Aerospace company unveils designs for new supersonic jet

World Today

Aerospace company unveils designs for new supersonic jet

Thirteen years after the Concorde’s final flight, supersonic air travel is back, or at least it’s back on the horizon. An aerospace company in the U.S. state of Colorado has unveiled the design of a plane that could ferry passengers pretty economically in the near future.

CCTV America’s Hendrik Sybrandy reports. Follow Hendrik Sybrandy on Twitter @hsybrandy

It felt like a Hollywood movie premiere. Inside a Centennial Airport hangar in Colorado, members of the aviation industry and flying enthusiasts prepared to toast a plane that could revolutionize the way we cross the globe in the future.

Joe Wilding is the Chief Engineer of Boom Technology, a company that’s spent the past two years working on this.

Boom could become the fastest civilian commercial plane ever made.

That’s 2300 kilometers per hour. Boom’s supersonic demonstrator plane, this is a mock-up, will be one-third the size of the actual plane and should begin test flying about a year from now.

For 27 years, the Concorde jet flew passengers across the Atlantic Ocean. But high fuel costs and ticket prices helped lead to its demise in 2003. Boom’s team believes improved aerodynamics, propulsion and materials will bring better fuel economy and make this plane economically viable.

Boom will be made of carbon composite materials which can withstand higher temperatures than the Concorde’s aluminum. That’ll help this plane fly even faster.

And that speed-priced in line with today’s cost of a transcontinental business class flight, about $5,000, will attract lots of passengers, says Boom’s C.E.O. Blake Scholl.

Virgin Galactic already has options on 10 of these 45-seat aircraft. Its founder Richard Branson is on board.

Veteran Concorde pilot Steve Bohill-Smith also believes Boom’s time has come.

Years of testing and certification still lie ahead.

The supersonic journey has resumed. Boom hopes to carry its first passengers early in the 2020’s.