The new Concorde: Supersonic jet will get you from London to New York in just three hours
It is five years ago almost to the day that Concorde approached Heathrow airport under much fanfare and nostalgia on its last official flight before heading off into retirement. In a move which for some people signalled a step backwards for technology, the Anglo-French aviation-engineering masterpiece touched down and with it the chance for people to experience supersonic air travel.
But now, an American firm is on the cusp of re-imagining the supersonic dream and confidently plans to have supersonic commercial aircraft back in the skies as a reality by 2015.
The Aerion Supersonic Jet may not have the same grace and style and the size of the great Concorde, but the Aerion group are so sure that the plane will fly that they have pencilled in test flights for 2012, with transatlantic testing to follow soon after. Reaching a top speed of mach 1.6 the jet will once again put New York within three hours flight time of London.
What about the drawbacks of the Concorde? Not to worry:
‘The cost per nautical mile will be similar to today’s large business jets.’ The biggest advance in technology that the Aerion has improved upon Concorde is in its noise reduction ability.
Concorde was famously and some would say intentionally scuppered by jealous Americans who banned the plane from flying over U.S. territory at the speed of sound. This immediately removed any advantage the small plane had over its larger competitors and ended the supersonic age before it had begun.
The Aerion aircraft can successfully fly at nearly the speed of sound without any significant noise impact and more amazingly has the ability to fly at mach 1.15 without emanating a sonic boom. ‘This is due to the patented supersonic natural laminar flow (SNLF) technology that substantially reduces drag at supersonic as well as high-subsonic cruise speeds,’ says Jeff Miller.
The first version will be sold as a high-end corparate type aircraft, with the technology and market for that being used to leverage eventual development of an airline service version of the plane.
‘Concorde was a beautiful machine and a product of its time, but technology has moved forward and new designs such as the Aerion jet offer greater efficiency. ‘Concorde was withdrawn due to high operating cost, which Aerion technology has successfully overcome,’ says Jeff.
Aerion will start small but hope to have the technology and the capital to one day expand their operation beyond smaller aircraft to larger Concorde sized vehicles. ‘With the success of the Aerion supersonic business jet, we expect to see supersonic flight becoming commonplace. ‘With market acceptance it will be possible to fund the development of airliner variants, offering time savings to a much larger group of travellers,’ says Jeff.
As incredible as it seems that Concorde was flying only five years ago, Aerion will be tearing across our skies in four, heralding a return to the skies of supersonic travel.
And how cool is that! While the Chief admittedly won;t be in line to buy one…(ha ha ha)…it’s good to see further real technological progress in commercial aerospace. Maybe there WILL be a future chance to enjoy a 3 hour flight to London on an airline version. That WOULD be cool!