Pretty soon, your flight from L.A. to Australia might not take much longer than flying to New York—if Richard Branson has anything to say about it. Virgin Supersonic is looking to roll out a fleet of supersonic jets that could get passengers to Sydney in six hours, down from the current 13, and from New York to London in just three and a half.
The jets, described as "next-gen Concordes," are the XB-1 by Boom Supersonic. With cruising speeds of Mach 2.2, they’re billed as the fastest civil aircraft ever. Mach 2.2 is approximately 1,678 miles per hour; a typical airliner right now travels at the comparatively-pokey 560 miles per hour.
"Sixty years after the dawn of the jet age, we’re still flying at 1960s speeds," Blake Scholl, CEO of Boom, told Australian Business Traveler.
Virgin (who are still also trying to make space tourism happen) has snapped up the rights to buy the first 10 XB-1 jets when they roll off the assembly line.
Prices for that speedy trip to Sydney won’t be cheap, naturally. At least not initially. It’s estimated a round-trip will start at $7,000. That’s around seven times what you’re likely to pay for an average ticket today.
For the money, you get more than a few extra hours at your destination. The planes themselves are pretty well-appointed: Each jet has just 45 seats, all business class, and with just one seat on each side of the plane, you don’t have to choose between aisle and window (not to mention the horror of the middle).
Before you start shopping for a weekend house on Bondi Beach, keep one thing in mind. The first round of test jets will be produced in 2017, but the full commercial use of the planes isn’t expected to launch until 2023.
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