Soon, fly twice as fast on supersonic plane

The jets will be capable of flying at 1,451mph (2,335 km/h) - about 100mph (160km/h) faster than Concorde.

A new supersonic plane will enable passengers from Dubai to reach London in just four hours instead of eight and a half hours.
The plane, called Boom, has been invented by a Nevada-based company and will carry out a 'baby boom' test flight next year in partnership with Virgin Galactic's The Spaceship Company.
This is the first supersonic airplane since Concorde was launched 50 years ago, however, it stopped operations in 2003. In 2000, it had a fatal crash, killing 113 people.
The founder of Boom, Blake Scholl, was invited to Dubai by the Dubai Future Foundation to speak about the project on Tuesday.
Supersonic speed at business class fare
"The challenge with Concorde was that it was designed 50 years ago. We really rushed into the supersonic era before we had the technology to do it efficiently. Of course, the goal for Concorde wasn't efficiency supersonic airplane, the goal was 'let's beat the soviets'. That was in the cold war era and was a national prestige project and not a practical economical project, but 50 years later we can do better," Scholl said.
"This is something that's going to be available for hundreds of destinations and millions of passengers, but we have to do two things. One is we have to fundamentally improve the fuel economy of the aircraft and we have to resize the airplane. With 55 seats, we're like a business class out of a triple 7."
Boom will be a 55-seat aircraft with prices ranging "similar to a business class travel".
The jets will be capable of flying at 1,451mph (2,335 km/h) - about 100mph (160km/h) faster than Concorde.
Scholl said this has been made possible because of the technology that is available today. He said that testing for aerodynamics can be achieved within half an hour by advanced computer softwares. When Concorde was built, it took six months to complete just one wind tunnel testing and millions of Dollars, according to Scholl.
"This isn't just a little bit of speed, this a lot of speed. Enough speed to save you a whole day. Concorde was incredibly expensive, but on Boom it can be similar to what you pay today for business class. So, if you can afford to fly first or business class, you can get there in half the time," he said.
"From Dubai to London, it's an eight-hour flight, but with boom it would be four and a half. You could leave Dubai early morning, spend the whole day in London and come back the same day - that's one less night at a hotel. Or from here to Sydney. Today, that's a 14-hour flight and that can be done in eight hours. You can just do a whole weekend in Sydney without taking any work days off. We've had a supersonic aircraft before, today it's in a museum. But this doesn't mean this is a stupid idea."
"The motivation for boom is pretty obvious if you've been a long distant flight. We live in a world where our time is very limited and precious and we prefer spend it on things that are fun, not sitting in airplanes. When the flight is 16 hours, we'd rather want to spend that time doing things we love instead."
Scholl said the firm expects to carry out full operations with passengers by 2023. 
Next year, they'll be doing the test flight with the baby Boom, the XB-1, from Southern California.
sarwat@khaleejtimes.com