WASHINGTON – Luxury air travel faster than the speed of sound: A USstart-up is aiming to revive commercial supersonic flight 50 years afterthe ill-fated Concorde first took to the skies.Blake Scholl, the former Amazon staffer who co-founded Boom Supersonic,delivered the pledge this week in front of a fully-restored Concorde jet atthe Brooklands aviation and motor museum in Weybridge, southwest of London.Boom Supersonic’s backers include Richard Branson and Japan Airlines andother players are eyeing the same segment.The company aims to manufacture a prototype jet next year but its planshave been met with scepticism in some quarters.”The story of Concorde is the story of a journey started but not completed– and we want to pick up on it,” Scholl said.The event coincided with the nearby Farnborough Airshow.”Today… the world is more linked than it’s ever been before and the needfor improved human connection has never been greater,” Scholl said.”At Boom, we are inspired at what was accomplished half a century ago,” headded, speaking in front of a former British Airways Concorde that flew forthe first time in 1969.- ‘Very unattractive’ -Boom Supersonic’s aircraft, dubbed Baby Boom, is expected by the company tofly for the first time next year.”If we can’t continue where you left off, and build on that, then the shameis on us,” Scholl said, addressing himself to an audience that includedretired Concorde staff.”Our vision is to build a faster airplane that is accessible to more andmore people, to anybody who flies.”Boom Supersonic is making its debut at Farnborough and hopes to produce itsnew-generation jets in the mid-2020s or later, with the aim of slashingjourney times by half.The proposed aircraft has a maximum flying range of 8,334 kilometres (5,167miles) at a speed of Mach 2.2 or 2,335 kilometres per hour.If it takes off, it would be the first supersonic passenger aircraft sinceConcorde took its final flight in 2003.The Concorde was retired following an accident in 2000 in which a Concordecrashed shortly after takeoff from Paris, killing 113 people.Some analysts remain sceptical over the push back into supersonic.”Supersonic is not what passengers or airlines want right now,” saidStrategic Aero analyst Saj Ahmed, stressing that many travellers wantedcheap low-cost carriers instead.Ahmed said supersonic jets were “very unattractive” because of highstart-up development costs, considerations about noise pollution and highprices as well as limited capacity.- ‘Untried and untested’ -Independent air transport consultant John Strickland also noted supersonictravel was unproven commercially.”Business traffic, on the face of it, is the most lucrative for airlines,”Strickland told AFP.”But if there is an economic downturn or something happens where the marketfor business class traffic drains away, then you have nothing else left todo with that aircraft.”I think it’s going to be some time before we see whether it can establisha large viable market… in the way that Concorde never managed to do.”These concerns have not stopped interest from other players.US aerospace giant Boeing had last month unveiled its “hypersonic” airlinerconcept, which it hopes will fly at Mach 5 — or five times the speed ofsound — when it arrives on the scene in 20 to 30 years.And in April, NASA inked a deal for US giant Lockheed Martin to develop asupersonic “X-plane”.
Supersonic passenger jet in offing with speed of Mach 2.2