It's hard to believe Concorde, manufactured by BAC (later BAe and BAE Systems) and Sud Aviation (later Aérospatiale and Airbus), first took flight 50 years ago and was designed with slide rules and wind tunnels. Ricky Bastin, former senior Concorde engineer and aviation historian, presented an interesting talk on the development of supersonic flight and Concorde at the IEEE building in Irvine, California on September 7th, 2019. He also discussed ongoing developments in supersonic passenger aircraft and potential successors to Concorde. 

Of great interest was the discussion of the advanced nature of the Concorde design, a British-French turbojet-powered supersonic passenger airliner that was operated from 1976 until 2003. It had a maximum speed over twice the speed of sound at Mach 2.04 (1,354 mph or 2,180 km/h at cruise altitude), with seating for 92 to 128 passengers. Concorde entered service in 1976 and continued flying for the next 27 years. It is one of only two supersonic transports to have been operated commercially; the other is the Soviet-built Tupolev Tu-144, which operated in the late 1970s. Of the 20 Concorde aircraft built, 18 remain in good condition. Many are on display at museums in the United Kingdom, France, the United States, Germany and Barbados. However, no clear successor to either passenger aircraft has emerged until relativly recently, over 15 years after Concorde was retired (2003) - three years after the crash of Air France Flight 4590, in which all passengers and crew were killed. Ricky presented a number of other designs and proposals from all over the world, including one promising British design, that would make Sydney just 4 hours away from London, instead of the 24 hours it takes now and a promising American design for a 50 seat, business class only supersonic airliner that will fly faster than Concorde, with much lower running costs, yet meet all current noise limitations and over a far greater range.


Most commercial airliners today fly at between 400 and 650 miles per hour — largely because it’s more economical to burn fuel more slowly. However, a number of startups are piggy-backing off of the legendary Concorde to design planes that they say will fly faster, further, quieter, and more efficiently than Concorde. One example Ricky discussed more deply than the others was Boom Supersonic, Denver, Colorado, founded in late 2014, who have raised $141 million from investors and has plans to build an aircraft called "Overture" which promises to profitably fly at Mach 2.2 speeds, but with only business-class fares. Japan Airlines and Virgin Group are future Overture operators, with 30 aircraft currently on pre-order.


It's encouraging to think, even if you missed out on the Concorde, you may soon get a chance to fly in a supersonic airliner. Other smaller aircraft examples in development are from Aerion Supersonic and Spike Aerospace.

 

photo credit: M McBey Concorde G-BOAB at Heathrow via photopin (license)