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A comment on Boom (YC W16) – Supersonic Passenger Airplanes. Parent comment

Re:Boom (YC W16) – Supersonic Passenger Airplanes by paulmd on Tuesday March 22, 2016 @02:50AM (#11334810)
Your brother's plane is likely an ultralight or light-sport category, and regardless as a kit-built is nowhere near the certification required for commercial operation. A key requirement of kit-built or experimental aircraft is that you can't ask money to fly passengers on them. He's not even allowed to ask for gas money if you take a trip together.

Commercial requirements literally start at "one aircraft that gets the wings overstressed (if not actually snapped off) during destructive testing" and the requirements continue steeply onwards from there. You can figure on having it built by FAA-certified mechanics as well.

The FAA likes having a paper trail if the wings fall off (an extremely common problem with ultralight/sport aircraft built by non-certified personnel). Not OK when you're carrying passengers for hire.

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Re:Boom (YC W16) – Supersonic Passenger Airplanes by bertil on Tuesday March 22, 2016 @07:53PM (#11340914)
It was, originally but with some improvements since, and it got the wing-stress that you mention involuntarily and while in flight (my mom & his wife were watching — fun times). He got out without a scratch and improved the next one further.

I can completely see the expected extra cost of having to make two prototypes — and, yes, my first reaction to the article was: “please, please, let them have a billion in VC money”. But the truth is, the success ratio of projects about “we want to make a plane that goes that fast” seems far higher than success ratios of any company.

The business side sounds a lot more doable, given how many people fly those destinations and would like to do it faster.

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