Launch of BulgariaSat-1 on the second reused SpaceX Falcon-9 rocket June 23, 2017. Photo: SpaceX
Yesterday, SpaceX launched their 8th mission of the year to deliver Bulgaria’s first national communications satellite to orbit, and in doing so tied their own personal record for number of launches flown in a single year – in just the first 6 months of 2017.
But the successful launch, and offshore landing on an autonomous drone ship that followed minutes later, also marked the second flight for a previously-flown Falcon 9 rocket, as well as the first time a rocket has launched missions from both sides of the United States; Kennedy Space Center in Florida and Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.
XXI Bomber Command B-29 Missions Dismantled Japan From 1500 Miles Away.
The United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) produced the color film “The Last Bomb” using footage shot by special personnel of their Motion Picture Unit and Combat Camera Units. The film was produced to publicize the USAAF XXI Bomber Command Boeing B-29 Superfortress missions against the empire of Japan during the last year of World War II in the Pacific. Flying missions from Tinian, Saipan, and Guam in the Marianas Islands beginning in November of 1944, the B-29s were tasked with flying missions that covered 3,000 miles and lasted upwards of 14 hours. Enjoy the film as uploaded to YouTube by PeriscopeFilm II
Starring XXI Bomber Command at the Apex of Their War
Of course the 58th, 73rd, 313th, 314th, and 315th Bombardment Wings of XXI Bomber Command did the heavy lifting. Equally remarkable is the fact that North American P-51D Mustangs of the VII Fighter Command, flying from hard-fought Iwo Jima, flew 51 of the longest routine escort missions of the war to Japan alongside the Superforts. Even though Iwo was roughly half way as far from Japan as the Marianas, 1,500 miles is a long way to go in a single-engine fighter. Iwo was home to hundreds of Mustangs and also handled hundreds of emergency landings by shot-up B-29s unable to make it all the way back to the Marianas.
Official Air Force Photograph
Telling the Entire Story
The film of course features the B-29s of XXI Bomber Command and the P-51s of VII Fighter Command. Lots of gun camera footage, some of which was spliced in from other periods of the war, is included as are excellent shots of the preparation, planning, and support by the “ground pounders” at the bases from which these mission were flown. The film focuses on the missions and the men through to the end of hostilities with Japan but ends with mention of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Enjoy this rare look at the Air Force’s final air assault on Japan and what it took to make it happen.
Edwards AFB was the gatekeeper for jets joining the fleet.
The United States Air Force (USAF) Air Research and Development Command produced the color film “The Air Force Flight Test Center- Edwards Air Force Base” during the mid-1950s and released the film in 1956. Shot at Edwards Air Force Base (AFB) on Rogers Dry Lake and featuring just about every Air Force aircraft in development or test at the time, the film is like a time capsule and captures everything from the testing and evaluation of developmental aircraft and guided missiles to rocket sled and rocket motor testing. Parachute testing at Naval Air Station (NAS) El Centro is also featured in the film.
Aircraft featured in the film include the Bell X-1A, X-2, and X-3 experimental rocket planes, North American F-86 Sabre and F-100 Super Sabre, McDonnell F-101 Voodoo, Convair F-102, YF-102A, and TF-102A Delta Dagger, Lockheed F-104A Starfighter, Vought XF8U-1 Crusader, Douglas B-66B Destroyer, Republic EF-84G Thunderjet Zero-Length Launching and Mat Landing (ZELMAL) and jettisonable main landing gear wheel testing, and a XF-84H Thunderscreech turboprop-powered supersonic fighter prototype. Boeing B-29 and B-50 Superfortress and B-52 Stratofortress carrier aircraft and the Bell GAM-63 Rascal air-to-surface missile along with its Boeing B-47 Stratojet carrier aircraft are also featured.
Official NASA Photograph
Details of the mid-1950s renovation and modernization of the base facilities, control tower, and expanded and improved runways are discussed. Several of the accidents that occurred at Edwards during the shooting of the film are included as well as truly rare footage of Boeing YC-97J Stratofreighter, Douglas YC-124B Globemaster II, and Lockheed YC-121F Super Constellation turboprop-powered testbeds. Data captured during the testing of these three experimental transports was used in the design of the Lockheed YC-130 Hercules, which is also shown in the film. Look closely and you’ll even see North American B-25 Mitchells too. The narration of the film is a bit dry, like the desert around Edwards itself, but all in all the film is a feast for the eyes of any fan of the heady days of flight testing during the 1950s.
DAYTON, Ohio — A single Air Force Thunderbirds jet on approach to Dayton International Airport flipped over upon landing and crashed upside down as rain and wind gusts swept over the airfield on Friday.
The pilot and backseat crew member were listed in good condition moments following the crash. However, the Thunderbirds have elected to cancel Saturday’s 3:10 p.m. EDT performance, and will decide later regarding Sunday’s show.
The pilot of the jet is Capt. Erik Gonsalves, who serves as the team’s airshow narrator and advance pilot. Capt. Gonsalves was giving an informal familiarization flight to TSgt. Kenneth Cordova, a tactical aircraft maintainer. This is the first season with the Thunderbirds for both.
The two were landing aboard an F-16D Fighting Falcon aircraft in rain driven, overcast conditions with low visibility. Following the mishap, it took firefighters and airport personnel an hour to release the trapped crew members who sat upside down. As first responders arrived, they stated that one provided an immediate thumbs up signal.
The Thunderbirds issued a formal statement late Friday, “The United States Air Force Thunderbirds were conducting a single-ship familiarization flight on Friday June 23, 2017,” said Capt. Sara Harper, Thunderbird 12 and public affairs officer. “Upon landing there was a mishap at the Dayton International Airport with an F-16D Fighting Falcon at approximately 12:20 p.m. (EDT).”
“Our first priority is taking care of our Thunderbird teammates and ensuring future safety” said Thunderbirds commander Lt. Col. Jason Heard. “Both teammates were extremely brave during the extraction and we’d like to thank Wright-Patterson Crash and Recovery, Dayton International Fire Rescue, local police, medical personnel and team members on scene for their incredible recovery efforts.”
America’s Ambassadors in Blue will make a formal announcement on Saturday if they will perform on Sunday. As narrator, Capt. Gonsalves is the only announcer trained to discuss this season’s maneuvers by the Thunderbirds. He announces accurate details of each upcoming manuever in a memorized pattern during the 2017 airshow season.
Friday’s crash was the Thunderbirds second in the past 55 weeks. Last June, Thunderbird 6 jet was involved in a ditching maneuver near Colorado Springs. In that incident, the pilot, Major Alex Turner ejected safely and was unhurt. Maj. Turner still flies with the team as Thunderbird 5 lead solo.
UPDATE: Sunday’s performance is cancelled as well. No word on when the Thunderbirds will perform next.
(Charles Atkeison reports on aerospace and technology. Follow his updates via social media @Military_Flight.)
The Airbus A380 is easily known as the largest passenger aircraft in existence, entering commercial service in 2007. A big deal when it first came on the market, and even now, it can carry the most people on a regular basis, and continues to do so around the world. However, a trend’s popped up that can’t be ignored (and shouldn’t be ignored, if the major aircraft manufacturers know what’s good for them): in the airline industry, bigger isn’t always better. For that reason, the A380’s successor, the A380plus, may be doomed to failure. Here’s why:
Massive jets were created to circle the globe, whisking passengers away to far-off destinations, carrying 400 or 500 individuals at once. But at the end of the day, that’s just not what the greater public wants or needs. They’d prefer a convenient flight that gets them where they need to go, when they need to get there, without traversing a big hub. It’s why the A330 and 787s of the world are flying direct between smaller cities, and are continuing to do so. Not to mention, Boeing itself has acknowledged the downward trend in demand for super-sized jets; at the Paris Air Show, vice president of marketing Randy Tinseth expressed that, for lack of better words, the 747-8i and the A380 markets are dead.
2. The Fixed-Cost Problem Still Exists
Bigger planes are more expensive to fly. It’s simple fact. The A380plus may offer aerodynamic improvements to help out with some of the efficiency gap, but, fundamentally, four engines are more expensive to operate and maintain than two. They may need to take a page from Boeing’s book, and realize that efficiency is where it’s at in today’s market. Just look at the ultra-efficient 777X coming online in the next few years, and you’ll see where industry interest is headed.
3. The Plus doesn’t add up to more comfort
The interior of a commercial airplane should be all about the passenger — their comfort, accessibility and, again, convenience. The A380 was a very comfortable jet a 10 across seating. Unfortunately, when you’re jammed 11 into a row in economy on an A380, you begin to feel like you are in a sardine can. That’s the fallacy behind the “plus”. It’s squeezing more seats into a jet at the expense of comfort.
We’re guessing that there will be very few (if any) orders ever materialize for the A380 Plus.
Commercial aviation enthusiasts have been presented with a one-on-one battle for years — Boeing vs. Airbus. No matter which you prefer, whether it be for design, interior or even in-flight noise, there is one clear winner at the Paris Air Show.
Beyond Boeing’s reveal of the 737 MAX 10, they racked up a huge number of new orders and commitments, to the tune of 571. Airbus? A mere 336. All those orders for Boeing added up to a nice $74.8 billion. The largest order was placed by an unidentified major airline customer, for 125 of the 737 MAX 8 model. United followed close behind with 104 new orders. It seems that nearly every airline you know — and even some you don’t (Okay Airways, anyone?) — got in the game, placing an order for at least one version of the 737 MAX, with a much smaller number of Dreamliner orders.
The Airbus orders tallied up to about $39 billion. However, one aircraft valuation firm says that industry discounts could have slashed both manufacturer’s profits in half, with the real value (beyond the list prices), being somewhere around $35 billion for Boeing, and $17 billion for Airbus. Of course, as always, take note that even what the manufacturer may tout as a “firm agreement” may not come to fruition. Airlines back out of announced agreements regularly.
The loss of the unofficial race was just a sad fact on top of another for Airbus, as COO John Leahy, often credited with getting Airbus to where it is today, announced his 2017 retirement. He also had a few things to say about Boeing, noting, he “had expected they would have had a bigger launch on the 737 MAX 10, not quite as many conversions, more incremental orders.” He also mentions that the MAX 10 will probably not be a serious competitor to the A321.
Both manufacturers plan to up the ante to meet orders. Airbus is looking to produce 30 more planes this year than in 2016, and Boeing said it’d like to start producing two more 787s per month by 2020.
Boeing did admit that it had no new orders for its 777X.
The predicament isn’t unusual at the Air Show, though. Bombardier had no orders for its CSeries and Mitsubishi fared the same with its MRJ regional jet.
UPDATE: 6:58PM CT: A press conference was held this afternoon regarding the crash. Both occupants of the two-ship F-16D are in good condition. See recap of today’s events here.
UPDATE 12:34PM CT: Here is live footage of the incident provided by WHIO.
12:20PM CT
The Dayton Daily News is reporting that a Thunderbirds aircraft ‘crashed’ today at Dayton International Airport. However, if you read their latest reporting, it sounds as if the jet landed and then was flipped over by a gust of wind. There is no word yet on injuries. Here is their latest tweet.
While the winds are reported to be light, the field has been reporting heavy rain with low visibility. A significant cold front has converged with moisture from the remnants of Tropical Storm Cindy to produce heavy rain, thunderstorms, and wind in the region.
2.) The Thunderbirds practice for the Dayton Airshow was called off today due to weather but the two-seater F-16D did take off for a media flight. There were two occupants in the F-16–one pilot and one media guest.
Peter Thiel, PayPal founder and tech evangelist, noted several years ago that “We wanted flying cars, but instead got 140 characters.” He was, of course, talking about Twitter, but his larger point was that the technological advancements that seemed to be inevitable have—when they’ve even shown up— been underwhelming.
The pilotless airliner, like the driverless car, is one of those innovations that always seems to be around the next corner, but like a mirage in the desert, keeps receding into the distance. And it certainly isn’t for lack of effort. DARPA has recently been testing a robot which occupies the space where a copilot sits on an airliner.
A recent headline proclaimed that this robot was able to fly (and land!) a 737. So that’s that right? We can finally get on with the business of halving (or eliminating) our pilot force, solving the pilot shortage, and saving a ton of money to boot.
Well, I wouldn’t be so quick to quit flight school and dust off that medical school application. We are still quite a ways away from single or no pilot airliners for a number of reasons. But first, I’d like to review where we’ve come from when it comes to cockpit automation and what we’ll ultimately be asking our machines to do.
There was a time not too far removed when it took five or more crew members—in addition to flight attendants—to operate an airliner. Besides the two pilots up front, there were navigators to navigate, flight engineers to keep the engines running, and a radio operator to communicate. Over the years, these positions have been eliminated through the use of technology and automation.
The last airplane Boeing manufactured that had an engineer’s panel in the cockpit was the 747-300 model, which ceased production in 1990. Navigators and radio operators were eliminated decades earlier, replaced by inertial navigation systems and solid state radios.
Job Functions Were Consolidated, not Eliminated
Wikipedia: Felix Stember
I think it important to note that none of the functions that those earlier crew members accomplished were actually eliminated, but rather consolidated into the job of pilot. Airplanes still needed to be navigated, engines needed to be started, monitored and kept running through fuel management, and radios still needed to be tuned and monitored.
Automation has allowed pilots to assume all those duties while still flying the airplane. And as you’ve no doubt read somewhere on the internet, pilots only actually “fly” their airliners for just a few minutes per flight during takeoff and landing. For the most part this is true. I personally like to hand fly the jet more than most, but that is because I enjoy it. There is certainly no need to do so. For many, it is gear up, flaps up, autopilot on.
The dirty truth is the autopilot can fly better for longer than any human can. Sure, some pilots can fly a better final than “George” (the autopilot), but George doesn’t get tired or rusty. This is a good thing, because it is that autopilot which frees up the two pilots to deal with things like a low oil pressure light during a diversion in bad weather.
Why Have Pilots at All?
Technology has eliminated all those other jobs on the airplane, and we have autopilots that routinely handle almost all the flying already, so what’s the problem? Just make a machine that can handle the other three minutes of flying and we’re done here.
This gets down to the fundamental reason pilots are really on the airplane, and that is decision making.The reason there are two pilots aboard? Collaboration and validation of the decision making process. Plus having two people up front has the added advantage that they help keep each other awake. (Laugh, but it will need to be addressed in a single pilot airliner.)
So no problemo, simply write some software that can handle the decisions that pilots are expected to make. This gets down to the question of things that machines do well versus the things that humans do well. They each have their strengths and weaknesses.
Pattern Recognition and Heuristics
Computers are really good at tedious detail work such as, say, doing a spell check or a word find and replace on a blog post. What they’re not so good at is deciding if you’ve buried the lede, or if your prose is somewhat leaden. That takes judgement, which is more difficult to code.
Have you ever wondered why all the fruits and vegetables in the supermarket have those little stickers on them used by the scanner? Why can’t the scanner just look at a tomato and recognize it? The reason is that when you program the computer to recognize something that is “red” and “round” it will confuse tomatoes with apples (or red bell peppers). While humans will rarely mistake an apple for a tomato, getting a machine to routinely recognize the difference is much more difficult, (and expensive) hence the stickers.
In short, humans are much better than machines at pattern recognition and heuristics, which is a fancy word for an educated guess or hunch. Humans are better decision makers in ambiguous situations. And many situations on an airliner can be ambiguous.
Canned Decision Making or AI
What is software other than prepackaged expertise and decisions? Automation is threatening whole sectors of the economy such as accounting because expertise and best practices can be distilled into code and sold to people who couldn’t otherwise afford to hire a tireless expert. Accounting software, though, is unlikely to be presented a scenario which hasn’t been preprogrammed. If it does come across such a situation, it would likely come to a halt state to await human intervention.
The software in a pilotless airplane would need to be either pre programmed with every possible scenario likely to ever be encountered, or to employ some sort of artificial intelligence. Artificial intelligence (AI) is the ability of a machine to be able to process information which it hasn’t specifically been programmed to handle, i.e. to learn. In short, it is canned judgement.
Advances in AI are being made all the time but it does have a way to go. Imagine a piece of software which would have the judgement to tell the difference between a need to do a gate return for a woman who’d left her purse in the gate area versus one whose husband had been seriously injured (or one of several million other scenarios). I can’t imagine that either.
So it seems apparent to me that we’re going to need humans available to make decisions on or about airlines for the foreseeable future. The question arises as to how many humans are required, and if they should they actually be on the airplane.
Pilot/Dispatcher/Controller
Our current commercial airline transportation system consists of at least four people watching over your flight at any one time. Two or more pilots are up front, a dispatcher has planned your flight and keeps watch over things like destination weather and other operational concerns, while air traffic controllers keep your airplane away from all the other airplanes flying around.
All of these jobs are supposedly ripe for replacement through automation. Back in my military days the crew would come in the day before a scheduled flight and spend the entire day flight planning. Dispatchers today plan and oversee many dozens of flights per shift using sophisticated software tools. They become extremely busy, though, when many airplanes under their control have to divert in the case of bad weather in one location.
In the scenario where there is one pilot aboard coupled with say, a “copilot” assistant on the ground connected through datalink, a decision would need to be made as to how many airborne planes would be assigned to each assistant. If the ratio is one to one, there would be little cost savings as assistants would likely make about as much as dispatchers and copilots currently do. Perhaps two to one or four to one. An optimal number will need to be found. This would open a new cost versus safety frontier that does not now exist.
These assistants would be only available for voice or text consultation given the current state of deployed technology. Robust telecommunications networks allowing for remote control of airliners along with control systems aboard airliners to allow such control, while technically feasible, currently do not exist and would require a sizeable investment in hardware and infrastructure to implement. This is certainly doable, but there is little evidence of any movement towards this future other than pure research.
Similar automation and technology advancements are impacting the job of the air traffic controller as well. The FAA has proposed using advanced data tools to have a flight fully cleared and deconflicted from all other airborne traffic before it has even taken off. Controllers would only be available to intervene in the case of rapidly changing weather or other unpredictable contingencies such as aircraft emergencies.
The trend is unmistakable. Fewer humans will, over time, be involved in watching over your flight, and this may work out just fine. The advantages of automation are manifest: lower costs and higher productivity being two of the greatest. A third metric, however, safety, may be the fly in the ointment.
Is It Safe?
Wikipedia
2016 was a record year in US commercial aviation as there were no fatalities on any US commercial airline anywhere in the world. It is also the seventh straight year that this feat has been attained. In 2015 that worked out to 7.6 billion miles flown with a (non-fatal) accident rate of 0.155 per 100,000 flight hours. There are about 24,000 commercial flights per day in the US. Flying is extremely safe and this is not by accident.
The current state of safety in the airline industry has been achieved over the years through dogged research into human factors, technical standards, preventative maintenance, training, and accident investigations. Current aviation policies and procedures for operators, controllers, and maintainers have years of development and history behind them.
One of the best reasons to cheer the introduction of driverless cars is the promise of a reduction in the 35,000 annual US auto accident deaths. The promise of the pilotless airliner is mostly economic. Our commercial aviation system is already nearly as safe as can reasonably be accomplished short of parking airplanes.
The burden of proof from a safety point of view will be upon those wishing to introduce large changes into this system for marginal economic gains. Measured in defects per operations accomplished, matching the current safety record will be a challenge. Not impossible, but the bar is pretty high.
I personally find myself having to intervene multiple times a day to correct “mistakes” made by our current state of the art automation. It is not nearly as automatic as advertised. This record of course must improve before the system can be fully autonomous.
The current pilot shortage, one of the justifications for increasing automation, is a mostly self inflicted injury by the US aviation industry compounded by Congress. It will eventually work itself out through rising wages and ab initio training programs for prospective pilots.
In Conclusion
I have every confidence that the goal of pilotless airliners will eventually be achieved given enough time and money, but I also believe that it will not be nearly as cheap or easy as some acolytes of pilotless airplanes believe. If you’ll notice, I haven’t even touched on the acceptance of this idea by the flying public. I leave that for you, dear reader, to discuss in the comments. In any event, I’ll be retired long before then.
Editors note: An earlier version of this story stated that the last Boeing plane with a navigator was a 727. It was actually a Boeing 747-300.
Father and Son share special moment as they pilot the mighty Lockheed L-1011 to Europe in a classic video
Aviation Media, Inc., produced a “Wonderful World of Flying’ video and this segment has a “take your son to work” story. TWA pilot Barry Schiff is the pilot and his son Brian is the flight engineer; it’s the first time they’ve flown together as professional pilots for the airline.
This was a TWA flight from JFK to Berlin with a stop in Brussels. TWA, at one time owned by eccentric millionaire Howard Hughes, was one of the major commercial airlines before it went out of business in 2001.
The aircraft featured is the L-1011, manufactured by Lockheed. The wide-body plane was developed as an alternative for Boeing’s 747 and the L-1011 closely resembled the DC-10 developed by McDonnell Douglas. The L-1011 went into service in 1972 and was phased out by most commercial airlines by the mid-1990s.
In the United States Air Forces Europe (USAFE) training film “No Sweat”, one incredibly fortunate blue-suiter does so many different things to put himself in potential danger that it had to be quite a trick to write so many of them into the script. The pilot’s problems started the night before his flight when he got a little bit too well-oiled on that wonderful German beer. The next day his problems started with lack of crew rest. Or, he failed to sleep it off. He didn’t check the Notices To Airmen (NOTAMS), for if he had he would have realized the Direction Finding (DF) freq at his destination had changed. He didn’t hack the weather check and made a bad assumption about enroute and destination WX conditions. He knew his North American F-86D Sabre Dog jet had a gripe about a cabin pressure seal, and on top of that he used up all of his available oxygen trying to work over his hangover.
Official US Air Force Photograph
Forced to wake up and smell the hypoxia, our still-lucky knucklehead is forced to fly at low altitude where he can breathe. Which, inevitably, creates a fuel problem. As in using it up too quickly. Which is exacerbated when he realizes his use of an incorrect DF frequency has pushed him off course. What else? Well the lack of attention to weather comes back to haunt him (as it usually does) when his destination is socked in. He is forced to divert, and his low-altitude transit to the divert uses up most of his fuel. Then he tries to Class-A mishap himself one last time when he fails to operate his emergency landing gear release system correctly, which nearly results in a nose-gear-and-drop tanks-only landing. To add final insult to miraculous lack of injury, he flames out on the taxiway…due to fuel starvation.
Official US Air Force Photograph
The film really is entertaining in a cringeworthy shaking-my-head sort of way. Examples of mishaps experienced by USAFE are used to make the film’s point even before the blue-suiter arrives for his day in the box. And let’s face it- many of us have been bitten by overlooking a thing or two in preflight. This guy’s whole flight was doing its best to kill him. There’s lots of nice Sabre Dog footage in there though.
Here’s a piece of trivia for you: The jet he flies in the film, North American F-86D-45-NA serial number 52-4129, was flown by USAFE beginning in 1954 and operated in NATO countries until 1961, when it was transferred to the Yugoslavian Air Force. Hopefully their pilots flew it better than the “pilot” in the film. Enjoy “No Sweat” uploaded to YouTube by ZenosWarbirds.
ENJJPT Is One of the Most Successful Joint Training Programs Ever
The Euro-NATO Joint Jet Pilot Training Program (ENJJPT) is a multi-national training program that trains combat pilots for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) air forces. The program consists of a 55 week long three-phased curriculum.
Official US Air Force Photograph
Producing Pilots for Everything With Wings
An average of 200 pilots graduate from the program each year, earning their wings and going on to fly everything from air superiority fighters to transports to tankers and helicopters for the air forces of their respective countries. In addition to the Undergraduate Pilot Training (UPT), there are three other distinct training programs: Pilot Instructor Training (PIT), which produces instructor pilots, Introduction to Fighter Fundamentals (IFF), and IFF Upgrade Instructor Pilot Training.
Official US Air Force Photograph
Found on the Flightline
More than 1,300 military, civilian, and contractor personnel support the ENJJPT Program. The students fly Beechraft T-6A Texan II primary trainers, Cessna T-1A Jayhawk multi-engine trainers, and Northrop T-38C and AT-38C Talon advanced jet trainers. ENJJPT recently retired the last of their Cessna T-37 Tweet primary jet trainers. Other training aircraft are utilized for more specialized training as required.
official us air force photograph
Historic Heritage
The United States Air Force (USAF) 80th Flying Training Wing (FTW) traces its history back to World War II, when as the 80th Pursuit Group (Interceptor) they flew Curtiss P-40 Warhawks in the China-Burma-India (CBI) theatre. Deactivated soon after the war ended, the Wing was reformulated in 1972 and has been focused on training American and allied pilots ever since. The ENJJPT Program was established in 1981, with the IFF syllabus being added in 1994.
Futuristic aircraft manufacturer Boom Supersonic made waves at the Paris Air Show this week as it revealed its revolutionary aircraft prototype and design, which could hit the skies for testing as early as next year. The aircraft, which is expected to make supersonic travel affordable (though affordable is a relative term — it’s guessed that seats will be around $5,000 roundtrip), can reach speeds of Mach 2.2, or 1,451 mph.
What may have originally been seen as an overly ambitious goal is getting a fair bit of backing, with 76 aircraft ordered, some of those orders placed by international airlines. One recognizable name placing their bets with the company is Virgin, but not the Virgin you may have flown across the Atlantic or the States. Instead, Virgin Galactic has placed an order for the first 10 planes to roll out (and is also providing manufacturing services and testing support). The price tag? $200 million apiece.
The future of supersonic travel, now very within reach, is exciting to many aircraft and travel enthusiasts alike. After all, many travelers of a younger set are begrudgingly miffed they never had the chance to fly on the Concorde, which was not only expensive to maintain, but also ridiculously expensive to fly.
The interior of the Boom Supersonic passenger aircraft is anything but shabby. Photo: Boom SupersonicHowever, don’t just bet that hordes of people will be climbing onto a Boom Supersonic aircraft any time soon, though test flights of a technology demonstrator are scheduled for 2018. That first model, in fact, isn’t even for passenger travel. It’s about 68 feet long, and holds two individuals. The future passenger version is almost triple that size, at 170 feet, and makes space for six crew members and 55 passengers. This passenger version is expected to offer commercial flights around 2023.
The startup, though, is just getting started. It currently only has 35 employees and is receiving backing from investors to get its dream off the ground. Boyd Group International, an optimistic consulting firm, is projecting the sell of more than 1,000 aircraft, and maybe even 2,000 if the U.S. government relaxes its laws against over-land supersonic flights. While that seems like a ridiculously high sales estimate, the excitement level for a supersonic airliner is admittedly the highest it has been in decades.
