A joint project by Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Gulfstream and NASA is aiming to reduce intercontinental flight times by more than double.
The consortium is going to announce that they will be working on a project called the “Son of Concorde”, a supersonic passenger jet which will be able to make the flight from London to Sydney in 5 hours.
The flight to Sydney usually takes around 23 hours.
A prototype of the plane is going to be unveiled at the Farnborough air show in London, reports News.com.au
Long gone are the days of the original Concorde which made transatlantic flight in just a couple of hours. The Concorde was taken out of commission in 2003 after a couple of deadly mishaps rendered the plane unsafe.
The “Son of Concorde” would fly more than 2,485 mile per hour, according to the U.K.’s Daily Mail. Currently, the fastest subsonic executive jet, Gulfstream’s new G650 can fly 646 miles per hour and has a top speed of just 704 mile per hour.
The biggest issue to date with supersonic flight is the “Sonic Boom” that is let out as soon as the plane breaks the sound barrier until it slows down. This has prevented supersonic flights from being feasible over land. A Gulfstream engineer described the sound the new jet will make as “closer to a puff or plop,”.
The jet, codenamed X-54, would start limited runs in 2020 and be commercially viable by 2030 if is found to be safe and reliable.
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