Get to know the aviation companies bringing back supersonic travel
One of the most instantly recognisable aircrafts to ever take to the skies, Concorde, flew commercially for 27 years until 2003. It remains history’s only viable supersonic jet service.
There was a problem with Concorde, though: it wasn’t very good. Only 14 Concordes ever flew, and they were all made to the same 1960s design. They were prohibitively expensive, only making a slim profit because their massive development costs were written off by their Anglo-French owners, and they made a hell of a noise.
“There was a lot of design by committee, spread across two countries,” says Samuel Hammond, a policy analyst at the US think tank Niskanen Center and author of a recent study on the viability of supersonic transportation, which found a potential global market for about 450 jets.
“It was driven less by technical considerations than by diplomatic and political ones,” he adds. With the deepest irony, the project was originally part of a charm offensive from the UK, which wanted to join the Common Market—the forerunner of the European Union it now wants to leave.
See also: Reach For The Sky: Value Of Vintage Fighter Planes
With the death of Concorde, supersonic transportation went out of fashion. The aviation industry has instead focused on making its planes more efficient, so they can fly longer distances rather than faster.
There was also the Soviet Tupolev Tu-144, which made a grand total of 55 passenger flights in 1978 and 1979 before it was retired. As well as being expensive and loud, it was also dangerously unreliable.