Last month, NASA and a commercial team led by Lockheed Martin kicked off a $20 million project to design a “low-boom” supersonic jet. More than a dozen years after the last flight of the Concorde, the idea of transporting passengers at supersonic speeds is picking up steam again. That would bring the total potential value of optioned planes to as much as $5 billion. In addition to Virgin’s 10-plane option, another 15 planes have been optioned to an unnamed European air carrier, Scholl told GeekWire. Supersonic jet service could provide a less expensive, albeit somewhat less speedy option: Boom says its plane will travel at a top speed of 1,451 mph, compared to SpaceShipTwo’s 2,500 mph. It is still early days and just the start of what you’ll hear about our shared ambitions and efforts.”įor years, Branson has been talking about the promise of high-speed point-to-point travel, in the context of the SpaceShipTwo suborbital rocket plane. We can confirm that The Spaceship Company will provide engineering, design and manufacturing services, flight tests and operations and that we have an option on the first ten airframes. “Richard has long expressed interest in developing high speed flight and building high speed flight R&D through Virgin Galactic and our manufacturing organization, The Spaceship Company. “Near Edwards” is a good description for Mojave, Calif., where The Spaceship Company has its factory.īranson’s Virgin Group confirmed its involvement in a statement emailed to GeekWire: First test flights are to begin in late 2017 at Centennial Airport near Denver, and supersonic testing will take place near Edwards Air Force Base in California, the company says. Boom says a subscale prototype is currently under construction in the company’s Denver hangar. (Credit: Boom Technology)Īll this is theoretical, however, until the planes are built. Artwork shows a Boom jet parked at London’s Heathrow Airport. The round-trip fare for San Francisco-to-Tokyo flights (4.7 hours) would be $6,500, and Los Angeles to Sydney (6 hours) would be $7,000. In comparison, the ticket price for a Concorde flight was about $7,000 one-way at today’s prices. Boom says it could fly passengers from New York to London in 3.4 hours, at a cost of $5,000 for a round trip. If Boom goes big, the startup could find itself competing with Boeing for the high-end jetsetter market that the long-gone Concorde catered to. Boom’s team also includes veterans of Lockheed Martin, Pratt & Whitney and other aerospace heavyweights.
Michael Reid, Boom’s head of systems engineering, previously worked on the Boeing 787 Dreamliner. CEO and founder Blake Scholl helped pioneer Amazon’s marketing automation system. The team behind Denver-based Boom has several Seattle connections. Remember the Concorde? Boom Technology has picked up a high-profile set of allies in its quest to revive supersonic passenger jets: British billionaire Richard Branson, his Virgin Galactic space venture and its manufacturing arm, The Spaceship Company. An artist’s conception shows Boom’s 40-passenger supersonic jet in flight.