Several former Concorde fans, including former mechanics and captains, have established a group to bring back the once famous and iconic supersonic passenger jet. The group has already raised $185 million (£120 million British pounds) which is enough to purchase one of the supersonic jets and place it back into service over the next several years, possibly 2019, the 50th anniversary of its maiden flight.
The group is currently in the process of negotiating a purchase or lease of two Concorde jets that have been mothballed since the program was terminated in 2003.
The Concorde had a maximum cruising speed of Mach 2.0 or 1,329 mph (2,140 kph, 1,155 knots) and a maximum cruising height of 60,039 feet (18,300 m). The Concorde’s speed was more than twice that of conventional aircraft. The average flight time for subsonic jets from New York to Paris is about eight hours while the Concorde required just 3.5 hours, but at a cost of $12,000 per round trip.
As IndustryTap has reported, a number of companies are working to create a new generation of supersonic aircraft and to overcome what is considered to be drawbacks of the Concorde design, such as cramped cabins and extremely loud engines. They include:
- Airbus is in the process of creating the Concorde Mark 2, a supersonic jet that would fly from London to New York in just one hour.
- Aerion Supersonic is building the AS2, for which it is already taking orders. The jet is said to be “boomless.”
- NASA is working on a supersonic plane.
- Spike Aerospace is working on the S-512 supersonic jet.
The following video takes a look inside the original Concorde from the point of view of pilots and crew.
