After the fateful Concorde crash at Charles De Gaulle airport in Paris in 2000 and the retirement of the trans-Atlantic Concorde service in 2003, supersonic air travel had almost died. But the latest announcement by Nevada’s Aerion Corporation hints at the comeback of supersonic air travel. The company announced its $80 million Supersonic Business Jet (SBJ) a way back and now, they are again in the news for advertising it as a super fast executive plane that can do Mach 1.5 (1,840 km/h), with a range of 4,000 miles. Aimed straight at the globetrotting billionaires, the Aerion SBJ will take just four hours and 14 minutes to fly from Paris to New York. A flight from the US East Coast to Asia will take nine-and-a-half hours only. While the current version of the SBJ can accommodate up to 12 passengers, there are plans for a 50-seat version.
Since the supersonic flight is restricted in US airspace owing to the Federal Aviation Administration’s sonic boom restrictions, the SBJ will fly at speed of Mach 0.98 in the US. Aerion has already got $4 billion in orders for the super fast jet that is expected to hit the skies in 2014.
Anyway, Aerion Corporation is not the only firm that’s working on a supersonic jet. Other companies working on supersonic jets include Cessna, Sukhoi, Tupolev, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and the US’s Supersonic Aerospace International.
Via: Gulf News
