Comments by "Tony Wilson" (@tonywilson4713) on "CNBC" channel.

@bentucker7280 You're right and that's just another of the advantages of air launching. The only real problem is that that there is a practical size limit and I think that's part of Launcher Ones issues. Its almost 50% heavier than Pegasus XL which is a fairly big. A Tomahawk extended range cruise missile and AGM 129 are both around 1.6 tons Pegasus XL is 23.1t Launcher One is around 30t That's a lot of mass to be holding in the way air launched rockets are launched.
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@trouty7947 Yep I know all those points well. For rockets up to a certain size (and I think Pegasus XL is close to the limit and Launcher One is past the limit) there is nothing better than air launching. Smaller rockets are less efficient in terms of payload than larger ones because not everything scales down. So getting some of that back by launching at 40-50,000 ft and needing less fuel to get onto the right orbital track is a big deal. Plus not having to build launch facilities saves millions that can go into jet fuel and rocket fuel.
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@h8GW NO - other direction. They would have been far better off starting with a smaller rocket on a smaller jet and then building up. The single biggest cost in flying jets (after the fuel) is the engine maintenance. Its why twin engine jets have become the main stay of the air industry. Go back to the 70s and 80s and there were lots of triple engine jets like the L-1011 and DC-10, 727 and they have all gone the way of the dodo. The cost savings on engine maintenance is huge.
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