STORY: Aerospace startup Boom Supersonic is on a mission to resurrect faster-than-the-speed-of sound commercial air travel– and on Monday, the company completed its second successful test flight of a supersonic jet.
Boom wants to make it happen by the end of the decade with its Overture supersonic airliner.
The company claims that the Overture, which is still in development, will be able to fly approximately 65 passengers from New York to London in three-and-a-half hours, and San Francisco to Tokyo in six.
For now, Boom has built a 1/3 scale prototype of Overture called XB-1, which has completed two successful flights at their facility in California’s Mojave desert.
Reuters spoke with CEO Blake Scholl ahead of XB-1’s second test flight.
“Imagine being able to vacation in Australia instead of Hawaii. Imagine being able to take a day trip to London. I don’t think anybody would not want a supersonic flight if it were safe, affordable and sustainable.”
“The really exciting thing here is supersonic flights coming back. It’s coming back in a far more mainstream way than we ever had with Concorde.”
The Concorde was the first supersonic passenger plane, but with high costs of operation and after a deadly crash in the year 2000 in Paris, the fleet was retired in 2003.
“The flight times will be very similar to what was on Concorde. We actually slowed down just a little bit in order to be able to make the economics way better, more profitability for airlines and more affordability for passengers.”
The Overture won’t be as noisy as the Concorde either, thanks to the world’s first automated noise reduction system.
Scholl says several airlines including United and Japan airlines have already placed preorders of the Overture.
Boom is aiming to make their first supersonic flight of XB-1 by the end of the year.
Source Agencies
