Mumbai to New York in just 4.5 hrs!!! Isn't it amazing???
A startup company. Boom aimed at bringing back supersonic jets 13 years after the Concorde, is still working on its first prototype and claims the aircraft can fly at a speed of Mach 2.2.
The makers of Boom want to make it affordable with tickets estimated to cost around $5000 (INR 3.34 Lakh).
While funding is still an issue, they have managed to get support from Silicon Valley billionaires and have recently signed up to partner in development with the Virgin Group.
“We can confirm that The Spaceship Company will provide engineering, design and manufacturing services, flight tests and operations and that we have an option on the first 10 airframes. It is still early days and just the start of what you’ll hear about our shared ambitions and efforts," said a Virgin group spokesperson.
The design of the aircraft intends to have 40 seats with two aisles so that all passengers have a view of the curvature of the Earth.
The team behind Boom are the engineers who once worked with NASA, Boeing and Lockheed; claim the plane will fly at a speed that's 2.6 times the speed of sound which would be around 3210 km per hour.
This could get you from London to New York in 3.5 hours and from Tokyo to San Francisco in 4.5 hours.
However his team is still working on prototype and it could take up to a couple of years. Being able to travel at Mach 5 would cause the body of a aircraft to heat up to temperatures as high as 980 degrees Celsius.
Time is money and with motor urban mobility concepts like the pod taxis in Gurgaon the future looks bright.