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JLeslie's avatar

Will there ever be another Concorde or any other supersonic planes for commercial travel?

Asked by JLeslie (65789points) February 26th, 2023

It seems kind of odd that we had faster planes in the past than we have now.

Are any companies working on supersonic planes for commercial travel?

Please share anything you know about the topic.

Is it cheaper to get a very comfortable first class seat on a regular jet than a seat on a faster plane? Is the fuel use excessive?

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7 Answers

MrGrimm888's avatar

Short answer is yes.

Tropical_Willie's avatar

Yup ! ! Overture is the plane

https://boomsupersonic.com/ will make the engines

Real soon they start testing maybe 2025.

elbanditoroso's avatar

Doubtful.

After the Concorde, the US and most other countries banned it flying over land because of the sonic booms. Which meant that the high speed aspects of a SST couldn’t be leveraged because of the whiners on the ground.

There are two other reasons why it will never happen:

1) the concorde was a gas guzzler galore – the fuel to passenger ratio was HORRIBLE. Concorde couldn’t make money with competitive fares, and the market for spped at high prices is very small.

2) The number of point to point destinations where high speed makes sense are so few that the airlines wouldn’t find it senssible to fly.

Look at the 380 – same problem, different plane. A Huge technological achievement but too expensive to buy and to fly. So most 380s (not all) sit in the airplane graveyard.

Entropy's avatar

There are already multiple efforts to put supersonic planes back on the map.

Supersonic craft had two big killer problems. One was the sonic boom which made operating them over land at speed something every country made illegal very quickly, which meant you pretty much could only fly at that speed over the ocean….which severely limits potential routes.

The second is fuel economy. The simple fact is that flying slower is more economical and jet fuel is VERY expensive. Even subsonic commercial jets tend to fly slower today than they did 30 years ago because it’s more efficient. The increased competition resulting from deregulating the airlines lowered airfares for consumers…but it also decreased margins for alot of airlines.

Now, the first problem may have been solved. Aerospace engineers now believe they can made a supersonic airplane that doesn’t create a boom. This would allow future supersonic jets to fly more routes. There are also improved engine designs that might held with the second problem.

I’m not saying they’re close…but they’re working on it.

Forever_Free's avatar

Not soon. Things seem to be moving along fine.

kritiper's avatar

From what I’ve heard, they are working on plans for such a thing.

Lightlyseared's avatar

I’m going to say no. Concorde was developed in the 60’s/70’s and the design is getting on for 60 years plus and nobody else has even bothered to attempt it. OK, the soviets had a go but gave up. The primary market for it was business. Being able to go from London to New York and back in a day was particularly useful when meetings and deals were done in person (i once woke up in London at 7 and made breakfast in Manhattan) but now people who work in the same building cant be arsed to meet in person never mind fly half way across the world. Also its worth mentioning that despite the reputation it was not particularly luxurious. For operational reasons it was pretty small and cramped and at speed it was stupidly noisy.
Air travel (at least on routes where supersonic makes sense) has basically gone the opposite direction – larger, slower and either cheaper or 6 star luxury with loads of space. Even if the tech was perfected that made it acceptable Im not sure the market is there for it any more.

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