:06:02.876 pocket computer that every day people could have could afford 0:06:05.036 --> 0:06:08.356 but yet you know, Concord is like the UNIVAC. 0:06:09.636 --> 0:06:12.676 Uh huh, it's a design from the nineteen sixties. 0:06:12.796 --> 0:06:14.956 Basically, that's right, that's right. And I say this with 0:06:15.076 --> 0:06:19.276 like deep admiration for the incredible technical work that went 0:06:19.316 --> 0:06:22.636 into it. A lot of people worked really hard. They 0:06:22.676 --> 0:06:25.716 did amazing things. Now that we are you know now 0:06:25.756 --> 0:06:27.196 that at Boom we have like built and flown a 0:06:27.196 --> 0:06:30.436 supersonic jet, what we can see is they did really 0:06:30.476 --> 0:06:33.996 really well given the tech was available in the nineteen sixties. 0:06:34.116 --> 0:06:37.156 It's extremely impressive. You know, in Britain and France, people 0:06:37.156 --> 0:06:40.676 are incredibly proud of Concord, and from a technological level, 0:06:40.716 --> 0:06:41.516 like they deserve to be. 0:06:42.156 --> 0:06:45.356 So. So, okay, you were you were a software developer, right, 0:06:45.396 --> 0:06:48.236 You weren't a plane guy. You weren't an aerospace engineer. 0:06:48.596 --> 0:06:51.596 But like whatever, twelve years ago or something, you got 0:06:51.636 --> 0:06:55.756 interested in this idea of supersonic air travel. Why aren't 0:06:55.756 --> 0:06:58.916 there supersonic jets? So you have this question in your mind. 0:06:58.916 --> 0:07:00.956 You go try and figure it out. What do you find? 0:07:01.316 --> 0:07:04.996 The internet was full of all this conventional wisdom about 0:07:04.996 --> 0:07:07.316 why flights aren't faster. You can still find some of 0:07:07.356 --> 0:07:11.236 these YouTube videos and they say, is like supersonic flight 0:07:11.276 --> 0:07:14.396 is inherently more expensive. Passengers always buy the cheapest ticket, 0:07:14.716 --> 0:07:19.596 so supersonic flight will never be commercially viable. And hang on, Well, 0:07:19.596 --> 0:07:22.236 first off, that's a qualitative claim about a quantitative question, 0:07:22.636 --> 0:07:25.276 and it doesn't even really completely make sense, right, Like, 0:07:25.796 --> 0:07:27.956 the whole reason we have jet flights is because people 0:07:28.036 --> 0:07:30.876 wanted to go faster than not propeller flights. The reason 0:07:30.956 --> 0:07:34.076 people pay more for direct flights than connecting is they 0:07:34.076 --> 0:07:37.716 want to save time and hassle. Time is the one 0:07:37.756 --> 0:07:40.836 resource it's not ever renewable, So the idea that people 0:07:40.876 --> 0:07:43.156 wouldn't pay for time savings didn't completely make sense. 0:07:43.276 --> 0:07:46.236 Sure, plainly, at some margins, some people will pay some 0:07:46.276 --> 0:07:49.276 amount more to go some amount faster. Right, exactly what 0:07:49.316 --> 0:07:50.116 are all the margins? 0:07:50.196 --> 0:07:53.636 Yeah, exactly, You're totally right. It's a quantitative question, not 0:07:53.676 --> 0:07:56.556 a qualitative one. And I think one of the lessons 0:07:56.556 --> 0:07:58.436 of I think the Boom story is never accept a 0:07:58.476 --> 0:08:01.956 qualitative answer to a quantitative question. Go run the math. Okay, 0:08:01.956 --> 0:08:04.876 what is the actual cost of supersonic flight and what 0:08:04.956 --> 0:08:07.996 is people's actual willingness to pay to go faster? So 0:08:08.036 --> 0:08:09.636 it turned out it took two weeks to find the 0:08:09.676 --> 0:08:13.156 key idea, which is I mean, today there is a 0:08:13.276 --> 0:08:18.436 huge market for international business class. It's roughly twenty percent 0:08:18.476 --> 0:08:22.476 of passengers and eighty percent of international airline profits on 0:08:22.716 --> 0:08:27.516 business class, which is flying beds for people who so 0:08:27.636 --> 0:08:29.796 hate that flights are along that they want to try 0:08:29.796 --> 0:08:33.596 and sleep through them on the airplane. And so that 0:08:33.636 --> 0:08:35.996 the original boom idea was, well, what if we could 0:08:36.116 --> 0:08:39.556 make a supersonic seat with the economics of a flying 0:08:39.596 --> 0:08:42.796 bed and business class, but on an airplane sufficiently fast 0:08:42.836 --> 0:08:44.196 that you wouldn't need to sleep on it. You could 0:08:44.196 --> 0:08:47.796 sleep at home instead. And so the first question I 0:08:47.836 --> 0:08:49.316 asked is, well, how much would you have to beat 0:08:49.356 --> 0:08:53.836 Concord by on just basic airplane efficiency in order to 0:08:53.876 --> 0:08:57.116 create a seat with the economics of a flying bed. 0:08:57.596 --> 0:08:59.276 And the answer was less than ten percent. 0:09:00.316 --> 0:09:03.636 Uh huh, So like Concord was almost there by your reckoning. 0:09:04.276 --> 0:09:08.916 Yeah, that's right. If you could improve on the gas 0:09:09.116 --> 0:09:14.156 dileage basically of Concord by less than ten percent, that 0:09:14.156 --> 0:09:15.916 you would tip over to this happy point where you 0:09:15.916 --> 0:09:17.996 could have a supersonic seat with the economics of a 0:09:18.036 --> 0:09:20.756 flatbed and business class and instead of being this like 0:09:20.796 --> 0:09:26.156 stratospheric airplane that like flies mostly empty, a whole bunch 0:09:26.156 --> 0:09:28.076 of modern demand would be there, the seats would fill 0:09:28.116 --> 0:09:30.116 at a high rate, and the market would be gigantic. 0:09:31.996 --> 0:09:34.636 And so that that took two weeks, and I was 0:09:34.676 --> 0:09:36.716 like that, well, I don't know anything about airplanes, Like 0:09:36.756 --> 0:09:38.836 all I had at that point was my pilot's license. 0:09:40.156 --> 0:09:43.596 But ten percent versus nineteen sixties technology didn't seem crazy. 0:09:44.596 --> 0:09:47.116 So at that point I was like, Okay, if I'm 0:09:47.116 --> 0:09:48.476 going to go do this, I need to know a 0:09:48.516 --> 0:09:50.716 heck of a lot more. And it sort of kicked 0:09:50.756 --> 0:09:54.236 off what was really a twelve month journey for me 0:09:55.276 --> 0:09:56.676 getting educated in aerospace. 0:09:57.036 --> 0:09:59.196 So when you're when you say ten percent, I mean, 0:09:59.276 --> 0:10:02.756 is that sort of a marginal cost calculation like that? 0:10:02.756 --> 0:10:06.516 That is that basically setting aside the fixed cost of 0:10:07.116 --> 0:10:10.156 building the first plane and then build well of building 0:10:10.156 --> 0:10:13.116 the first plane like that seems like the big unknown 0:10:13.156 --> 0:10:14.436 in the math there is how much is it going 0:10:14.516 --> 0:10:16.916 to cost to make plane number one? Yeah? 0:10:16.956 --> 0:10:19.076 I mean, so there are a few things that matter, right. 0:10:19.196 --> 0:10:22.796 The first thing is if we could manage to produce 0:10:22.876 --> 0:10:26.876 the airplane, would it be affordable for passengers, improfitable for airlines. 0:10:27.236 --> 0:10:30.356 Yeah, that's kind of the first principles version is like, 0:10:30.436 --> 0:10:33.196 let's just look at the physics and like thinks, right, 0:10:33.436 --> 0:10:36.756 what we know, is it theoretically possible to build an 0:10:36.796 --> 0:10:38.876 airplane that can fly enough people from New York to 0:10:38.916 --> 0:10:42.916 London if they pay business class but sit upright at 0:10:43.116 --> 0:10:46.316 supersonic speeds? Does the first principles math pencil up? That's 0:10:46.356 --> 0:10:47.716 the math you're doing there, that's. 0:10:47.556 --> 0:10:52.076 Right, with technology that's available, is it possible to build 0:10:52.116 --> 0:10:55.676 an airplane that is affordable for passengers improfitable for airlines? 0:10:55.956 --> 0:10:57.956 And it turned out the answer was yes. 0:10:58.036 --> 0:11:00.636 Uh huh, And what is business class New York London? 0:11:00.676 --> 0:11:02.436 What is that five grand? Something like? 0:11:02.596 --> 0:11:04.716 Yeah, yeah about that? I mean, actually people routinely pay 0:11:04.716 --> 0:11:08.276 more than five grand. The economics of our airplane. It 0:11:08.316 --> 0:11:11.396 turns out thirty five hundred is break even. So at 0:11:11.396 --> 0:11:13.996 five grand it's very profitable for airlines. And people pay 0:11:14.036 --> 0:11:16.716 five grand by the way round trip routinely. 0:11:16.996 --> 0:11:20.556 Yeah. Okay, so you've got the kind of first principles 0:11:20.596 --> 0:11:23.956 back of the envelope math that looks promising. So you 0:11:24.036 --> 0:11:28.996 started the company, yes, and and that was what about 0:11:28.996 --> 0:11:29.996 ten years ago, right? 0:11:30.076 --> 0:11:33.916 That was Yeah, it was about eleven years ago now 0:11:33.956 --> 0:11:38.876 that I was making that spreadsheet, and you know, we'll turn. 0:11:39.156 --> 0:11:41.716 We'll turn eleven on paper in September, because that was 0:11:41.756 --> 0:11:43.876 when I got to the point where, Okay, I'm actually 0:11:43.916 --> 0:11:45.196 really committed, it's time to go. 0:11:47.916 --> 0:11:51.596 I love that you called it boom leaning in like 0:11:51.676 --> 0:11:56.196 embracing the haters in some in some fashion. Tell me 0:11:56.236 --> 0:11:59.076 about the boom. Let's talk about supersonic booms. 0:11:59.636 --> 0:12:04.156 Yeah, so my belief from day one was that the 0:12:04.196 --> 0:12:07.836 boom would not be the blocker, and that that spreadsheet 0:12:07.876 --> 0:12:11.876 basically said there is a gigantic market for supersonic flight 0:12:12.596 --> 0:12:15.436 even if the boom is entirely unsolved, and you have 0:12:15.476 --> 0:12:20.516 to fly subsnic over land and supersonic over water and 0:12:20.916 --> 0:12:26.076 focus initially on on routes that were primarily transoceanic. 0:12:26.676 --> 0:12:28.876 Just to be clear, in the US right now, commercial 0:12:28.876 --> 0:12:32.196 flights are not allowed to fly supersonic, even if there 0:12:32.276 --> 0:12:34.476 were a plane that could do it by regulation, right 0:12:34.516 --> 0:12:36.796 because of the boom. Is that the starting point? 0:12:37.236 --> 0:12:40.236 Yeah, So that that's where we started, because the premise was, hey, 0:12:40.276 --> 0:12:42.436 it's pretty ambitious to start a brand new company from 0:12:42.476 --> 0:12:45.956 scratch where your goals to build a supersonic airliners. So 0:12:46.036 --> 0:12:49.996 let's not let's not push anything too far. Let's operate 0:12:50.076 --> 0:12:54.516 only with existing technology and only with existing regulations, and 0:12:54.556 --> 0:12:57.036 that would that would have some hope of making it 0:12:57.196 --> 0:12:59.476 tractable for a startup to go do. 0:13:00.236 --> 0:13:02.956 So I want to talk a little bit about the 0:13:03.036 --> 0:13:08.036 last ten years and building XB one, your test plane, 0:13:08.276 --> 0:13:13.196 And I'm curious in particular sort of unsurprisingly it has 0:13:13.276 --> 0:13:15.596 taken longer than you thought, which it would be shocking 0:13:15.636 --> 0:13:17.756 if it didn't, rightly given the nature of the project. 0:13:18.116 --> 0:13:20.276 But I'm curious, like, what were some of the things 0:13:20.316 --> 0:13:23.116 you thought at the jump that turned out to be wrong, 0:13:23.436 --> 0:13:25.196 you know, things where you went down the wrong path 0:13:25.236 --> 0:13:26.476 and had to do something different. 0:13:26.876 --> 0:13:29.196 Yeah, So when we started out with XB one, we 0:13:29.236 --> 0:13:33.916 gave it some really really aggressive goals. So we wanted 0:13:33.916 --> 0:13:36.196 to go ten percent faster than Concord, We wanted to 0:13:36.196 --> 0:13:39.196 do it with a passenger on board. We wanted to 0:13:39.196 --> 0:13:41.196 not need an after burner. Like. We gave it all 0:13:41.196 --> 0:13:44.676 these you know, fairly aggressive goals that were actually well 0:13:44.716 --> 0:13:48.636 beyond what was really necessary. But we thought we didn't 0:13:48.676 --> 0:13:52.636 appreciate all of the challenges that would would come with that, 0:13:52.916 --> 0:13:54.516 and so we actually made the job a lot harder 0:13:54.556 --> 0:13:57.476 than it needed to be. And the biggest thing that 0:13:57.516 --> 0:14:03.116 we learned on XB one in this context is is pragmatism, like, 0:14:03.236 --> 0:14:05.956 it doesn't need to go mock two point two. At 0:14:06.036 --> 0:14:09.116 mock one point seven. Is it totally fine, minimum viable 0:14:09.156 --> 0:14:12.676 supersonic chat and it's dramatically easier. So part of what 0:14:12.716 --> 0:14:14.276 we learned from XP one is how to make the 0:14:14.316 --> 0:14:18.676 overture airliner a lot easier to do, and it was 0:14:18.716 --> 0:14:21.356 things like, if you want to go mock two point two, 0:14:21.796 --> 0:14:25.516 the wings have to be really skinny, and if the 0:14:25.516 --> 0:14:28.556 wings are really skinny, it's very hard to fly takeoff 0:14:28.556 --> 0:14:31.836 and landing. And so we ended up spending two years 0:14:31.876 --> 0:14:36.556 on low speed aerodynamics for takeoff and landing with a 0:14:37.036 --> 0:14:39.796 wing that was really designed to go super super fast, 0:14:40.396 --> 0:14:43.236 and then with a long, skinny airplane to go mock 0:14:43.276 --> 0:14:46.036 two point two. It's really hard to fit the landing 0:14:46.036 --> 0:14:48.956 gear in. And so we ended up I remember in 0:14:48.996 --> 0:14:51.916 like twenty nineteen when we're like finishing the design of 0:14:51.956 --> 0:14:53.956 this thing and kind of in the process of building it, 0:14:54.036 --> 0:14:55.436 and so wait a minute, how did we end up 0:14:55.476 --> 0:14:57.556 in a corner of the universe where we have to 0:14:57.596 --> 0:15:01.596 design the most efficient shock absorber ever made like that 0:15:01.756 --> 0:15:03.636 was a bizarre like and we literally we had to 0:15:03.916 --> 0:15:06.196 design the most efficient shock absorber ever made for a 0:15:06.276 --> 0:15:10.516 landing gear. Why, well, we given ourselves this like unnecessarily 0:15:10.596 --> 0:15:13.396 challenging top speed goal, which it made the airplane log 0:15:13.396 --> 0:15:15.596 and skinny, which made the landing gear need to fit 0:15:15.636 --> 0:15:17.836 in a very tight space, which meant the shock absorbers 0:15:17.836 --> 0:15:18.996 had to be really really good. 0:15:19.116 --> 0:15:21.676 Uh huh, Well, why had you? I mean, it's easy 0:15:21.756 --> 0:15:24.156 from this point of view to say, like why it 0:15:24.196 --> 0:15:25.916 was foolish to try and go so fast? Which is 0:15:25.916 --> 0:15:28.796 sort of what you're saying. But presumably when you picked 0:15:28.836 --> 0:15:31.236 that speed, you picked it for a reason. Why did 0:15:31.236 --> 0:15:31.996 you pick that speed? 0:15:32.356 --> 0:15:36.356 Yeah, well we there was sort of a scientific reason, 0:15:36.396 --> 0:15:38.596 and then there was probably an emotional reason. And the 0:15:39.316 --> 0:15:42.276 scientific reason was we thought we were on the happy 0:15:42.316 --> 0:15:44.836 side of a lot of market opportunity and on the 0:15:44.836 --> 0:15:49.236 happy side of the step changes in technological challenge. Based 0:15:49.276 --> 0:15:50.516 on what we knew from textbooks. 0:15:50.996 --> 0:15:54.076 The market opportunity means the faster you go, the bigger 0:15:54.116 --> 0:15:54.436 the market. 0:15:54.516 --> 0:15:57.956 I mean, that's right, Like, you know, if you speed 0:15:57.956 --> 0:16:00.236 a flight up. I'll pick an extreme example. Let's let's 0:16:00.236 --> 0:16:01.876 say you speed up New York London by like half 0:16:01.916 --> 0:16:05.196 an hour. You actually make the flight worse. It's still 0:16:05.196 --> 0:16:07.316 going to be scheduled as a red eye, right, but 0:16:07.436 --> 0:16:10.276 you don't get as much sleep, that's right, So it's 0:16:10.316 --> 0:16:11.356 actually it's actually worse. 0:16:11.676 --> 0:16:13.956 And then presumably if you can go fast enough, you 0:16:13.996 --> 0:16:17.316 can like fly the same crew to London and back 0:16:17.356 --> 0:16:19.676 without having to change the crew, and your economics get 0:16:19.716 --> 0:16:20.716 better or something bingo. 0:16:20.796 --> 0:16:22.476 That's one of the ways the economics in this work 0:16:22.516 --> 0:16:25.876 when you go faster. Lots of things actually get cheaper. 0:16:25.916 --> 0:16:28.796 You need less crews, you don't you don't spend money 0:16:28.836 --> 0:16:31.716 putting people up in Marriotts like that. We call that 0:16:31.756 --> 0:16:33.556 the speed dividend. There's a lot of cost that comes 0:16:33.596 --> 0:16:34.196 down with speed. 0:16:34.276 --> 0:16:37.436 Basically, the cost the benefits of going two point two 0:16:37.436 --> 0:16:39.836 are the same, but the cost of the marginal cost 0:16:39.876 --> 0:16:41.836 of going that much faster was higher than you thought. 0:16:42.076 --> 0:16:44.356 That's that's right. Like and fuel burn. You know, once 0:16:44.396 --> 0:16:48.916 we committed to meeting the same most stringent noise rules 0:16:48.916 --> 0:16:51.476 that apply to subsonic airplanes that actually puts a big 0:16:51.516 --> 0:16:54.476 penalty on high speed, and we found that it mocked 0:16:54.516 --> 0:16:57.356 two point two. We'll be burning forty percent more fuel 0:16:57.436 --> 0:17:00.036 than at one point seven, and yet and what that 0:17:00.076 --> 0:17:02.916 meant in flight times was actually just a fifteen minute difference. 0:17:03.356 --> 0:17:03.956 Huh. 0:17:03.996 --> 0:17:06.316 So it made no sense, and we got more pragmatic. 0:17:07.756 --> 0:17:09.356 And the other thing that, you know, it was the 0:17:09.396 --> 0:17:11.756 kind of the emotional piece of this was, you know, 0:17:11.836 --> 0:17:14.236 I sort of booted up, you know, pounding my fist 0:17:14.276 --> 0:17:16.916 on the table and saying, fifty years later, we should 0:17:16.956 --> 0:17:19.396 do better than concords, that we should be faster, and 0:17:19.436 --> 0:17:21.836 d da DA and all these other things. Yeah, And 0:17:22.116 --> 0:17:25.716 the reality was that wasn't actually necessary. What we needed 0:17:25.756 --> 0:17:28.956 was a pragmatic starting point that we could then continue 0:17:28.996 --> 0:17:31.476 to iterate and innovate, you know. And overture is not 0:17:31.596 --> 0:17:33.756 the be all end all of supersonic airplanes. It's the 0:17:33.876 --> 0:17:36.636 version one. And we can do a version one point one, 0:17:36.676 --> 0:17:39.476 and we can do a version two. And the thing 0:17:39.476 --> 0:17:46.556 that matters is ensure ensuring that version one is sufficiently 0:17:46.596 --> 0:17:50.036 pragmatic that we can we can birth it. Yeah. So, 0:17:50.876 --> 0:17:55.316 how fast did concord go? Two point zero? Actually two 0:17:55.356 --> 0:17:57.476 point oh two actually is the precise number. 0:17:57.516 --> 0:18:00.556 And you've you've made your piece with building a first 0:18:00.556 --> 0:18:02.436 plane that goes slower than the Concord. 0:18:03.636 --> 0:18:06.076 I don't know. I guess officially we've made our piece 0:18:06.116 --> 0:18:09.356 with it not in your heart on the spread, not 0:18:09.996 --> 0:18:12.076 in my heart like because you know, mock one point 0:18:12.116 --> 0:18:14.276 seven just doesn't roll off the tongue like mock two. 0:18:14.436 --> 0:18:16.516 No two, Mock two sounds way cooler. 0:18:16.756 --> 0:18:18.876 Mock two sounds way cooler, you know, And for a while, 0:18:18.916 --> 0:18:21.556 by license, TAG said mock two point two, and I 0:18:22.036 --> 0:18:24.596 learned that I should really never put a technical design 0:18:24.676 --> 0:18:26.836 parameter on a vanity plate. That was a That was 0:18:26.876 --> 0:18:28.956 a That was a bad decision because it made it hard. 0:18:28.996 --> 0:18:30.916 It made it harder for me to admit the difficult 0:18:30.916 --> 0:18:32.396 truth when every. 0:18:32.236 --> 0:18:34.156 Day when you went out and thought your car, you 0:18:34.156 --> 0:18:37.516 were getting mocked by your failure in relatively. 0:18:37.236 --> 0:18:41.036 Yeah, m A h E D yes, oh very good, 0:18:41.556 --> 0:18:41.996 very good. 0:18:42.036 --> 0:18:44.356 That should be your new vanity plate to keep you humble. 0:18:46.236 --> 0:18:48.876 No, now it just says supersonic because so long as 0:18:48.916 --> 0:18:50.236 I bust mock one, I'm good. 0:18:53.516 --> 0:18:55.716 Still to come on the show. How much more time 0:18:55.756 --> 0:18:58.676 and money will it take to build a supersonic plane 0:18:58.796 --> 0:19:03.156 that can carry paying passengers? Also, what might go wrong? 0:19:12.436 --> 0:19:16.036 So you're building the airliner, you're also sort of building 0:19:16.196 --> 0:19:18.996 the jets, right, I know, you were working with Rolls 0:19:19.076 --> 0:19:21.036 Royce and then which makes a lot of jets for 0:19:21.036 --> 0:19:24.556 airplanes now, and then you stopped working with Rolls Royce. 0:19:26.596 --> 0:19:30.116 Tell me, tell me about what you've got to do, 0:19:30.356 --> 0:19:33.236 Like what's the next big step in terms of the 0:19:33.316 --> 0:19:35.596 airplane the jets, Like what do you got to do next? 0:19:35.636 --> 0:19:36.476 And when do you? 0:19:36.756 --> 0:19:39.636 Yeah, so step one, scalop those jet engines. Step two, 0:19:39.716 --> 0:19:43.196 scalop the airplanes. Step three, put it all together, prove 0:19:43.276 --> 0:19:47.476 to ourselves and to our regulator in the public that 0:19:47.916 --> 0:19:51.836 it's safe, and then go carry passengers. And so you 0:19:51.876 --> 0:19:54.996 mentioned you mentioned the whole jet engine thing. Yeah, we 0:19:55.276 --> 0:19:58.996 actually when I started, our plan was to go build 0:19:58.996 --> 0:20:02.036 our own jet engines, just the same way SpaceX builds 0:20:02.076 --> 0:20:05.916 their own engines. And then we got, uh distracted. I 0:20:05.996 --> 0:20:08.596 let us get distracted by this sort of sexy notion 0:20:09.196 --> 0:20:11.516 that would be able to take Rolls Race engine and 0:20:11.556 --> 0:20:15.716 just modify it working with Rolls Royce, and that turned 0:20:15.756 --> 0:20:17.076 out to be just a terrible idea. 0:20:17.716 --> 0:20:22.116 Huh. Most companies that build airplanes don't build their own jets. Right, 0:20:22.156 --> 0:20:24.756 It's not a crazy idea to say we're going to 0:20:24.756 --> 0:20:26.596 build airplanes and we're going to let people who are 0:20:26.596 --> 0:20:28.236 really good at building jets, build the jets. 0:20:28.556 --> 0:20:30.316 Yeah. So if you look back far enough in time, 0:20:30.956 --> 0:20:35.116 it turned out Boeing, United Airlines, and Pratt and Whitney 0:20:35.156 --> 0:20:38.076 the jet engine company, were actually all the same company. 0:20:38.396 --> 0:20:41.916 H they were all they were vertically integrated from the 0:20:41.996 --> 0:20:44.476 airline through to the jet engine or I guess back 0:20:44.516 --> 0:20:47.596 that it wasn't jet engines, it was Piston engines. But 0:20:47.676 --> 0:20:50.116 I think that was actually the national state of the industry. 0:20:50.236 --> 0:20:52.276 And they got broken apart, not because they wanted to. 0:20:52.316 --> 0:20:54.996 But there was an airmail scandal in the early nineteen thirties, 0:20:55.316 --> 0:20:57.836 the outcome of which was the government split them up. Oh. 0:20:57.916 --> 0:21:00.996 Interesting, an airmail scandal. You don't hear about so many 0:21:00.996 --> 0:21:02.116 airmail scandals there. 0:21:02.116 --> 0:21:04.756