AINsight: Life in a faster lane

摘要

Some things in life improve with age. A fine wine. A meaningful relationship. A good marriage that was meant to be. A teenager past awkward adolescence and ready for prime time. Add to those, the performance of a carefully selected and well-nurtured team. A smart idea whose time has finally arrived. Aerion's AS2 supersonic business jet could very well be that timely idea. In our consulting work, we are regularly approached by brilliant, impassioned individuals seeking to animate their back-of-the-envelope airplane designs. Almost to a person, they seek to take their ideas from abstract concept to metal or carbon fiber-to literally go where no one else has gone before. Their queries to us tend to have some common themes, including the following: "How many can I build? How many can I build at price X? Price Y? How much more will customers be willing to pay to have Feature A or Feature B on their next airplane? What is the price elasticity of demand? What if...what if...what if?"