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.

Comments

Concorde is often downplayed

[MayeulC]

Concorde's reputation as a luxury plane might be a bit off, as well a the common perceived reason for its demise. I recently read this interesting post about interesting Concorde facts, although there are a lot more.
According to some sources, it was killed mostly because it was more profitable to operate a more conventional plane, not because it was not profitable at all.
This plane was such a marvelous piece of technology, and there is plenty of very interesting reads on it all over the net. I am glad some are trying to revive supersonic jets, although I hope they will make them in a "greener" fashion.

Re:Concorde is often downplayed

[serviscope_minor]

I am glad some are trying to revive supersonic jets, although I hope they will make them in a "greener" fashion.

The Concorde was actually designed for low fuel consumption. And it was actually pretty good for the standards of the day, it's just the day moved on rather faster than expected. There are basically two ways of increassing the efficiency of a jet engine: increase the pressure ratio thereby increasing the thermodynamic efficiency and increasing the mass flow, decreasing the maximum velocity of the air.

Neither is especially easy. Larger engines also create more drag, weigh more and big fans are hard to make. It turns out however that was much easier and high bypass turbofans cropped up pretty soon. The former is very hard because it increases the core temperature. Pressure ratios have been slowly creeping up, making use of single crystal nickel turbing blades with cooling channels running through them. That allows them to operate safely above the creep limit of the metal astonishingly.

Except the concorde! Flying higher, it starts from colder, lower pressure air and uses ram compression along with the conventional turbocompressor core, reaching an astonishing pressure ratio of 70, compared to only 50 on the absolute latest technology Trent 1000. The contemporary 747 engine reached a mere 23:1. The concorde gambled on the pressure ratio being decisive, but it lost out to larger, slower planes with high bypass engines.

Just what the world needs

[Viol8]

An aircraft that burns even more fuel per mile than a normal one and nicely pollutes the stratosphere to boot. Perhaps Branson should just stay on his carribean island and enjoy the sea - before the hurricanes get so bad due to climate change that his house is blown away.

And yes, I know there are plenty of people on this site who don't think human induced climate change is real and I respect your right to hold that opinion. Try respecting mine and don't reply with a load of insulting bile. Thanks.