Currently you can fly from NY to London in just over 5 hours if you get lucky with tailwinds in a Boeing 787 Dreamliner. Around 2023-2025 there will be several options for $5,000-30,000 supersonic flights for the top 1% to travel in 2.5 to 3 hours from NY to London and about 500 other routes.
Norwegian flight DY7014 from New York JFK to London Gatwick on Monday 15 January completed the full duration of the flight in 5 hours and 13 minutes – the fastest transatlantic flight recorded on a subsonic commercial aircraft. The previous record was 5 hours and 16 minutes.
The flight carrying 284 passengers departed New York at 11:44am and arrived at London at 9:57pm – 53 minutes early.
The day before the record-breaking flight, London Gatwick-based Captain Pascal Niewold recorded his fastest ever transatlantic flight of 5 hours and 20 minutes while flying the Boeing 787 Dreamliner from New York to London on Sunday 14 January. The flight had a maximum tailwind of 195 knots (224mph) and reached a top speed of 779mph.
The Fastest passenger planes:
Concorde – 1,354 mph.
Tupolev TU 144 – 1,510 mph.
A new business class only passenger jet, the Boom Supersonic should be flying in a few years
The Boom Supersonic will travel at 1,451 mph.
The Boom Supersonic XB-1 is a one-third scale realization of the Boom passenger airliner. It will demonstrate in flight the key technologies for practical supersonic travel. XB-1 is the first independently developed supersonic jet and history’s fastest civil aircraft. The XB-1 “Baby Boom” one-third-scale demonstrator should first flight in late 2018, then supersonically in 2019. It will be powered by three 3,500 lbf (16 kN) dry General Electric J85 it should maintain Mach 2.2 with over 1,000 nmi (1,900 km) of range.
Boom Technology is making a 55-passenger supersonic transport with 4,500 nmi (8,300 km) of range, to be introduced in 2023. After being incubated by Y Combinator in 2016, it raised $51 million of venture capital in 2017.
Japan Airlines has pre-ordered 20 of the planes and Boom has partnered with Virgin Atlantic.
12 Passenger supersonic business jet
The Aerion AS2 is a supersonic business jet designed by Aerion Corporation in collaboration with Lockheed Martin. The AS2 will fly at a speed of Mach 1.5, using supersonic laminar flow technology, and the wing design will allow for lower fuel consumption and increased travel ranges by reducing aerodynamic drag by 20%.
In November 2015, Flexjet confirmed that they had placed a firm order valued at $2.4 billion for twenty Aerion AS2s, with delivery to begin in 2023. Flexjet CEO Kenn Ricci said the company would use the supersonic jet for overseas flights and also in China, which does not have restrictions on sonic booms. Ricci noted that, with the aircraft traveling at Mach 1.2, its boom would not reach the ground, possibly allowing regulators to permit supersonic flight over land. Flexjet, owned by Directional Aviation Capital, offers customers fractional ownership of aircraft, rather than outright purchase.
In December 2017, Aerion and Lockheed Martin announced they will explore its joint development without Airbus, aiming to fly in 2023 and to be certificated in 2025. On December 15, after discussions with Lockheed’s Skunk Works, they announced a MoU to explore over a year the joint development of the supersonic business jet: engineering, certification and production. Lockheed developed supersonic aircraft like the F-16, the F-35, F-22 and the Mach 3+ SR-71, and concluded the AS2 concept warrants time and resources investment after reviewing Aerion’s aerodynamic technology. Through a previous two and a half years engineering collaboration with Airbus, Aerion advanced the AS2 aerodynamics and designed a preliminary wing and airframe structures, systems layout and fly-by-wire control system concept.
Spike supersonic jet
Early Saturday morning Oct 07, 2017, Spike Aerospace successfully test flew the subsonic subscale SX-1.2 demonstrator aircraft for the first time. The jet is an early unmanned prototype of the company’s 18 passenger S-512 Quiet Supersonic Jet. The SX-1.2 test flights proved that the aerodynamic design of the aircraft is valid and provided a tremendous amount of data regarding the flight characteristics of the aircraft.
In total, seven short flights were performed to test the design and flight controls of the jet. Spike intends to have the S-512 aircraft flying by early 2021, with customer deliveries beginning in 2023. The S-512 will seat up to 22 passengers, with a range of 6200 miles and a cruise speed of Mach 1.6, saving 50% on flight times. And due to the aircraft’s low-boom signature, it will be able to fly overland without creating disturbing sonic booms.
Spike is working with Siemens and other mainly European partners.
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
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