Hacker News Reader

Comment by lupusreal | Hacker News Reader

Site won't load, but I assume this was just a subsonic flight, gear down, etc? A major technical milestone for sure, but I think the real trick with their proposal is the economic viability of such a plane.

View on HN

I noticed that bit in the video -- gear down -- why is that? Just to avoid one possible point of failure, the gear failing to deploy properly for landing?

I had the same question. I guess too is a common protocol. Any insights on why these flights are gears down?

Not an expert, but I've seen the following commented on other test flight videos: on initial test flights, landing gear is always kept down to minimize risk. If a sudden landing is needed, gear is already down, no risk of equipment getting stuck, less mental load for the pilot to perform emergency landing, etc. Basically, when testing, you want to minimize the variables being tested. When airworthyness is validated, then you can test landing gear systems.

Yes:

> XB-1 met all of its test objectives, including safely and successfully achieving an altitude of 7,120 feet and speeds up to 238 knots (273 mph)

Turn off your ad blocker. For some reason it didn't load till I turned it off.

There are no ads on the page, but there must be something nefarious.

Yes. The bet is still that the airlines can find viable routes to fly with a vehicle that creates sonic booms.

Japan Airlines is a logical customer then— they'd be flying all over the Pacific where none of that matters.

Their website[0] does list Japan Airlines as a partner.

[0] https://boomsupersonic.com/press-release/our-partnership-wit...

Yes, that's why I mentioned it. :)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com