- The Overture aircrafts will travel at Mach 1.7 and cut flying time in half
- Pentanet has big plans to increase its cloud gaming presence in Australia
- Li-S says it has a competitive advantage in batteries for drones and heavy vehicles
The world’s biggest airline, American Airlines, has put a deposit down on 20 of Boom Supersonic’s Overture aircrafts.
The Overture is expected to carry 65-80 passengers at Mach 1.7 over water – that’s twice the speed of today’s fastest commercial aircraft.
And AA’s CFO Derek Kerr is keen as a bean to get his hands on some.
“Looking to the future, supersonic travel will be an important part of our ability to deliver for our customers,” he said.
“We are excited about how Boom will shape the future of travel both for our company and our customers.”
Traveling at speeds faster than that of the sound used to be a regular event before aircraft manufacturer Concorde went under, and airlines had no option but to stick with subsonic (slow) aircraft.
But now there could be supersonic flights before the end of the decade, with Boom slated to roll out the aircraft in 2025 and carry its first passengers by 2029.
“We believe Overture can help American deepen its competitive advantage on network, loyalty and overall airline preference through the paradigm-changing benefits of cutting travel times in half,” Boom founder and CEO Blake Scholl says.
Boom they do have to meet industry-standard operating, performance and safety requirements as well as American’s other customary conditions before delivery of any Overtures though.
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For FY22, Pentanet’s revenue was $16.8 million, up 54% on FY21. Gross margin increased to 44% (vs FY21 43%), while underlying EBITDA was a loss of -$4.4 million (vs FY21 of -$2.4 million).
Along with its telecommunications and fixed wireless subscribers growth, the company says its cloud gaming presence in Australia continued to grow rapidly, with over 182,000 users as at 30 June 2022.
In October, Pentanet launched GeForce NOW, NVIDIA’s cloud-based game streaming service, to what it called “an eager market of gamers” across Australia and New Zealand.
The cloud gaming platform allows gamers to play supported titles in the cloud, streaming gameplay directly from the company’s RTX Blade Servers to a user’s device, basically removing the need for expensive gaming hardware by the user and delivering a high quality gaming experience.
The company is also working on Cloud.GG, a gamified network loyalty, rewards and incentive program, which could potentially generate new revenue streams for any network with Cloud.GG enabled by allowing their subscribers to earn digital currency for every action they take online.
“I’ve said it before and I want to reiterate for you today – Pentanet is so much more than just another telco,” MD Stephen Cornish.
“With our ongoing focus on impactful innovation, we are not only contributing to the development of Australia’s digital future but also improving and increasing the ways we connect digitally and IRL.”
With lingo like that he must be really in tune with his target market. (IRL means “in real life”. ICYMI.)
LIS is aiming to deliver lithium sulphur and lithium metal batteries with unprecedented performance and cycle life, by using its unique BNNT and Li-nanomesh nano-composites.
The batteries would be the ‘holy grail’ of EV, drone and electric aviation markets, combining high energy storage and low weight.
And in its annual report, the company says it’s completed test flights of drones powered by its batteries.
“We have identified our clear competitive advantage in providing batteries for drones and heavy vehicles (e.g. prime movers and mining) and have deepening partnerships in both areas,” chairman Ben Spincer said.
LIS also joined the Future Battery Industry CRC, giving it access to leading researchers and partners across Australia and is also a foundational industry partner in the Deakin Recycling and Renewable Energy Commercialisation Hub as part of the Commonwealth Trailblazer University program “that should result in close to $5 million of additional funding over its four years,” Spincer says.
No revenue yet, but the company has entered into strategic collaboration agreements with Boeing’s Insitu Pacific in the drone target market and Janus Electric in the heavy EV target market – which Spincer says will enable them to home in on the battery requirements of each product category, “while we continue our testing, optimise our cell chemistry and scale up the size and volume of our cell production capability.”
The company produces propulsion and stabilisation systems for the marine, defence and mining industries, and saw a bit of a downturn in FY22, with of $54.2m – compared to $59.5m in FY21 – mainly due to lower revenues from the defence sector.
Revenues from propulsion and engineering products were strong, along with the company’s marine gyrostabiliser product – with Veem the only major supplier in the estimated US$1.1bn market for new builds and US$13.5bn for retrofits.
There were some issues with the supply chain, and price increases in raw materials and freight which eroded margins, “particularly the bronze (copper and nickel) used for propellers where a fixed price list exists,” Veem said.
“This appears to have stabilised in the last few months of FY22.
“There was a rare event of an increase in defective propeller castings that occurred in the second quarter of FY22 that had the double impact of additional cost and reduced capacity for new orders thus reducing sales.
“The causes were addressed and propeller casting quality was back to previous levels by the end 2021 and has been maintained throughout the rest of FY22.”
On the defence front, the company says it expects revenue from Collins Class submarines, and is “well positioned to take advantage of further defence work that may result from the current federal government drive for increased local content, including opportunities arising out of AUKUS.”