on the day before Inauguration Day of the new Democratic President.

How in the damn world can they announce an almost three year delay in a project?

They need competition.

Or a Chinese one?

I do hope this president tries his luck in a SpaceX rocket.

747’s can fly for decades, so AF1 should be good for a while.

It wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world for an upstart to put competitive pressure on Boeing. It’s too bad we don’t have a McDonnell-Douglas around, notwithstanding the MD-80.

Airbus has given them plenty in the commercial airline space. It seems 3/4 of the planes I ride are Airbus.

They have competition 737 and up from Airbus.

They have competition below 737 from Embraer.

I think the issue is that with Exec competition 1000X the pay of line workers, there is no longer any sense of team, because, in fact, the exec are 100% in it for their own personal gain, and every decision is driven by how they can screw workers and maximize their stock options.

It isn't just the airframe industry. It is most large industries, but the aeronautics industry is the most vivid of cases. This industry is almost exactly 100 years old. And without any notable exceptions, the first 50 years were led by people with dreams and vision of achieving something revolutionary. And the last 50 years have been owned by the spreadsheet junkies with no vision at all.

The exceptions are so rare as to count on one hand. Burt Rutan for one. And more recently we have a couple of companies trying to re-commercialize supersonic travel with a new wave of tech. Personally, I am very interested in what Jetzero is trying to do, refining and scaling the flying wing designs (think B2 bomber). I flew nearly 2 million miles during my working career, and most of them were uncomfortable, if not miserable. The Jetzero approach replaces those narrow, claustrophobic tubes with wide, open cabins. The engines are mounted above the body, making them quieter around airports, and easier to pilot in the event of an engine failure (because both engines are near the center axis.) I hope they succeed, but they may not be employing enough spreadsheet junkies to make it is these late-stage capitalism years.

After all those years of almost daily flying, I have only boarded planes a dozen times in the past 15 years, and will be happy to never fight my way through another one of those narrow tubes. I hope Jetzero succeeds.

https://www.jetzero.aero/

It would be a shame if the wings fell off mid flight.