The supersonic jet manufacturer has disclosed its long-term goal of flying people anywhere in the world for $100 in four hours.
At first, reviving the supersonic dream that died with Concorde’s retirement nearly two decades ago appears to be an absurd delusion.
Concorde, a British-French airliner that flew from 1969 to 2003 and was one of only two commercially flown supersonic airplanes, was exorbitantly expensive and an environmental disaster.
However, a new generation of start-ups is developing supersonic and hypersonic concepts. Boom Supersonic, the frontrunner, was the first to roll out an actual IRL demonstrator aircraft, the XB1, last October.
Blake Scholl, the company’s CEO, told CNN that there were only two options for his company. “Either we fail or we change the world,”
The company’s ultimate objective, according to Scholl, is “everywhere in the world in four hours for $100,” but it won’t happen right away. Overture, the company’s first aircraft, would travel at Mach 2.2, more than twice the speed of current commercial airplanes.
It would take a little more than eight hours to travel from Auckland to Los Angeles at that pace, or three hours and 15 minutes to fly from New York to London at that pace.
Scholl expressed optimism, saying that breaking down the barrier of travel time would be world-changing.
It changes where we can vacation, changes where we can do business,” he said.