Planemaker Aerion is revving up the race to produce the first supersonic passenger aircraft to enter commercial service in more than 50 years, building a new global headquarters in Melbourne, Fla. ahead of production of its AS2 jet in 2023.
Aerion will use some of the $300 million it has attracted in capital investment to develop the 110-acre Aerion Park right next to Orlando Melbourne International Airport, CNN reported on Monday. It’s partnering with one-time supersonic plane maker Boeing and General Electric on the development, Fox Business reported.
“We are building the future of mobility — a future where humanity can travel between any two points on our planet in three hours or less," Aerion CEO Tom Vice said, Fox Business reported.
Greg Donovan, the executive director of Orlando Melbourne International Airport, told Fox Business the airfield is “ready to support this revolution in supersonic flight.”
Aerion has already established a temporary office at the airport in order to house a "growing Florida-based employment base,” he added.
According to CNN, the company’s AS2 business jet will fly 8-12 passengers at Mach 1.4 — more than 1,000 mph) — which means it could shave three and a half hours off standard journey times from New York to Cape Town, and more than four hours off trips between JFK and Singapore and JFK and Sydney.
Fox Business noted that earlier this month, supersonic air travel took another step closer to returning to the skies when the Department of Transportation and the Federal Aviation Administration issued a final rule to streamline approval for supersonic flight testing in the United States.
There have been no supersonic commercial or private flights in the U.S. since June of 2003 when Air France and British Airways retired their fleet of Concorde aircraft.
According to CNN, Aerion has already secured a domestic and international order backlog which now tops $6.5 billion and it plans to deliver 300 aircraft over 10 years of production. The AS2's first flight is slated for 2024 and the company intends to take the plane to market in 2026.
Aerion has several competitors in the supersonic and hypersonic aviation fields, but the one currently creating the most buzz is Boom, CNN reported.
In October 2020, the Denver-based start-up made history by rolling out its XB1 demonstrator aircraft, the first independently developed supersonic plane.
Dubbed Baby Boom, the 71-foot-long fuselage is a 1:3 scale prototype of Boom's upcoming supersonic commercial jet Overture, which is to have a maximum speed of Mach 2.2, making it capable of flying London to New York in just three hours and 30 minutes, CNN reported.
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