A TEST pilot for the supersonic jet dubbed “the son of Concorde” says it will get Brits from London to NYC in just 3.5 hours and won’t cost an arm and a leg.
Boom Technology‘s Overture promises to cruise twice as fast as a regular plane and offers luxurious travel with prices that rival business class on a Boeing 777.
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Test pilot Tristan “Geppetto” Brandenburg claims the airliner will do miles better than the Concorde, its predecessor that paved the way for supersonic travel.
The XB-1 plane is being used for the test flights before Boom unveils the actual aircraft set to be used in the future known as the Overture.
Geppetto has already successfully flown the demonstrator aircraft twice and is keen to see the Overture replicate those “incredible” flights for passengers travelling across the globe.
The tests took place at the airpace in Mojave Desert, California and reached altitudes of an impressive 10,400ft and a top speed of 232 knots (277 mph) but another 10 tests are needed before the jet reaches Mach 1 or supersonic status.
While he’s “never been scared in a plane”, Geppetto admitted he’d faced some nerve-racking flights in the past but described the thrill of piloting the XB-1.
“The first time I went to land on an aircraft carrier, I had a hard time sleeping that night, and I also got nervous for some of the important flights for my qualifications,” he said.
“Interestingly though, I wasn’t really that nervous for the flights in the XB-1. I knew the team I was working with, I knew the air.
“I know this aeroplane better than any aeroplane I’ve ever flown.
“I knew we had a solid team and a solid plan, and the weather was good. We had the chase aeroplane and chase pilot ready to go – everything was in place.
“Looking at the cockpit video, I could see the brake release as we were approaching so the chase pilot would call my brake release, so that we could take off and join up almost immediately.
Why did the Concorde fail?
CONCORDE was the supersonic passenger jet considered the ultimate luxury in air travel.
Air France and British Airways announced they would be retiring their fleet of Concorde planes on April 10, 2003.
The plane had its first commercial flight on January 21, 1976, so was retired after 27 years of service and 50,000 flights.
Several reasons led to the decision to retire Concorde.
Air France and British Airways cited low passenger numbers and high maintenance costs.
By the early noughties, the planes were outdated and expensive to run, despite being incredibly advanced when they were first introduced almost three decades previously.
The 9/11 terrorist attack in 2001 majorly impacted passenger numbers, as people opted not to fly.
Passenger numbers also fell after an Air France Concorde crashed just minutes after taking off from Paris in July 2000.
The disaster killed all 109 people on board and four others on the ground.
The plane ran over a small piece of metal on the runway, which burst a tyre and caused an engine to ignite.
It was also the only aircraft in the British Airways fleet that required a flight engineer.
“He gives me a 10-second call and in that video I can see my heart rate really increases.
‘I remember feeling a little bit nervous there like ‘Oh, man, this is this is really happening.
‘This aeroplane’s only ever flown for 12 minutes so far, this is a brand new aeroplane’.
“All of those things were frantically going through my head and then he [chase pilot] calls for my brake release.
“I relieve the brakes and the throttle is going into full afterburner, I can feel the acceleration and then it’s like ‘Oh okay, I know how to do this!
‘This is what I’ve been training for, this is what I’ve been waiting for’.”
The Overture is expected to take off as a commercial airliner by 2030 and carry 64-80 passengers.
Boom says the plane will fly from New York to London in 3.5 hours and Tokyo to Seattle in just 4.5 hours.
Tipped to rival the Concorde, he insists it will be much cheaper than the Concorde, which he says failed because of its fares.
“We believe that life happens in person,” he said.
“A meeting is so much more effective when you can, when you can shake hands and talk to a person face to face.
“Time spent with family or friends is so much better in person than it is via screen.
“Part of the reason the Concorde isn’t flying anymore is just because it wasn’t a sustainable business model.
“The flights were so expensive that the average person just couldn’t afford to take those.”
The Overture will fly over the ocean and Geppetto hopes Boom can develop new technology to fly at the speed of sound over land in the future.
And it’s not just customers whose lives would be positively impacted – pilots’ family lives could improve.
“A three day trip sees pilots gone from their family for three days but with the Overture, if they fly from New York to London, they’d be back that same day, home in time for dinner!”
“The more of life you can spend where you want, with who you want and with less travel time, the better.
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Possible Boom Overture routes
ROUTE availability will be at the discretion of airlines and while strong demand is expected from North America to Europe, Boom say there are more than 600 profitable and mostly transoceanic routes. The following are possible journeys airlines could choose to undertake with the Overture.
- New York to Rome in under 5 hours (instead of 8 hours)
- Tokyo to Vancouver in 4.5 hours (instead of almost 8.5 hours)
- Los Angeles to Tahiti in just over 4 hours (instead of more than 7.5 hours)
- Atlanta to Madrid in 4.5 hours (instead of more than 8 hours)
- Washington D.C. to Dublin in 3.5 hours (instead of 6.5 hours)
- Singapore to Dubai in less than 4.5 hours (instead of about 7 hours)
“I spent a year in Denmark when I was a kid but the travel was time-consuming – if we could cut down the time and make the world effectively smaller, think about the experiences people could have.
“Think about how much easier it would be to visit places like the UK, or Asia.”
While one of Boom’s aims is accessibility, its airliners will only come with business class seats, although Geppetto insists this is good value for money.
“Our goal is to make it affordable,” he said.
“They’re going to have business class seats and so it should be comparable to the business class experience on a Boeing 777.
“If you have the option of choosing business class on a wide body jet that takes 6 hours to get somewhere or a comparable fare where you spend half as much time in the air, I would choose the one that got me there faster.”
Tickets for a round trip from NYC to London are expected to cost $5,000 (£3,823), while the same journey set Concorde passengers back a whopping $20,000 (£15,293), adjusted for inflation.
For Geppetto, who recalls seeing a Piper PA-25 Pawnee fly in front of him as a 10-year-old, later inspiring him to train as a pilot with the US military, the prospect of Boom is “really exciting”.
“I was in high school during 9/11 and that had a pretty big impact on me.
“I chose to go to test pilot school because I was really interested in how planes work, how they fly, and how we can make them better.
“Dedicating a year to the engineering aspect of flying planes and figuring out how they work and how to improve them was really appealing to me.”
On top of faster journeys, Boom is committed to eco-friendliness and uses carbon-neutral fuel.
The Overture use sustainable aviation fuel made from pulling CO2 out of the atmosphere and turning it into something that can be burned in a jet engine.
“Not only are we saving time, but we’re also doing it in an eco-friendly way.”
One hundred and thirty Overture aircraft have been pre-ordered by commercial airlines including American Airlines, United Airlines and Japan Airlines.
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