June 2023
So in other words taxpayers are again getting stuck for R&D that a profitable company could do from its spare change? And that in a country with $32T in debt? If that 30% figure were correct (sounds rather high), Boeing would easily justify the investment as they could sell thousands of them. Not to save the planet from Al Gore’s boiling oceans, but to increase airline profits. Strutted wings? Good grief.
June 2023
Ridiculous. Why does Boeing need a contract with NASA to build a new plane? Because it’s no longer a private company or operating in a free market.
One of the many advantages of capitalism is that it makes the players risk their own resources and reap the benefits or losses. The reason Airbus and other can compete with US manufacturers is that we’ve destroyed our own free market. Don’t go looking for any single reason either. The government has destroyed our economy with a thousand cuts, and we need a similar process on the government to get our economy back.
1 reply
June 2023
▶ NewUserName
I don’t know if You’re old, Mr. Eric W, but sure Your considerations are, IMHO, quite correct and reflecting the reality (as a new men) of this strange contry that USA has been transformed since Mr. Obama and alikes started the mission to crack it down.
1 reply
June 2023
I left aero engineering to become a pilot twenty years ago because I was sick of seeing huge amounts of money being wasted on projects we all knew were pointless (e.g. single stage to orbit). They studied this configuration 60 years ago and rejected it.
How about giving 10% of the money to Cessna to restart production on the 210 and 182RG?
Those are the two best light airplanes ever made, better than anything before or since if you objectively look at the numbers.
I’m sure Boeing is making huge profits off the Ukraine grift. They don’t need a welfare project.
2 replies
June 2023
▶ sstearns2
and that’s MY feeling on the X-59 project, as well. Why is the Government NASA subsidizing research for others?
June 2023
▶ bserra
I changed my name because I saw a new Eric W on the site.
I’m old by any standard other than the a web average ???.
June 2023
▶ sstearns2
Well, This is certainly not cutting edge, revolutionary, or even better.
It’s a rather ugly attempt at the problem and the “expected efficiency” rivals speeches by Jim Bede.
$725 million is a bit much for an externally braced monoplane.