United Airlines execs say they'll be using a faaaabulous Supersonic airliner--using "biofuel"!--in just 7 years

By now it should be painfully obvious that a great many executive offices in corporate America are occupied by wokie idiots.  A lot of execs seem to be marketing types, or attorneys, or DIEversity pushers--but VERY few engineers or pilots or people proficient in anything technical.

As a result, CEOs routinely green-light goofy, costly failures that their underlings assure them are the Next Great Thing.  The CEO--not versed in technology except in the most superficial, useless way, sees a concensus, agrees that it checks all the right wokeboxes, and says "do it."

Example: "CNN-plus."  Lasted three weeks, cost the company something approaching $200 million.

So with that said:  Back in the 1970s the U.S, U.K, France and the Soviet Union were racing to build the world's first supersonic commercial jetliner.  New York to Paris in just three hours!  Yay!  But just designing the thing was super-expensive, so the respective governments subsidized their projects with billions.

About that time an American scientist discovered a growing hole in the ozone layer, and theorized that flying a supersonic jet at the very high altitudes needed would make that worse, so the U.S. government pulled said it wouldn't support the project.  At that point the two U.S. companies competing for the design understandably quit.

That cleared the way for the Brits and French to build the Concorde, which flew from 1976 to 2003 for the national airlines of both nations.  It never made a profit, even with tickets costing $7,000 from New York to Paris, since they were competing against planes that offered the same flight for less than a tenth of the price.

With that background: A couple of years ago a start-up company pitched a "radical new" supersonic jet to United Airlines execs.  Apparently none of the United execs was over 30 years old in 2003 so they didn't recall that Concorde had never made a profit, nor did they recall the "ozone hole" dust-up.  And apparently no underling at United knew how to research the subject.

But no matter, because the new company had a faaabulous new "wokie" hook:  their new supersonic jet would run on "biofuel," and woud supposedly offer “net zero” carbon emissions!  The company touts its hypothetical airplane as “the world’s fastest and most sustainable commercial airliner.”

WOW, that is so cool!  So last year United's credulous (i.e. gullible) execs signed a contract with the startup company to buy 15 of their faaabulous new planes, paid 'em a few million, and are now hyping this--in People Magazine--as

 The future of flying has just been unveiled!

United claims the plane will be flying in just 7 years. That's stunning!

So how’s it coming along so far?  Well a drawing of the plane does exist. A couple of weeks ago the first design sketch was finally released, with much media hype.  And since the company says the plane is to start production in just two years, it's very reassuring that they have a "design sketch."  So they're probably about, what, halfway to first flight, eh?

If you have a bit of engineering or aviation experience, you may feel this timetable might be just a bit...um...optimistic.  But company founder and CEO Blake Scholl reassured investors by saying "The aircraft is now designed for manufacturability and for maintenance."

"Designed for manufacturability," ya say.  Your sure don't hear that phrase very often.  But very reassuring, eh?

The startup has raised about $250 million dollars (including $60 million of your tax dollars,) initially promising that its first test flight would occur by 2019.  That first flight hasn’t happened yet.

With that said:  One can certainly understand an excess of optimism by the people looking to build the plane, and the desire by United execs to get some free publicity.  But from both an economic and engineering standpoint, the numbers this company are touting, and the buzz-phrases the company is using on its website, suggest that this is more likely to be what's charitably called "vaporware."

 

When I was an 18-year-old college freshman at one of the Service Academies my declared major was "international affairs."  I wasn't sure what that involved or what careers it might open up, but it sounded cool, and avoided hard courses like calculus, physics, electrical engineering and so on.

Toward the end of freshman year I was summoned to the office of an instructor I didn't know.  He asked me why I wanted to be an international affairs major.  I replied that I wanted to be a CEO after I got out of the service, and this seemed as good a way as any.

He replied that