Supersonic travel ever again?

I wonder how long it will take until there will be a supersonic airliner[1] again? I don’t know of anything like a “new Concorde” in the mid-term pipelines of any of the few major manufacturers of commercial jetliners (there are a couple of ongoing “low budget” studies though). Supersonic travel is not so à la mode due to its historical association with high fuel consumption, environmental pollution and high operating costs. However, supersonic commercial travel has distinct advantages from an economical point of view and I can hardly believe that the world can do without it for a long time. Further, technology has made quite some progress since the development of the Concorde (more than 40 years ago!) which may enable future supersonic airliners to overcome some of the deficiencies and disadvantages of their predecessor(s).

Some nice videos about the Concorde:

Concorde Flight to Iceland

Concorde : Thank you for 27 supersonic years

Concorde

Concorde Queen of thesk

Concorde breaking the sound barrier

Adieu supersonic, good bye Concorde!

[1] Commercial “space trips” for fun don’t count ;) They’re certainly a great personal experience, but their importance to world economy is probably negligible.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

+ 37 = 45

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.