Supersonic ‘Son of Concorde’ jet to make test flight this year before ‘3.5-hour NYC to London trips’ in 2029

THE PROTOTYPE for supersonic jets that can fly from London to New York in just 80 minutes may be taking flight by the end of the year.

Aviation company Boom Supersonic is getting closer to its goal of providing flights at a rate faster than the speed of sound.

1

In fact, the company’s B-1 experimental prototype is approaching the final stages of its ground testing.

This means that the aircraft may be embarking on its first test flight by the end of the year, per Yahoo News.

In turn, the testing will help ready the company’s Overture aircraft, which is dubbed the “son of Concorde,” for its first flight in 2029.

Overture will reportedly be able to fly passengers from the United Kingdom to the United States in just 3.5 hours.

The jet features four engines and a new fuselage that will be able to fly at supersonic speeds of up to 1304 miles per hour.

Specifically, the craft will cruise at Mach 1.7 over water and just under Mach 1 over land.

More than 600 routes have been planned for Overture across the globe.

“Aviation has not seen a giant leap in decades,” Boom founder and CEO Blake Scholl previously said in a statement.

“Overture is revolutionary in its design, and it will fundamentally change how we think about distance,” he added.

As such, test-flying 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 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 roundtrip to Asia in 24 hours.”

Earlier 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.”