The Concorde which once mesmerized the world is set to make a comeback with a number of start-ups working on supersonic and hypersonic projects. In a world post-2020, new technological advances allow designs to succeed where Concorde failed and a range of companies and research institutes are heavily investing in a new generation of civilian supersonic aircraft.
US-based company Boom wants to fly a scale model of its supersonic airliner called the Overture in 2021, and has already raised $196 million. NASA has pioneered the X-59, an experimental supersonic aircraft that lowers noise levels of the infamous sonic boom. And Aerion, in cooperation with Boeing, is working on a supersonic business jet which could fly by 2025.
Blake Scholl, Founder and CEO of Boom, told CNN that the company plans to have Overture the Mach 2.2 commercial airline in the skies by 2026. He said there hasn’t been any major speed-up in travel times since the Jet Age of the 50s and 60s. “That barrier of time is what keeps us apart. We believe its deeply important to break the time barrier, more so than the sound barrier.”
Designed to seat between 65 and 88 people, Overture will focus on over 500 primarily transoceanic routes that will benefit from the aircraft’s Mach 2.2 speeds, more than twice as fast as today’s subsonic commercial jets. A journey from New York to London would take just three hours and 15 minutes while Los Angeles to Sydney would be cut down to eight and a half hours.
Scholl believes breaking the time barrier could be life-changing. “It changes where we can vacation, changes where we can do business, changes you can fall in love with or you can be close to,” he said. “We see ourselves as picking up where Concorde left off, and fixing the most important things which are economic and environmental sustainability.”
Boom plans to design a new 100% carbon-neutral plane from the ground up. “I wouldn’t wish the pandemic on the world, but its actually going to accelerate the adoption of supersonic,” Scholl said. “As things get back into growth mode, there’s an opportunity to build a new generation fleet that’s got supersonic baked into it. That actually makes it easier to adopt.”
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He pointed out that airplane technology has gone from aluminum to carbon fiber, from drafting paper and slide rules and wind tunnels to being able to optimize airplanes for computer simulation. “We have completely changed how we build jet engines, so now they are quieter and they are more fuel efficient.”
