Something for the Aviation crowd...

[alamo5000]

Here is a new experimental airplane. It's a civilian supersonic jet. The kicker is that no supersonic boom could be detected from the ground during supersonic flights.

It's first successful supersonic test flight was on January 28, 2025. The second successful flight was February 10. There were a dozen or so other test flights previously but I think these were the first ever to prove a boomless supersonic flight was possible.

https://boomsupersonic.com/

[alamo5000]

One of the other interesting things that make this possible doesn't have anything to do with the plane itself. Apparently at certain altitudes there are layers of distortion (my word not theirs) that interrupts and reflects sound waves back up before they reach the ground.

Apparently this plane was designed to exploit this natural phenomenon. They designed the plane for low supersonic sound signature but also to interact with that specific part of the atmosphere while also maximizing efficiency at certain speeds and altitudes so the range is still good.

If this ends up ever making it to commercial flights it would basically cut flight times in half.

[Aragorn]

I wouldn’t get too excited. The company I fly for was an initial investor in this and ordered TWENTY of these in 2015. Then it was known as the Aerion AS2 and they went out of business a couple years ago. I’m not sure the exact per price unit, but the number I heard floated was $120m per.

I can only imagine what operating costs would be.

Want to take a ride on a private jet? A non-supersonic jet built anytime from the 80’s to present day? Expect to pay between $6,000-$25,000 a flight hour. Or more.

I guess it’s cool that someone picked it up again, but in aviation, don’t believe it until you see it. Don’t EVEN believe it when you see it. Believe it when you see it out in actual for profit operation.

The industry is littered with great aircraft that performed marvelously as prototypes and initial demonstrators, but nonetheless never entered production for a plethora of diverse and different reasons.

[alamo5000]

I wouldn’t get too excited.

I can't tell you anything about the business end of aviation at all. The only part that I am kind of excited over is the technology involved. I think it's pretty cool that they are pushing things forward in that aspect.

"We know this works" is a whole different ballgame than "how do we include this in our business model?"

Keeping in mind that I'm only looking at it from a far distance it seems like a pretty cool advancement.

[UWone77]

I wouldn’t get too excited. The company I fly for was an initial investor in this and ordered TWENTY of these in 2015. Then it was known as the Aerion AS2 and they went out of business a couple years ago. I’m not sure the exact per price unit, but the number I heard floated was $120m per.

I can only imagine what operating costs would be.

Want to take a ride on a private jet? A non-supersonic jet built anytime from the 80’s to present day? Expect to pay between $6,000-$25,000 a flight hour. Or more.

I guess it’s cool that someone picked it up again, but in aviation, don’t believe it until you see it. Don’t EVEN believe it when you see it. Believe it when you see it out in actual for profit operation.

The industry is littered with great aircraft that performed marvelously as prototypes and initial demonstrators, but nonetheless never entered production for a plethora of diverse and different reasons.

The Boeing Sonic Cruiser comes to mind.

[Pyzik]

It's cool to see the progress of private flight. The passenger model looks very sleek.

I thought for sure Aragornn was the OP when I saw the post.

[Aragorn]

Don’t get me wrong, it would be sweet. When we had them on order I was hoping to get to jump in the cockpit of one.