Supersonic aircraft to return to the skies by 2017

Supersonic aircraft to return to the skies by 2017
By Anne Majumdar


Supersonic flight could become part of the travel landscape once again as early as 2017, 14 years after Concorde made its last flight.

Aviation start-up Boom has just signed an agreement with Richard Branson’s Virgin Group. Under the deal, Virgin’s manufacturing arm The Spaceship Company will help with the engineering, design and manufacturing of the aircraft which will travel at Mach 2.2 – even faster than Concorde which flew at Mach 2.0. The majority of modern passenger aircraft fly at Mach 0.85.

Virgin has also optioned Boom’s first 10 aircraft, with an unnamed European carrier also optioning 15 planes.

Boom’s idea is to take passengers from New York to London in just three hours and 20 minutes.

Its first prototype is expected to fly in 2017 with commercial services to start within the next few years.

“This is supersonic passenger air travel, no bullshit, and it’s actually affordable,” chief executive Blake Scholl told The Guardian, confirming the round-trip at $5,000.

“Ultimately I want people to be able to get anywhere in the world in five hours for $100.

“To get there you have to improve fuel efficiency, but step-by-step supersonic air travel will become available for everyone.”

Scholl has a Silicon Valley background and has worked for Amazon and founded his own company Kima Labs which was later acquired by Groupon.

He said he embarked on this new venture because he was “sad” he had never got the chance to fly on Concorde.

Concorde made its last flight in 2003 after 27 years in the skies after a high profile crash in 2000 which killed all 109 passengers on board. The negative publicity combined with the prohibitively expensive airfares and an increasingly difficult economic climate saw profits take a tumble, spelling the end for Concorde.

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