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Supersonic Jet Could Fly NYC To London In 3 Hours

Posted by samzenpus on from the but-I-want-to-be-there-now dept.

An anonymous reader writes: A new supersonic luxury plane that could fly people from New York to London in just three hours is being developed by a team of engineers. Spike Aerospace's S-512 Supersonic Jet was introduced in 2013, but the company recently announced a few updates to the plane's design. Discovery reports: "Spike Aerospace's engineers claim the S-512 could reach a maximum speed of Mach 1.8 (1,370 mph, or 2,205 km/h), which is 1.8 times the speed of sound. For comparison, the fastest Boeing 747 commercial "jumbo jet" can reach a maximum speed of Mach 0.92 (700 mph, or 1,126 km/h). If the S-512 really is built to reach these supersonic speeds, it would be as fast as an F-18 Hornet, a military fighter jet with a max speed of Mach 1.8. This would also make the supersonic jet about 450 mph (724 km/h) faster than the fastest civilian jet, according to Spike Aerospace."

7 of 238 comments (clear)

  1. Concorde 2.0 by gigne · · Score: 5, Insightful

    A new Concorde for the modern age... destined to meet the same ultimate demise for the same reasons. Too expensive, too noisy.

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    1. Re:Concorde 2.0 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      TFA only talks about a maximum speed of mach 1.8, whereas the...

      Concorde had a maximum cruise altitude of 18,300 metres (60,039 ft) and an average cruise speed of Mach 2.02, about 1155 knots (2140 km/h or 1334 mph)

      (from wikipedia, emphasis added--pretty good show, that with a maximum speed of mach 2.04)

      Now, if these guys could make their aeroplane fly quieter and cheaper, then the drop in speed might be overlooked: It's still a substantial win over subsonic cruise. Doing something about the sonic boom would be useful since that's what gets the thing banned from going supersonic over land. Then there is that the Concorde was technologically advanced for the 1970s but didn't get updated afterward. I for one would like to see what we've learned in the intervening 40-odd years.

    2. Re: Concorde 2.0 by jedidiah · · Score: 4, Insightful

      So it may not be too expensive after all...

      It sounds like a scaled back version of the same idea that will likely do better because it doesn't depend on the same level of higher demand that Concorde needed to keep it afloat.

      They should probably go one further and have a personal model.

      The small numbers of ultrawealthy and companies that value this sort of thing could completely bypass the big airliner industry and the larger airports.

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    3. Re:Concorde 2.0 by ebh · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The L-1012-Nukem-Forever?

  2. Yes, it could by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The question is not whether it could do it in three hours or not. The question is, could it do it at economically viable prices?

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    sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
  3. No mention of Concorde by Excelcia · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I love how there is no mention of the Concorde, which did it faster and carried more passengers on 1970's technology.

    It's like building a new space shuttle that is smaller than the shuttle was, and then comparing it to the Gemini capsules in the marketing. What, do they think the world has become globally amnesiac in the last ten years?

  4. Congratulations! by Comboman · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The longest part of a trans-Atlantic flight is now going through security and queuing up for the runway.

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