Concorde, an iconic jet that will always be remembered as the fastest turbojet passenger airliner to take to the skies. Serving commercial routes just under 30 years, it was a luxurious form of travel that zoomed from one destination to the next. Over the course of its production and operation, failure in planning caused various delays and additional costs, hampering the number of actual jets that would be in service as the costs spiralled over into the billion British pound mark. With speed comes responsibility and a number of safety and public disturbance factors needed to be taken into account, people living on flight paths already face significant noise pollution from regular flights, a sonic boom would be chaotic. Concorde was both a success and failure for a number of reasons which may leave me to believe it was a product before its time and couldn’t scale to meet a mass market.
The end of Concorde would come about in late 2003 and this line would retire once and for all, the costly yet unique way to fly came to an end. With the years rolling by, supersonic jet travel is set to return once more with the announcement of the XB-1 aircraft from Boom. Startups come and go but Boom seemed to have thrived and the new aircraft that is will once again supersonic speeds on travel routes. Overture is the company’s entry to passenger travel and one of the main areas of focus will be seeking to make the breakthrough that is both performance driven, cost efficient and scalable for mainstream adoption across the air industry. Initial concepts show an all business class cabin design and early routes will most likely fetch extraordinary prices to begin with. Novelty, speed and luxury all rolled into one flight experience will most definitely attract custom.
Boom’s demonstrator in the XB-1 is to finally roll out in October, the same month that Concorde retired. The success of XB-1 will feed into passenger supersonic jet Overture and it’s a big deal for the aviation industry in general. Getting things right with air travel is a difficult task but engineers now have access to advanced modelling, 3D printing and a number of other technologies to once again revisit supersonic travel and perhaps realise a viable and sustainable solution. A fast, safe, environmentally friendly and financially feasible way to travel is definitely something I will be keeping my eye on in the coming months.
