The Future of Commercial Supersonic Air Travel
Featured Image Courtesy of Boom Supersonic
Everyone has heard of the Concorde. You could travel faster than the speed of sound across the Atlantic Ocean from Paris and London to New York and Washington in luxury in three hours. Now, the minimum that it takes to get from New York to London is almost seven hours. The Concorde got retired because of safety issues, high maintenance costs, and not many people flying on it due to the extremely high prices. It just didn’t end up being economically profitable and possible. The Concorde was retired in the year 2003; we haven’t been able to go faster than the speed of sound commercially for fifteen years. I personally see a big market for supersonic travel to make business transactions and such be able to go much faster. Fortunately, there are multiple companies working on being able to take us across oceans faster than the speed of sound within the next years. Continue reading to find out more about how we will be able to fly supersonically in the coming decades.
The Concorde Was The Most Iconic Supersonic Jet To Take The Skies
Boom Supersonic:
Boom Supersonic is a startup company based in Denver, Colorado that intends to offer a 55 seat commercial supersonic airliner within the next decade. They were founded in 2014, and want to finish production of and test fly a smaller supersonic aircraft which can hold one person in 2019. Both Virgin Atlantic and Japan Airlines have invested in Boom Supersonic and intend to receive supersonic aircraft once they are ready as they both see a market in supersonic travel. Since the aircraft is smaller than the Concorde, Boom wants to make the aircraft more economically sustainable for the airlines to run. At a speed of Mach 2.2, it can travel from New York to London in about 3 hours and can travel from Tokyo to San Francisco in 5 and a half hours, cutting travel times in more than a half. Fares will be about as much as current day business class is. Also, Boom states that the sonic boom would be about 30 times quieter than the boom of the Concorde, so it really couldn’t damage a person’s hearing if it were to fly supersonic over land. I personally hope that the US will allow supersonic jets to fly over the US in the future so you could get across the coast in two hours. Boom’s concept aircraft would fly at around 60,000 ft instead of at 30,000-40,000 ft.
Do I think that the Boom Supersonic will actually create passenger jets? Yes, I do, because airlines already have invested in it. Since both JAL and the Virgin Group invested in the company, they must already see a large market for supersonic travel, and they expect to get planes delivered to them in the future. Unless the company makes some bad financial decisions, the two airlines will make sure that their planes will be made. While I do think they will make the supersonic airliner, whether they can make it affordable and economically sustainable in the long term is still not 100% clear. I predict at the rate they are going now, we will have a Mach 2.2 airliner from Boom ready to fly by 2028 at the latest, although it really could be ready by 2025, in theory.
Boeing Hypersonic Airliner:
Boeing’s Hypersonic Jet Concept
Boom has ambitions for Mach 2.2 within the next 10 years. Boeing on the other hand is intending to create a hypersonic jet capable of flying at up to Mach 5.5 within the next 20-30 years. For those of you who don’t know, Mach 1-5 is considered to be supersonic while Mach 5 + is considered to be hypersonic. Boeing’s concept could fly from New York to London in 2 hours! Just in June, Boeing announced their plans to create a hypersonic airliner. The problem is that unlike Boom’s supersonic aircraft where we really have the technology, a lot of new technology has to be created for Boeing’s new aircraft as Mach 5 is barely as fast as any type of plane ever created can go. To make that into a commercial airliner will take decades, as Boeing expects. While it will be great to get across the Atlantic in 2 hours, it really will be a long time until Boeing actually creates a hypersonic airliner; they really only stated their intention to do it a few months ago. I do think Boeing will eventually make a hypersonic airliner, but it will be multiple decades down the road.
Business Jets:
Spike Aerospace’s and Aerion Supersonic’s Supersonic Business Jet Concepts
There are two companies that I know of that are planning on introducing supersonic business jets. The first, Spike Aerospace, is planning to introduce a jet called the Spike S-512 which can travel at up to Mach 1.6. The concept can hold up to 18 passengers and is planned to be introduced by the year 2023. They have already begun testing smaller variants of the aircraft. At a range of 6,200 nautical miles, the plane can fly on many long haul flights and cut the time almost in half. You can even reserve your own plane on Spike’s website!
The other supersonic business jet manufacturer is called Aerion, which is also in collaboration with Lockheed Martin. Their plane, the AS2 will be able to fly at slightly lower speeds at around Mach 1.2. If you don’t mind if I say it, the plane (the lower one on the picture above) has a really awkward shape, with three engines and a mini wing above the rear of the plane which has two engines while the other engine is on the tail. While it is really long, passengers can only fit in the forward area with windows; the plane can only hold eight passengers. The plane is currently scheduled to also be flying in the year 2023 and can fly a maximum of 4,200 nautical miles.
I personally do think that there is a (relatively) pretty big market for supersonic business jets. Executives among major corporations would probably be willing to spend the money for a business jet for their companies to be able to travel across the Atlantic in three hours to be able to conduct business transactions faster. I’m also pretty sure that there are a ton of rich people who would be willing to spend their money on a supersonic aircraft in the world.
Conclusion:
In this day and age, I think that it is ridiculous that we don’t even have the option of traveling faster than the speed of sound, as we did twenty years ago. It is a fact that there will be commercial and private business jets available for us to fly on (hopefully) within the next ten years. We also will eventually be able to fly hypersonically, as Boeing is thinking. Maybe we will even be able to take rockets from one point on earth to another in less than an hour in ten years as Spacex is proposing. One thing is for sure: flight times will get a lot shorter in the future via supersonic or hypersonic travel.
Are you looking forward to having the option to fly from New York to London in 3 hours again?
