what_next wrote:
Later this year… If my profession would be bookmaker, then I would set the betting odds at 100/1 for this to happen. 10/1 that the scale model will fly this year at all and 5/1 that it will fly in any year. And even if the scale model ever flies, than my odds that the real thing will be developed into a commercial and certified product capable of sustained supersonic flights will still be 100/1.
I totally agree with you. But I wonder why these projects ever get funded in the first place? Is it someone that has convinced someone who has more money than sense to invest? Is it an investment where someone things, this is 95% likely to be dead money, but if it’s in the 5% that works out, the payoff will be huge? Do they think that the project may make it to a stage that someone else with bigger pockets (eg Boeing, Airbus) will buy it an take it over? Or is it that they think that while the project may never complete, they will develop technology as part of it that is valuable and can be resold/licenced?
Or do they simply manage to convince governments to give them significant grants because they will be employing loads of people (and lots of glossy brochures showing a big fancy factory with 100’s of people employed in 10 years?
I am sure most of the esoteric stuff exhibited at Aero Friedrichshafen, especially the currently trendy electric planes, are EU grant harvesting schemes. It has become really apparent post-Brexit-referendum that the EU grant machine has penetrated absolutely everywhere… far more than most people would ever believe. I am not saying this “redistribution” is a bad thing in itself… just that it has inevitably driven an awful lot of seemingly pointless research. A huge chunk of academic research runs on this money (very bad news for the UK part of it of course) and countless thousands of researchers all over the EU are living off it, spending one grant while their well-lubricated “research institute” grant application machinery (a sizeable permanent staff) is applying for the next one, to arrive 2 years later. And it has to be “fashionable” i.e. electric=good, collaborative projects across borders = good. An existing running company cannot get this money – I have been “offered” plenty of €4M grants for R&D, tooling, etc – unless they can show they would not embark on the project without it, which any solvent company with a real running business can never honestly show, but there is no such test for academic-related research.
As for the others, there are plenty of investors who are happy to take a small chance. Most of them aren’t smart though. They are amateurs. I know a guy who has lived off these people for 27 years… 2 kids through private schooling, now lives in a tax haven. He is on his 3rd “business” now. I made about 5k on his 1st one and lost 15k in the 2nd one 
Originally I owned about 0.1% of it. Microsoft were “going to” buy the patent for $1BN so I would get $985k return He is a really nice guy but when I see these now, I just smile…
Peter wrote:
Interesting they say a forward facing window would be a problem. Why can’t they make the window the same shape as the currently proposed fuselage shape?
Yes I’ve wondered about that as well. The thought of having a plane where you can’t look out of as a pilot seems pretty alien.
Peter wrote:
Interesting they say a forward facing window would be a problem. Why can’t they make the window the same shape as the currently proposed fuselage shape?
I guess given the shape of the fuselage the window will be 1/3 of the aircraft length.
You couldn’t see forward out of the Spirit of St Louis either so the concept is not entirely novel, though I’m guessing they will need a camera or periscope to get a passenger version certified.
I once had an oil blowby (blocked breather tube – on VWs it shoves it out of the front) which meant I couldn’t see through the windshield and it was surprisingly manageable. Arguably you could just make out the horizon.
Good video here – if you stop counting how many times they say “sustainable”
Wow, this film’s budget is worth an aircraft development itself.
Peter wrote:
if you stop counting how many times they say “sustainable”
He he. I wonder how the “sustainability” of making fuel from carbon “extracted from the air” ads up Still, a very cool plane.
I think all these “zero carbon” businesses are simply buying up carbon credits.
