A PLANE that could fly people from London to New York City in as little as 3.5hours has hit another big milestone in its quest to shake-up air travel.
Boom Technology’s supersonic aircraft, aptly dubbed “the son of Concorde”, has completed its third test flight just weeks after its last big takeoff.
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The test model, XB-1, is being used before Boom unveils the actual aircraft set to be used in the future known as the Overture.
It’s hoped the aircraft will eventually cut the trip across the Atlantic in half.
Engineers are inching closer to performing a supersonic test flight before the end of the year, paving the way for mainstream supersonic travel more than two decades after Concorde retired.
The flight reached a new maximum altitude of 15,000 feet and speeds of 232 knots – the equivalent of 267mph – with a total flight time of 32 minutes.
Experts have carried out a number of important system and performance tests to reach their goal.
Chief test pilot Tristan “Geppetto” Brandenburg took XB-1 to the maximum pitch and yaw attitudes expected, testing at a safe, higher altitude.
They also checked key controls for temperature and pressurisation of the cockpit.
However, another nine tests are needed before the jet reaches Mach 1 or supersonic status.
Geppetto recently told The Sun in an exclusive interview that Overture will be much cheaper than Concorde, which he says failed because of its fares.
“We believe that life happens in person,” he explained.
“A meeting is so much more effective when you can, when you can shake hands and talk to a person face to face.
“Time spent with family or friends is so much better in person than it is via screen.
“Part of the reason the Concorde isn’t flying anymore is just because it wasn’t a sustainable business model.
“The flights were so expensive that the average person just couldn’t afford to take those.”
Possible Boom Overture routes
ROUTE availability will be at the discretion of airlines and while strong demand is expected from North America to Europe, Boom say there are more than 600 profitable and mostly transoceanic routes.
The following are possible journeys airlines could choose to undertake with the Overture.
- New York to Rome in under 5 hours (instead of 8 hours)
- Tokyo to Vancouver in 4.5 hours (instead of almost 8.5 hours)
- Los Angeles to Tahiti in just over 4 hours (instead of more than 7.5 hours)
- Atlanta to Madrid in 4.5 hours (instead of more than 8 hours)
- Washington D.C. to Dublin in 3.5 hours (instead of 6.5 hours)
- Singapore to Dubai in less than 4.5 hours (instead of about 7 hours)
Test flights have been taking place in the Mojave Desert, California.
The Overture is expected to take off as a commercial airliner by 2030 and carry between 64 and 80 passengers.
Geppetto told The Sun the goal is to “make it affordable” to travel faster.
“They’re going to have business class seats and so it should be comparable to the business class experience on a Boeing 777,” he said.
“If you have the option of choosing business class on a wide body jet that takes 6 hours to get somewhere or a comparable fare where you spend half as much time in the air, I would choose the one that got me there faster.”
Tickets for a round trip from New York City to London are expected to cost $5,000 (£3,823).
By comparison, the same journey on Concorde cost passengers a whopping $20,000 (£15,293), adjusted for inflation.
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Why did the Concorde fail?
CONCORDE was the supersonic passenger jet considered the ultimate luxury in air travel.
Air France and British Airways announced they would be retiring their fleet of Concorde planes on April 10, 2003.
The plane had its first commercial flight on January 21, 1976, so was retired after 27 years of service and 50,000 flights.
Several reasons led to the decision to retire Concorde.
Air France and British Airways cited low passenger numbers and high maintenance costs.
By the early noughties, the planes were outdated and expensive to run, despite being incredibly advanced when they were first introduced almost three decades previously.
The 9/11 terrorist attack in 2001 majorly impacted passenger numbers, as people opted not to fly.
Passenger numbers also fell after an Air France Concorde crashed just minutes after taking off from Paris in July 2000.
The disaster killed all 109 people on board and four others on the ground.
The plane ran over a small piece of metal on the runway, which burst a tyre and caused an engine to ignite.
It was also the only aircraft in the British Airways fleet that required a flight engineer.