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Given the diminished outlook for executive travel, does it make sense to keep moving forward with development of expensive supersonic business jets?
Molly McMillin, Aviation Week’s managing editor of business aviation, responds:
The world has been intrigued by supersonic flight since Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier in 1947. The Concorde passenger jet was retired in 2003, but the fascination has continued. And the current level of interest from the business jet industry is strong.
Several companies are working on supersonic aircraft, including Boom Technology, Aerion Corp. and Spike Aerospace.
A supersonic business aircraft, however, does come with trade-offs. For one, it will be fast but expensive, notes Teal Group analyst Richard Aboulafia. Aerion’s AS2, for example, has a price tag of $120 million. “Will someone say, ‘I don’t care about the trade-offs—I want that speed’?” Aboulafia asks. “I have no doubt. There’s going to be some market. It has always been a good time to go ahead with it.”
Rolland Vincent, a consultant based in Plano, Texas, has performed detailed studies on the market potential of supersonic business jets every few years. Each time, the market has grown. His last study, performed six years ago, showed demand for 300 aircraft over a 10-year period. It is likely larger by now, he says. But because of delays to the engine program for the AS2 and cutbacks in the industry, Vincent pushed out his entry-into-service expectations to 2029 from 2027.
The Aviation Week Network’s latest forecast does not include deliveries in the supersonic business jet class for the next decade. Aboulafia expects one manufacturer to survive, with Aerion the most likely contender, while Vincent expects two or three manufacturers to endure.
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So much of the literature on this subject is hype and horse manure, that the statements, like the one quoted above. Are condensed and written into a whole chapter of a book on high speed flight. Noting that all of the idiotic projections about the future of supersonic commercial flight always begin with a specific set of catch-phrases, like "...I have no doubt..."
It makes one almost wonder in the quote was said by someone who was trying to alert his audiences, that what he was saying was bullfeathers.