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Richard Branson Reveals Prototype For Supersonic Passenger Aircraft (theguardian.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Sir Richard Branson on Tuesday heralded the rebirth of supersonic passenger flights with the unveiling of a prototype aircraft promising 3.5-hour flights from London to New York for an "affordable" $5,000 return. The billionaire Virgin Group founder said his Spaceship company would help Denver-based startup Boom build a new generation of supersonic jets and reintroduce transatlantic flight times unseen since Concorde was scrapped. Branson is partnering with Blake Scholl, a pilot and former Amazon executive, who will later on Tuesday unveil a prototype of the new jet in a hangar in Denver, Colorado. While several other companies, including Boeing and Lockheed Martin, are developing new supersonic jets, Scholl said his plan was likely to beat them to market as it does not require any new technology that would need approval by regulators. Scholl said test flights would begin in southern California, with plans to launch the first commercial departures in 2023. If the plans stick to schedule, Boom flights will launch 20 years after British Airways and Air France decommissioned Concorde. He said Boom would succeed where Concorde failed because developments in technology and lighter materials meant tickets would be much cheaper. Boom will have just 45 to 50 seats, compared with Concorde's 92 to 128. Scholl reckons the demand for affordable supersonic flights could make this a $100 billion market. He said his plane could work on 500 different routes, but would concentrate initially on London to New York, San Francisco to Tokyo, and Los Angeles to Sydney.
Since this is for the 1%, post Brexit there won't be a London where the 1% want to be. Try Frankfurt to New York.
Boom is a really stupid name for an aircraft company. That's like naming a ship company Drown.
No. The One Percenters who will ride those planes simply don't care about you shitfolk.
Concorde proved that there aren't enough one-percenters to make supersonic aircraft economically viable. People want cheap fares and direct flights. Even most rich people aren't willing to pay a thousand dollars an hour for a quicker flight.
Most rich people I know are cheapskates. That's how they got to be rich.
Bullshit. Who wants to live in the boring provincial town of Frankfurt?
The 1% like London.
The price quoted it pretty close to a business class ticket on a traditional flight, so the market may actually be there.
You are confusing the 1% with the 0.01%. There is an elite within the elite. The super-rich. The oligarchs and billionaires. The Forbes 500. The guys who consider themselves so far above everything, their private airplanes have underage prostitutes as a complimentary service for guests.
The 1% can afford $5k and consider it a good investment if it saves them some time and gives them the privacy of a small plane filled exclusively with people of their type. The reason golf clubs have a $10k yearly membership fee - it keeps out the peasants.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
I don't want complain but the problem with most flights is not flighttime but the total time. You have to get to the Airport, check in, wait in line to go through the security check and wait at the gate. How about som innovation here?