Things have really been taking off in the aviation world in 2016. (Heh.)
We’ve seen the revival of the world’s longest flight, the personal seaplane making a bid for relevancy and learned the U.S. is racing to develop a warplane that can go six times the speed of sound.
While it won’t quite be able to hit Mach 6, the newest development in super-flast flights is a prototype plane designers hope will travel at 2.2 times the speed of sound.
Oh yeah, and that supersonic jet will be a passenger airplane. A business class supersonic passenger airplane.
After securing $5 billion in funding — $2 billion from Richard Branson’s Virgin Group and $3 billion from an unnamed European carrier — Colorado-based startup Boom Technology is working to get 25 of the planes off the ground and plans to have its first aircraft in the sky by late next year.
The Mach 2.2s will hit a max speed of 1,451 MPH, meaning New York to London would take approximately three-and-a-half hours with San Francisco to Tokyo just an hour longer. According to Boom, fares would start at $5,000 for a one-way flight and each plane could carry 40 passengers.
Virgin’s Spaceship Company will assist with “engineering, design and manufacturing services,” a development that indicates that Mach 2.2s will actually arrive — and end up decked out in clown-nose red.
That said, they’ll also have free drinks if Branson is involved.
So sign us up.
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