Supersonic flight: Will passengers ever break the sound barrier once more?

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Your help makes all of the distinction. Learn extra “Our final objective is to deliver the advantages of supersonic flight to everybody” – so says Blake Scholl, founder and chief govt of Growth Supersonic.

His firm, based mostly in Denver, is on the forefront of the race to discover a successor to Concorde. The chosen title: Overture.

“Flights onboard Overture will minimize journey instances in half, ushering within the subsequent period of sooner journey,” the agency says. Growth Supersonic has attracted 130 orders, “pre-orders” and choices from American Airways, United and Japan Airways.

Earlier this 12 months the Colorado firm’s supersonic check mattress, referred to as XB1, turned the primary independently-funded jet to interrupt the sound barrier.

Growth Supersonic says its manufacturing aircraft, referred to as Overture, will fly at 60,000 toes, the identical as Concorde. The velocity, Mach 1.7, is one-sixth slower – however nonetheless twice as quick as subsonic plane. It claims London-New York will take three hours 45 minutes, comparable with Concorde’s historic schedule.

Nostalgia for the supersonic flight has been significantly notable this week – 25 years after the Concorde Air France crash.

However had Concorde not been taken out of service on industrial grounds, it will absolutely by now have been grounded due to the environmental injury. On a London-New York journey, it will deafen bystanders at both finish of the route and burn via 100 tons of aviation gas; a Boeing 787 carries thrice as many passengers for half as a lot gas.

Growth Supersonic can fly on 100 per cent sustainable aviation gas (SAF), although critics query the claimed advantages of this scarce substance.

A clue to a noisier environmental downside lies within the title: Growth. Concorde was unable to fly sooner than the velocity of sound overland due to the shockwave that supersonic plane create – which is skilled as a thunder-like growth by an individual who's on the bottom.

Growth Supersonic believes it has provide you with an answer: decreasing the plane’s velocity whereas flying over land to about Mach 1.2. “By flying at a sufficiently excessive altitude at an acceptable velocity for present atmospheric situations, Overture’s sonic growth by no means reaches the bottom,” the agency says.

“When in Boomless Cruise, speeds are 40-50 per cent sooner than typical airliners. This implies a flight from New York to Los Angeles may be as much as 90 minutes shorter.

“At high speeds of Mach 1.7, flight instances are twice as quick and sonic booms are solely created over water.”

<img src="https://static.independent.co.uk/2025/07/25/7/16/iStock-2155959638.jpg" srcset="https://static.independent.co.uk/2025/07/25/7/16/iStock-2155959638.jpg?quality=75&width=320&auto=webp 320w, https://static.independent.co.uk/2025/07/25/7/16/iStock-2155959638.jpg?quality=75&width=640&auto=webp 640w" loading="lazy" alt="Concorde had a significant environmental impact" class="sc-1mc30lb-0 ggpMaE inline-gallery-btn"/> open picture in gallery

Concorde had a big environmental influence (Getty Pictures) The vary will probably be 4,890 miles – solely about one-sixth greater than Concorde’s most, however opening up many extra potential routes corresponding to London to Miami, Los Angeles to Lima and Brisbane to Tokyo. Growth Supersonic says doubtlessly there are greater than 600 “worthwhile routes” worldwide.

Whereas Concorde fares had been usually about 20 per cent increased than subsonic top notch, Growth Supersonic says it expects airways working Overture will worthwhile with fares at enterprise to top notch ranges.

Considered one of Growth’s advisory council is Captain Mike Bannister, former Concorde chief pilot. He says: “I’ve been ready over 20 years for an environmentally pleasant successor to Concorde and XB-1’s supersonic flight is a significant landmark in the direction of my desires being realised.

“Once I final flew Concorde in 2003 I knew that today would come.”

However senior aviation govt Jonathan Hinkles believes the methods of the journey world have modified dramatically over the previous 22 years – and that Zoom might pose issues for Growth.

He informed The Unbiased’s each day journey podcast: “For those who have a look at what Concorde did, it was a manner of having the ability to go away London at 7pm, arrive in New York at 5.50pm, so you would be mainly travelling via time to reach in New York earlier than the flight had left London in native time.

“However in fact, at present we have got Zoom, we have got Groups. Numerous enterprise conferences that had been the bedrock of why individuals flew on Concorde do not really require individuals to fly anymore.

“The market that supported Concorde via its life has moved on essentially. I simply cannot see that there is an financial case for a successor. For the foreseeable future we will be very a lot confined to flying round at 550mph.”

Lyn Hughes, founding editor of Wanderlust journal, concurs: “I feel the general public are much less involved now with the velocity of the flights than they're with different components: security, comfort, reliability, worth for cash and luxury.

“The true revolution now could be a greater expertise on the airport pre and submit the flight, and a snug expertise on it – and, in fact, for a extra sustainable, carbon-free flight.”

However Blake Scholl, CEO of Growth Supersonic, is satisfied velocity will prevail: “We consider in a world the place extra individuals can go to extra locations extra usually.