February 13, 2017

BOOM!

One of The Brickmuppet's Crack Team of Science Babes reacts to news that a small U.S. aerospace company in Bolder is branching out into supersonic airliners...




Real Clear Future has an interview with the founder and CEO of Boom Technology  a small aerospace company that is designing a three engined, small (45 passenger) airliner with intercontinental range. The small size, is, in part, to mitigate overland sonic booms. A proof of concept prototype is set to fly this year. 

Given that the prototype is a two seater, the proposal is not as far along as the article suggests, however, BOOM Technology is not quite vaporware, having done work for LockMart, Boeing and Space-X. Additionally, Richard Branson of Virgin Airways has agreed to buy the first 10 of their airliners, which they hope to sell him in 2023.



Of course no matter how small their sonic boom, commercial supersonic flight is illegal over the United States, so they are focusing on overseas routes for now. However:
Scholl: My view is that when you can get from San Francisco to Tokyo faster than San Francisco to DC, there are going to be a whole lot of influential people who are motivated to get those rules fixed. I think we'll see that coming. That said, apparently fixing this is on Trump's first 100 days agenda, so we'll see whether that comes to fruition.
 

While this proposal is at least as well removed from the ticket buying phase as other, projects in the same vein, what is intruiging about this is the attention to ticket price by the designers.  Round trip prices to places like London, Sydney, Auckland, and Tokyo are estimated to be in the 5-7000 dollar range. Pretty steep, and three to five times what one might pay for a coach seat, but in line with business class....and it's supersonic flight.

We'll wait and see if their prototype even flies, but this is something to keep an eye on and look forward to.

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 11:04 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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