From New York to London in 3,5 hours: supersonic plane successfully passes tests

On November 5, a supersonic aircraft, nicknamed Son of Concorde, approached the speed of sound in a successful test. That means that in the future, the flight time from New York to London will be only 3,5 hours, reports NYPost.

The single-seat XB-1 from American company Boom Technology is a 61-foot-long test model. It reached 499 knots (about 1224 mph) during a landmark test at 7000 feet above Mojave, California.

This was the seventh of 10 planned of flightsAll of them were carried out by former Navy test pilot Tristan "Geppetto" Brandenburg.

The XB-1's predecessor, Concorde, could fly from London to New York in under three hours. It was retired in 2003, shortly after the horrific Air France crash in Paris in July 2000. The crash killed 109 people on board and four people on the ground.

Fast flights are coming

American Airlines and United Airlines have signed deals to fly the groundbreaking jets, which comes as the larger Boom Overture project — a planned fleet of full-size passenger supersonic jets — gets off the ground. aircraft — will be launched.

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“I have long believed that the Overture is the rightful successor to Concorde,” said former British Airways Concorde chief pilot Mike Bannister. “I have flown the Overture cockpit. It is incredibly well designed and easy to fly. My excitement and enthusiasm for this aircraft has only increased.”

Boom's supersonic passenger jets are capable of reaching speeds of up to Mach 1,7, far exceeding current testing and potentially reducing overland travel by 20%.

The maximum range of such an aircraft is just under 8000 km at a cruising altitude of 18 km. Typical flights are made at about half this altitude. The aircraft can accommodate up to 80 passengers.

Along with a 3,5-hour flight from New York to London, Overture promises travel from New York to Rome, Atlanta to Madrid, and Tokyo to Vancouver in about 4,5 hours.

According to the company, a flight from Washington, D.C., to Dublin will take about 3,5 hours, and from Los Angeles to Tahiti 4,5 hours, while the journey from Montreal to Paris will take less than 4 hours.

In July, Boom Technology announced that a full-scale propulsion unit would be operational by the end of 2025.

The final dates for commercial use have not yet been published.