Comments on: Virgin Galactic is replacing its WhiteKnightTwo mother ship

By: Edward

Edward — Sat, 09 Jul 2022 18:01:20 +0000

400 flights per year is the requirement for the minimum combined rate of flights from the two aircraft. The company’s business plan is most likely less than this rate, otherwise their requirement for the aircraft does not meet the the requirement for meeting the business plan. Most likely the business plan calls for half or a quarter as many flights per year, perhaps two flights a week, three flights a week, or a flight every other day.

WhiteKnightTwo, as with WhiteKnight, had been designed and built to support only the development phase of the spacecraft. This is why its maintenance is too expensive and too intensive for regular operations, and it is why the aircraft has worn so badly from only the development flights.

The important question is whether there are enough customers who wish to have the bragging rights of having gone to space (as defined by the U.S. rather than the rest of the world).

By: Jeff Wright

Jeff Wright — Fri, 08 Jul 2022 05:59:25 +0000

Out of the frying pan-and straight into Hades.

By: Concerned

Concerned — Thu, 07 Jul 2022 21:26:52 +0000

How many hours did WK2 have on its airframe? Seems not very much over 15 years. This was basically an unscaleable boutique design never up to the lofty commercial goals sold by the departed showman Sir Richard. I’ll be shocked if this sputtering company ever flies again.

By: Matt in AZ

Matt in AZ — Thu, 07 Jul 2022 17:38:42 +0000

Virgin contracted Scaled Composites to build the first White Knight 2, flown in 2008. Following that, the Virgin-owned Spaceship Company was supposed to build 2 more WK2s themselves for their fleet. That 15 YEARS have passed since the completion of the original WK2, with Virgin never building the others, shows they never had that capability, or even intent.

Scaled is now owned by Northrop Grumman, and it’s interesting that Virgin is working with Boeing’s Aurora instead for the replacement vehicles. Perhaps NG sees little benefit in teaming with Virgin at this point. Taking a quick look at Aurora’s history, they don’t seem to have done much more than drones and subscale test vehicles. They seem out of their league for a vehicle of this size.

By: Robert Zimmerman

Robert Zimmerman — Thu, 07 Jul 2022 17:29:13 +0000

In reply to Stephen Fleming.

Stephen Fleming wrote “A competent trade press would call them on it.”

It seems to me, all modesty aside, that you are reading an example of a “competent trade press” right here. :)

By: Stephen Fleming

Stephen Fleming — Thu, 07 Jul 2022 17:18:49 +0000

By the way: Drop a zero. Divide by two. Could I see 40 flights/year at $225K/seat? Yeah, I could. That’s $50 million/year, which I don’t think is an unreasonable target. But you probably can’t pay for two brand-new carrier aircraft that way.

By: Stephen Fleming

Stephen Fleming — Thu, 07 Jul 2022 17:16:28 +0000

Either way… 400 flights at year with six paying passengers each at $450k/head would mean an annual revenue of $1 billion/year.

That’s NOT going to happen. It’s certainly not going to happen in the Middle of Nowhere, New Mexico. They can’t possibly imagine it’s going to happen. A competent trade press would call them on it.

By: Andi

Andi — Thu, 07 Jul 2022 16:41:27 +0000

I don’t think they are saying that one aircraft will fly 400 times per year, but that their goal is to have a “fleet” of them, with a total of 400 flights per year between them.

I agree that the odds of that occurring are…. astronomical.