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A new aerospace company has entered the race to provide supersonic commercial air travel. On Monday, a US-based company named Hermeus announced plans to develop an aircraft that will travel at speeds of up to Mach 5. Such an aircraft would cut travel time from New York to Paris from more than 7 hours to 1.5 hours.
Hermeus said it has raised an initial round of funding led by Khosla Ventures, but it declined to specify the amount. This funding will allow Hermeus to develop a propulsion demonstrator and other initial technologies needed to make its supersonic aircraft a reality, Skyler Shuford, the company's chief operating officer, told Ars.
The announcement follows three years after another company, Boom Supersonic, declared its own intentions to develop faster-than-sound aircraft. As of January 2019, Boom had raised more than $140 million toward development of its Overture airliner, envisioned to travel at Mach 2.2, which is about 10 percent faster than the Concorde traveled.
Officials with Boom Supersonic have said its planes could be ready for commercial service in the mid-2020s, and they added that Virgin Group and Japan Airlines have preordered a combined 30 airplanes.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 14 2019, @09:31AM (4 children)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_economy_in_aircraft#Regional_flights [wikipedia.org]
Regional flights averages:
A321neo - 2.19L/100km (107.4 mpg‑US)
Boeing 737 MAX 9 - 2.3 L/100 km (103 mpg‑US)
Airbus A220-300 - 2.23 L/100 km (105 mpg‑US)
Long haul flights:
Boeing 777-300ER - 2.91 L/100 km (81 mpg‑US)
Airbus A330neo-900 - 2.48 L/100 km (95 mpg‑US)
Airbus A380 - 3.27 L/100 km (72 mpg‑US) - and this is said to be the gas guzzler for modern planes.
So, yeah, better than commuting to work every day with that car. Better to take a flight than that road trip to same destination. Even better for environment. A family of 4 or less will produce less CO2 flying than driving to destination. That is just by the numbers. The only way to save more fuel is to take a train or bus. Most efficient buses would give you about 0.5L/100km.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 14 2019, @09:34AM (1 child)
Just to add, supersonic travel would definitely pollute a lot more and would be more irresponsible. But it would certainly be limited and those people pollute a lot more already flying in planes - their seats are much larger (so more fuel consumption per seat) and they fly more often.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday May 14 2019, @12:23PM
But sufficiently more irresponsible to even be worth the mention?
(Score: 4, Funny) by Muad'Dave on Tuesday May 14 2019, @11:03AM
> Boeing 737 MAX 9 - 2.3 L/100 km (103 mpg‑US)
Boeing 737 MAX 9 - 2.3 L/100 km (0 mpg‑US)
Too soon?
(Score: 3, Funny) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday May 14 2019, @12:00PM
That's just fuel consumption. Methane production as a by-product of eating road-food is also significantly higher on a cross-country car trip.
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