FASTER? PLEASE! Boom Unveils More Details on Supersonic Airliner.

Flying at 60,000 feet, Overture would be capable of traveling between New York and London in 3 hours 15 minutes; Tokyo and San Francisco in 5.5 hours; or Sydney and Los Angeles in 6 hours 45 minutes (with a fuel stop en route). Engine selection has not been announced, but Boom plans to use a derivative of existing turbofan technology.

Five-year-old Boom has 30 aircraft on pre-order from Japan Airlines (JAL) and Virgin Group. In 2017 JAL also invested $10 million in the company. Boom, which recently located to larger facilities, now has more than 130 full-time employees and plans to double that number by next March.

Even with prohibitions on civilian supersonic flight over land, about 500 routes are “economically viable,” Boom founder and CEO Blake Scholl has said, with costs for passengers equivalent to subsonic business class. “A ticket would cost about $5,000 for transoceanic” passage between the U.S. and Europe, according to Scholl. Seat dimension will be comparable to short-haul first-class seating. He believes flight over land will be allowed in the future, opening additional routes to Overture. In the airport environment, the supersonic airliner would be quieter than conventional jet transports, according to Scholl.

While its projected 4,500 nm range isn’t sufficient for transpacific routes, even with a technical stop in Tahiti for fuel, total travel time would be half the current 15 hours between the U.S. and Australia. About 10 percent of the viable routes pass through the Middle East, which is “ideally positioned as a connecting hub between Australia, Asia, and Europe.” The U.S. company sees a need for “1,000 to 2,000 airplanes over the first 10 years” of operation, Scholl said.

I hope they make a real go of this, but that fleet size projections seems a bit optimistic. Would love to be wrong about that though.