Supersonic Passenger Jets Poised for a Comeback

What would William Shurcliff think? Two U.S. companies—Aerion and Supersonic Aerospace International—are making plans to bring back supersonic passenger jets by 2012 and 2013 respectively. If they succeed, they’ll be the first commercial supersonic carriers since the Concorde’s last gasp in 2003.

Writes Daniel Gross in Wired:

It’s easy to bet that neither effort will succeed. What makes these startups think they can turn supersonic flight into a profitable business in just a few years when countries have tried and failed to do so for decades? It’s also easy to be cynical about the attempt. Why waste resources on really fast jets to shuttle CEOs between far-flung vacation homes? But both businesses just might work, and you should cheer them on. They may be the best chance we have of seeing commercial supersonic travel return in our lifetime.

But will anyone but those CEOs be able to afford them? Probably not at first, but Gross envisions a scenario where there’s a mass market for supersonic jet travel.

Still, only competition can start that trickle flowing, and private supersonic aviation won’t get really interesting until there are 15 greedy entrepreneurs buzzing around that $24 billion market. We need a few ambitious investors to fund supersonic plane production on par with how Union Pacific, Northern Pacific, and Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe laid tracks in the 19th century or how Global Crossing, Worldcom, and others threaded fiber-optic cables in the 1990s.

Many of these enterprises would fail. But in the process, they’d drive prices lower, develop products and services quickly, and gain economies of scale. Then, and only then, would risk-averse pterodactyls like Boeing and Airbus be willing to take another swing at jetting you from New York to LA in two and a half hours.

Such efficient jet-setting will make a lot of people happy, but perhaps not some travel curmudgeons.

Via Gadling.

Related on World Hum:
* Farewell Concorde

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