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Comment by TrainedMonkey | Hacker News Reader

> A dual-mode ramjet was developed and tested in less than 11 months

Incredibly impressive if true. But below quote makes it sounds like they purchased a company with mostly ready design and made a prototype. Still pretty awesome.

> The successful development and testing of the dual-mode ramjet in such a short period of time was made possible through the collaboration of GE Aerospace’s team of engineers, Innoveering – a company acquired by GE Aerospace in 2022 that specializes in hypersonic propulsion – and GE Aerospace’s Research Center.

Now I want real engineering / everyday astronaut like breakdown of how it works.

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> Incredibly impressive if true. But below quote makes it sounds like they purchased a company with mostly ready design and made a prototype. Still pretty awesome.

We're probably reading a lot from a few sentences but I had a similar impression. Probably more similar to writing a software project for the second time after you throw away your first version - but now with more resources. Like you said still pretty cool.

>more similar to writing a software project for the second time after you throw away your first version - but now with more resources

All aircraft design is basically this. You don't/can't ever really start from scratch, there's an enormous volume of historical aircraft designs and all new planes look very similar to old planes. There are very rarely opportunities to solve problems in new ways.

even if you have a novel design your customers are rarely interested.

Airlines are extremely conservative because pilots are expensive and hard to train, which is how we got the whole 737MAX fiasco instead of a clean-sheet, optimized design. Though i wonder why they didn't go for commonality with the 787 similar to how the a330 and a350 are common type ratings.

Says hypersonic ramjet in the title, so the initial applications may be missiles rather than aircraft. It does talk about aircraft use in the article.

Because Southwest pilots are not 787 type rated.

Some airlines fly the 777 and 787 mixed by the same crews. It's not a full different type rating in that case.

The problem Boeing had was that there is a massive amount of 737:s, and a correspondingly massive pool of crew qualified for those planes. Customers really wanted not just a plane that was compatible with something, but specifically compatible with the 737. And this was a problem because the 737 is too old of a design.

If Boeing attempted to sell these customers a new type, even if there is some compatibility with some other plane, it creates an opportunity for them to freely compete bids between Airbus and Boeing, and even when Boeing wins that bid, it's a loss to them. (Because they are going to win at a lower price point than if the customer has to account for the switchover cost only for Airbus planes.)

It was a classic example of an over constrained problem.

They tried to find the loopholes and thread the needle but failed, at least in the court of public opinion.

They failed because they killed hundreds of people.

that isnt a cause, that is an outcome.

When companies reach a certain size they basically become banks, either funding smaller teams under their umbrella to do things or purchasing and integrating them into a larger portfolio.

If they purchased the design it's because GE Aerospace has the manufacturing and sales arms to actually make it real.

i for one look forward to experiencing this next generation of ramjet technology firsthand in my next three-star motel room air conditioner, the most common and widespread use of ramjet technology in the United States today.

I just got a new battery-powered air duster that says "TURBO FAN" on the side. It's about 100,000 horsepower short of an actual turbo fan, but it's a good duster and I enjoy the enthusiasm.

There are some RC aircraft turbofans available, very loud and fuel hungry but not quite 100,000 HP over your air duster.

Oh interesting. I've only seen turbojet and turboprop variants (with a single stage centrifugal compressor) for sale.

https://www.chiefaircraft.com/radio-control/turbine-gas-glow...

wild

I heard a rumour that you can find repurposed project Orion technology in 2-star motel ACs

If this is a joke about GE's appliances -- that version of GE is long in the past. GE has pretty much been dismantled and is just an aerospace company at this point.

What was once GE Appliances was sold to Haier 8 years ago.

I thought it was a joke about how noisy hotel HVAC is (at least in cheaper hotels)

Sounds like I’m on an aircraft carrier.

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