Supersonic: The sky's the limit!

Hmmm...is supersonic making a comeback

Justin Bachman - MSN Money - Bloomberg - 29 Nov 16

"Ask a harried air traveler about the basics of modern flight, and you’ll probably elicit surprise when they discover commercial airplanes fly only as fast as they did in the 1950s. Given the range of aerospace advances in the past half-century, plus the technological leaps in almost every other area of human endeavor, it seems reasonable to ask: Why can’t we fly faster?

That’s the question driving a startup called Boom Technology, which says it’s time to bring supersonic jet travel into the mainstream—in a modern way. The company is pursuing speed with an audacious idea : a 45-seat aircraft that cruises at Mach 2.2 (1,451 miles per hour), faster than the defunct Concorde and certainly faster than the standard 550 mph, with fares no more expensive than a current business-class round trip, which ranges between $5,000 and $10,000.

Yet long before travelers can marvel at a quick hop across the Atlantic, Boom will need to sell the airlines not just on a technically disruptive aircraft, but also on one that can accomplish such feats of velocity cost-effectively. It must earn a solid profit—no middling returns allowed—and this, of course, has been a key reason the Concorde was an aberration rather than the harbinger of universal supersonic travel.

Boom is likely to encounter deep skepticism in a conservative industry that still relies heavily on a fundamental airplane design devised 70 years ago. The major global airlines Boom will court operate with two cardinal maxims: It’s really hard to make money with small airplanes, and it’s really, really hard to make money with supersonic airplanes, which are renowned for their fuel inefficiency.

“I have no problem seeing the demand for this airplane,” says Marty St. George, a JetBlue Airways Corp. executive and industry veteran. “The issue is can you do it and make the numbers work?”

Read More: Supersonic makes a comeback

"Supersonic: The sky's the limit"! CBJ

Let's block ads! (Why?)

Supersonic: The sky's the limit!