A Vision Of The Future Of Mobility: Supersonic Air Travel
US start up, Boom, is planning a new generation carbon composite supersonic aircraft with 45 all-business seats in two single seat rows, and priced at about 10% above current business fares. It will fly at over 2,500 km an hour, or Mach 2.2, and be able to link Australia’s east coast with the US west coast in 6 hours 45 minutes.
Since the Concorde stopped operations 14 years ago, there has been no supersonic passenger travel. And today’s jet aircraft actually usually fly even more slowly than they did 50 years ago (to save on fuel).
According to Boom’s website, “The goal of the company is to pick up where Concorde left off and build a new generation supersonic aircraft. Long flights are a barrier to travel. We’re removing that barrier, turning 8-hour red eyes into 3-4-hour daytime flights. Excruciating 16-hour journeys become easy overnights. When you can get there in half the time, where will you go?”
Boom Technology Founder & CEO Blake Scholl believes Boom is only 18 months away from flying their first prototype aircraft. The Blue Swan Daily recently caught up with Mr Scholl, to learn more about this impressive technology.
Transcript
Blake Scholl:Yeah, so the company's a little over 3 years old, and our goal has been to pick up where Concorde left off and build a new-generation supersonic aircraft. So like I said, we were founded about 3 years ago, and we're about 18 months away from flying our first prototype airplane. Well, the exciting thing about Boom is this is not a new technology airplane. We're picking bits and pieces off of other aircraft, like carbon fiber composites and turbofan engines, so there's nothing There's nothing we need to invent. We're just putting existing technology together into a new design aircraft that'll be significantly faster. So that means it's an engineering project, not a science project. So first prototype, 2018, first full-scale airplane, 2020, and passengers by 2023. So our goal as a company is to remove the barriers to experiencing the planet. And so there are really 3: there's time, money, and hassle. So over time, we're going to continue to bring down the cost of high-speed travel such that anybody who flies can choose to get there fast. It's been half a century It's been a century since we've had a speed-up in air travel, and I think it helps to look backwards at what happened when we went from propeller aircraft into the jet age. And the result was a whole lot more travel, and places that people didn't go before suddenly became open. Like Hawaii is a great example. Travel to Hawaii went up 6-fold in the first 10 years of the jet age. And I think we'll see a similar kind of thing with supersonic. What happens to, for example, tourism in Australia when you can get to Sydney in 7 hours from the US West Coast instead of 15? All of a sudden it opens up new possibilities for where you vacation, where you do business, Even who you can fall in love with. Australia is probably the biggest beneficiary on the entire planet because the distance is such a significant thing here and how isolated Australia is really from the rest of the world. What we have to remember, Concorde was 1960s technology. It was really remarkable what they were able to do with, you know, for example, before they even had computers. And we're designing the Boom aircraft to be very easy for airlines and for airports to adopt. So for example, if you can land a 777, you can land a Boom Jet. It works in a standard jetway, even in a narrow-body jetway. So if you can land a 777, if you can park an A320, you can have a Boom Jet. I'll tell you what the challenges aren't. It's not passenger interest. Everyone would love to get there in half the time. It's not airline interest. Airlines today are flying basically the same airplanes between basically the same airports with basically the same interior. Having something different is incredibly exciting if you're an airline. So it really comes down to being able to execute and be able to get the economics to work for everybody. So affordable tickets for passengers, profitable for airlines. And enough margin and volume for us as a manufacturer to make a return for our investors.
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