Supersonic prototype jet breaks sound barrier on US test flight
A US-made prototype jet has broken the sound barrier, in the first commercial venture to achieve supersonic speeds since Concorde.
Boom Supersonic, a startup that seeks to build the world's fastest airliner, flew a test flight of its fighter jet-sized XB-1 demonstrator over the Mojave desert in California on Tuesday.
At an altitude of about 10,700 metres (35,000ft), the jet accelerated to Mach 1.1, or about 845 mph (1,360 km/h), faster than the speed at which sound travels.
'She was real happy supersonic,' Boom's chief test pilot, Tristan 'Geppetto' Brandenburg, said after landing. 'That's the best she's ever flown.'
The XB-1 has now completed 12 successful test flights and is a precursor to – and a third of the size of – Boom's proposed commercial airliner. That aircraft, named, Overture, promises to transport 64-80 passengers across the Atlantic in about 3.5 hours, compared to 6.5 hours by current means.
While its aircraft are still in the test phase, the company has 130 preorders from American Airlines, United Airlines and Japan Airlines. The firm has a factory in North Carolina, where it plans to build 66 Overture aircraft a year.
Chuck Yeager became the first human to break the sound barrier in 1947, when he flew the Bell X-1 at Mach 1, also over the Mojave desert.
Boom's jets will aim for speeds of up to Mach 1.7 – twice that of today's fastest commercial aircraft but less than Concorde's top speed of Mach 2.04.
The company says flights will use 'up to 100% sustainable' aviation fuel, which still produces greenhouse gases, but less than traditional jet fuels.
Concorde, an Anglo-French supersonic airliner flown by Air France and British Airways, was retired in 2003 after 27 years of service.
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Three years earlier, the jet suffered its only fatal incident when an Air France flight crashed on takeoff at Paris killing all 109 on board and four on the ground.
However, it was maintenance issues, soaring operational costs and the impact of the 9/11 New York attacks on the aviation industry as a whole that were blamed for the end of Concorde.
Blake Scholl, the founder and chief executive of Boom, told the Guardian in 2022 that his company would succeed where Concorde failed because his jets would be lighter and more efficient.
'Concorde was a technological marvel for the 1960s,' he said. 'But they weren't focused on the economics, and it became too expensive to fly.'
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