Thanks, that's an interesting website. I didn't immediately spot a map of sound levels. Might be an interesting open source project. Some electronics with reasonably well calibrated sound level metering, and an outdoor enclosure for it...

Boom Supersonic is claiming that they will use 100% sustainable aviation fuel. In theory that means it will be waste products from food production, and stuff grown to produce it. In practice, sustainable aviation fuel looks like another scam to greenwash a very polluting product.

We shall see what happens in November, but if it's not good we might need to start thinking about sanctions on the US.

I have a feeling that the new ones will be extremely expensive too. Boom's aircraft is on the small side. They claim it will be net zero, but that seems exceedingly unlikely. Aviation fuel isn't cheap and subject to oil price shocks.

I wish someone would get a radically more fuel efficient design working. Lots of ideas like flying wings, but nothing ever comes of them.

Concorde did fly to the US though, it just wasn't allowed to go supersonic over land. Which is fair enough, it didn't go supersonic over the UK or Ireland either, the pilots waited until it was out to sea.

The new tech that has been developed for limiting sonic booms is quite interesting. A combination of lessening the effects and making most of it bounce off the thicker atmosphere at lower altitude, a bit like how a submarine can hide from hydrophones by crossing boundary layers under the sea. Sound doesn't travel well between different density areas of a liquid or gas.

Are they getting the rare earths they need from those places too? Even when batteries are made in Europe and the US, critical raw materials often come from China. Chinese companies control over 90% of the supply, and 95% for some things like permanent magnets.

And it has always been thus.

Stacking is not new. Heat dispersion problems that kill it are not new. A chip when heat-dispersed with a heat sink apparatus has known characteristics, but non-linear things happen when you heat both sides without some kind of temperature control method; chips bend, and then strange things happen.

This is news to cook the stock price, and maybe this generation of "advance".

Well that's the thing, a lot of experienced mechanics can actually fly too. They aren't qualified for licensed, but they know how the controls work, they know what the instruments show, and they know the principles. Maybe they have even done some time on flight simulators.

Back in the day it wasn't uncommon for them to take aircraft up for testing.

And that is essentially how Luke learned too. Repairing small craft, and racing them with his friends.

See, this is what I'm talking about. You can invent reasons why it all makes sense. Some fans enjoy that, it's fine. But if you are willing to do it to explain away Luke's meteoric rise, why not Rey's as well? Remember that most of this stuff to justify Luke is based on stuff from the books and other media, or from what amount to retcons in later movies.

Also are we all still pretending that the Holiday Special didn't happen and isn't canon?

He had flying experience at low altitude with gravity, and went from that to being an ace space fighter pilot in about a week. All the other pilots with actual military combat experience, the Rebel's best people, couldn't make that shot. It's not even clear why they gave a valuable X-Wing to a kid with no prior experience or proven skill, but then it's full of plot holes. They had to fly down the trench to avoid surface guns and get to the exhaust port, unless they were called Han Solo in which case they can just dive in a few hundred metres from it and take out the extremely Force sensitive main villain with a surprise shot.

Both Luke and Rey had the Force so we can suspend our disbelief for a moment and enjoy the movie. Pew-pew sounds in the vacuum of space just makes it better.

Fortunately it hit them where it hurts - in the wallet. Capitalism created this mess, and we have to use capitalism to fix it.

The worst part is we aren't even good at it. The nominally communist government in China is doing a far better job.

This reminds me of criticism for Rey from Force Awakens. Spends many years learning about starships by scavenging and repairing them, learning to fight out of necessity, and of course has the magic Force powers to help... Certainly a better training regime than moisture farmer boy got. First thing she does when taking control of a ship is crash it into the ground. Kylo Ren engineers situations to help her learn some basic Force techniques, and then easily bests her in a fight. Somehow this makes her a Mary Sue and a total travesty.

It's clickbait. Lots of money to be made ranting about how DEI and wokeness has destroyed yet another beloved franchise.

It's a general problem with stories involving Kryptonians. They are so powerful that the writers always have to find ways to weaken them, or invent a similarly powerful villain to oppose them. That's why kryptonite was originally invented.

Like many comic book stories, you have to suspend your disbelief a bit. None of it makes sense from a physics point of view, any more than most of Star Trek or Star Wars does.