Supersonic Flights Could Be a Thing Again If the Market Is Large Enough
Photo Credit: Denver-based startup Boom is hoping airlines can fly its supersonic jets by 2023. A rendering of the aircraft is pictured here. Boom Technologies
Skift Take
We think there's probably demand for this airplane for transatlantic routes. Wouldn't it be great to fly between London and New York in fewer than three hours? But the airplane would have to make a fuel stop on longer routes, so it might be less useful from, say, Tokyo to Los Angeles or London.
It has been more than a decade since travelers regularly crossed the Atlantic at supersonic speeds on Concorde, a marvel of 1960s engineering. Now, one entrepreneur is hoping to build a new plane that again will fly between New York and London in fewer than three hours.
He's Blake Scholl, a software engineer by training and an aviation geek at heart. In 2014, he co-founded a company called Boom, based in Denver. As soon as 2023, he promises it will deliver a cost-effective supersonic plane that'll fly more than 4,000 nautical miles without stopping. The company's demonstrator — a scaled-down version of the real thing, called Baby Boom — should fly at some point next year.
Over the past three years, Scholl has met plenty of doubters. The naysayers know supersonic for commercial jets is technically viable because Concorde proved it years ago. But some wonder if Boom's leadership is underestimating how difficult it will be to build and market a supersonic jet within six years
