A new supersonic jet could be taking to the skies in the not too distant future.
Boom Supersonic’s XB-1 experimental prototype has undergone extensive ground testing over the past few months.
Fast approaching the final stages of testing, the prototype’s set to take its first test flight before the end of the year.
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The testing is helping ready the aviation company’s Overture aircraft, dubbed the “Son of Concorde”, for its first flight in 2029.
Apparently, Overture will be able to fly passengers from the United Kingdom to the United States in just three and a half hours.
The jet, which features four engines and a new fuselage, will be able to fly at supersonic speeds of up to 1,304 miles per hour.
To be precide, the aircraft will cruise at Mach 1.7 over water and just under Mach 1 over land.
The new supersonic jet won’t just fly between the UK and US, though.
More than 600 routes have been planned fro Oveture across the globe.
Last year, American Airlines confirmed its partnership with the company to create aircraft that could travel at “2x the speed of today’s fastest commercial jets”.
“Aviation has not seen a giant leap in decades,” Boom founder and CEO Blaske Scholl previously said in a statement.
“Overture is revolutionary in its design, and it wil fundamentally change how we think about distance,” he added.
It goes without saying, test-flkying the prototype is an important milestone for the company, which has ambitions of developing both sustainable and supersonic flights.
“I believe in a future where more people go more places,” Scholl recently told Yahoo.
“Think about crossing the Atlantic in under four hours, leaving the East Coast in the morning, and making it to a dinner meeting in Europe on the same day,” he added.
“Think about being able to do a rountrip to Asia in 24 hours.”
