Jim Clash – Forbes Jan 28, 2025
Today, for the first time since Concorde was retired in 2003, a commercial-type aircraft, the XB-1, went supersonic, touching Mach 1.1 three times during its one-half-hour test flight out of California’s Mojave Air And Space Port.
The XB-1 first flew in March 2024, with 10 more tests under its belt since – until today. The fastest of those previous flights was Mach .95, earlier this month.
Boom Technology, a U.S. company that developed XB-1, is building a bigger aircraft, Overture, a 64- to 80-seat affair (Concorde had 100 seats), for commercial operations. It says Overture will approach Mach 1.7 and should be ready in a few years. Airlines that have expressed interest include American, Japan Airlines and United.
In the meantime as with Concorde, the XB-1 test model can’t fly supersonic over land in the U.S. because of the powerful sonic boom. Today’s test over land was specially-sanctioned by the FAA. Overture’s goal is to have a quieter sonic boom footprint, and therefore might be able to fly over land as well as water, says a Boom spokesperson.
In 2003, I flew on one of the last flights of Concorde. We went supersonic – Mach 2 – up to 60,000 feet over to Bermuda and back from New York’s JFK Airport in, get this, under an hour, wheels up to touchdown.
At the time, I wrote about it for Forbes. My title, sadly, was, “One Giant Leap Backward For Mankind,” as no other commercial airline had a supersonic replacement for Concorde.
So kudos to Boom Technology for finally stepping up after 22 long years. It’s one giant leap forward for mankind this time. More news to come.
Yawn!
Its tickets will have to be heavily subsidised perhaps up to 20K+ whether pounds or dollars, so the target consumer is the super-rich while the heavy part of the costs go to the public. Each ticket will still cost thousands so travel on this aircraft will be beyond the pocket and purse of ordinary folk and so pricing out the people who actually pay for it. (Do the richest really pay tax?)
It’s just another form of elite travel, another executive toy like private jets and Concord.
It’s just another heap of primitive atmosphere-polluting dinosaur technology.
Obviously, there are no “Green Deal” restrictions imposed on these colossal wastes of resources.
Another “Giant Leap Backward For Mankind”.
faster into the abyss by progress !
More bunk. They possess anti-gravity tech appropriated from Nazi research after Waste Whitey II.. Just read the book ‘The Hunt for Zero Point’ by Nick Cook