The Overture, the commercial airline of company Boom Supersonic, is on the cards. Edinburgh to Vancouver in four hours – the beasts flying at twice the speed of sound – is just one of the many transocean routes being drafted.
The luxury vehicle – going nuts at 1,451 mph/Mach 2.2 and with the same fuel consumption as subsonic aircraft – will house a mere 55 seats, half the capacity of Concorde, but will be 30 times quieter. The XB-1, a half-scaled prototype, starts test flights this year. One imagines the fuckers with pitchforks in Nevada (where else?) will still be whingeing about the supersonic bantz outclassing cropdusters even when they can’t see or hear the former.
Just look at that snap. It’s a wee bit missing from perfection, though. No one minds their own business on planes unless it’s a Gordon Gekko number; I’ve seen air stewards peek through artfully discreet holes in bog doors because the temporary inhabitant has taken more than three minutes to turd, wipe, and wash. My dream is this snap but with a metal curtain obscuring the view of me straddling a blow-up velociraptor (selfie craic) and regurgitating the Ross Geller voice.
Anyway, the 1973 FAA ban on supersonic air travel over the United States baffles many of us. Airlines, however, have ordered 30 of these Overtures and a review of outdated legislation is approaching. I’ll see you on one of these bad boys paid for with my swag from robbing the local Post Office.
Further reading:
https://www.geekwire.com/2019/boom-supersonic-closes-100m-funding-round-overture-faster-sound-jet/
https://reason.com/archives/2016/07/26/how-the-faa-killed-supersonic-flight
Wanderings and ... wonderings. 