Boom, Aerion & Spike head-to-head in supersonic jet race
Recently Boom concluded its second investment round collecting a total of $100 million to help assemble the first prototype of its Overture plane which can cruise at a speed of Mach 2.2 and has already test- flown its unmanned subscale prototype. It has been reported that Spike is in the process of selecting an engine for its S-512 (Mach 1.6) aircraft. Meanwhile, Aerion is already considering commercial variants of its AS2 (Mach 1.4) supersonic business jet.
All these companies advertise their planes as not only ‘The fastest’ aircraft, but also promising ‘low-boom’ flight. In fact, the future of these projects hinges mostly on whether the new supersonic aircraft will be able to meet current noise standards. Although regulations are being ‘loosened up’ in the US, civilian supersonic flight overland is restricted globally due to the ‘sonic boom’ produced by supersonic aircraft. Aside of aerodynamic innovations and new materials, developers are puting their bets on new engine designs, which they believe hold the potential to building a ‘quiet’ supersonic plane.
The Overture
Boom Technology expects the first flight of its supersonic aircraft by the end of 2019. On 4 January 2019, the company announced it managed to collect $100 million of funds in its second research for investors. Backers include companies such as Google, Airbnb, Stripe and Dropbox. In total, Boom managed to receive $141 million of funding. The company’s main objective now is to complete the next phase of its project: get its supersonic demonstrator plane, the XB-1, in the air. The XB-1 (also known as Baby Boom) is a one third-scale manned Overture prototype, which is currently under construction in Centennial, Colorado. The final Overture aircraft should be half the size of the Concorde. It will only carry 55 passengers versus the 100 of its famous ancestor. “Overture fares will be similar to today’s business class,” said Blake Scholl, founder and CEO of Boom Supersonic, adding that, “ultimately our goal is to make high-speed flight affordable for everybody.”
The company claims that the General Electric J85, will allow the three engine Overture to fly further, but use less fuel and be less noisy, with a sonic boom ‘at least 30 mes quieter’ than the Concorde. The first scheduled flight of the Mach-2.2 (2715 km/h) commercial airliner is expected to take place in 2023. Pre-orders were placed by Virgin Group and Japan Airlines for a total of 30 Overture aircraft.
Three upstart companies; Boom Supersonic, Aerion and Spike Aerospace appear to be edging closer towards the reintroduction of supersonic flight for civilian passengers. All three companies have received orders for their aircraft and hope to start delivering them in the mid 2020s for the commercial success of transoceanic routes.
The Aerion AS2
Aerion Supersonic announced in October 2018 it had concluded the conceptual design phase for its 12-seat supersonic business jet, the AS2. The company says it is now aiming to conclude the preliminary design stage in June 2020.The AS2 would have the capability of Mach 1.4 (over 1,000 mph), enabling it to fly directly from New York to Sao Paulo and London to Beijing. For comparison, the speed of subsonic business jets stands at Mach 0.9. Aerion is also planning to develop larger and faster variants of the AS2 that could serve as a larger cabin, longer-range business jet and potentially a small commercial airliner.
“We are starting with a business jet because the technology closes and the business case closes, we see a viable market for the AS2. It will be our springboard to larger and faster designs, both for business aviation and commercial airliners,” Aerion CEO Tom Vice has stated. Aerion is collaborating with GE Aviation, Lockheed
Martin and Honeywell to develop the AS2. GE Aviation announced it completed the initial design of the first supersonic engine for business jets in October 2018, naming the new engine class as the GE Affinity turbofan.
The Spike S-512
Spike Aerospace is developing a ‘quiet’ supersonic airplane known as the Spike S-512 Quiet Supersonic Jet. The company is aiming for the S-512 to have a sonic signature less than 75 PLdb (perceived loudness level) at ground level, likened to the sound of a so clap. The S-512 would seat 12 to 18 passengers and be able to fly up to 6,200 nautical miles at cruising speed of Mach 1.6 (1,100 mph). That would allow for non-stop flights such as from New York to London in just three to four hours.
Spike has already flown its subsonic subscale SX-1.2 demonstrator plane. The jet completed seven test flights back in 2017. A er holding talks with GE and Rolls-Royce, the manufacturer is currently in the process of selecting an engine for its plane. The $125 million S-512 jet is being developed with the help of Greenpoint Technologies and Siemens.
Boeing
In June 2018, Boeing released the first concept of its hypersonic passenger plane, one of the several that company engineers are currently studying. There are not many details, including the name of the aircraft, except that the plane would have a variety of potential applications, including military. If hypersonic aircraft are produced, they would be capable of travelling at the speed of Mach 5 (4,000 mph). Boeing revealed an early concept on 26 June 2018, for its first hypersonic passenger plane at the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) conference in Atlanta, United States. The computer rendered picture provides a glimpse of what planes may look like in a few decades. In April 2018, Boeing and Rolls Royce invested in Reaction Engines, a UK-based aerospace technology company developing the Synergetic Air-Breathing Rocket Engine (SABRE), a hybrid engine blending jet and rocket technology that is capable of Mach 5 in air-breathing mode and Mach 25 in rocket mode for space flight. Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg expects hypersonic commercial planes to ‘take off’ in ten to twenty years, as he told CNBC.
The hypersonic plane, which could have commercial and military applications, would fly in theory as fast as Mach 5, giving it the ability to cross the Atlantic in about two hours, against the current duration of seven and three and a half hours for the late Concorde. However, some technical challenges come along with this. For example, the noise generated during take-off, because of sonic boom, was a huge problem for Concorde and this was one of the reasons for its retirement.
Lockheed Martin and NASA
In a statement on 3 April 2018, NASA announced that Lockheed Martin Aeronautics’ Company of Palmdale, California, was selected for the Low-Boom Flight Demonstration (LBFD) contract, a costplus-incentive-fee contract valued at $247.5 million.The jet will test design principles that soften the sonic boom in order to establish an acceptable commercial supersonic noise standard and overturn the current regulations banning commercial supersonic travel over land. NASA and Lockheed Martin are seeking to champion in technology that can overcome noise restrictions on supersonic flight. Under the contract, Lockheed Martin Skunk Works will build an experimental aircraft, known as the X-plane, of its preliminary design developed with NASA’s Quiet Supersonic Technology (QueSST). It will then deliver the aircraft to the agency’s Armstrong Flight Research Centre in California. The experimental single-pilot aircraft will take to the skies for its first test flight in 2021. According to NASA, the X-plane will cruise at 55,000 feet (16,800 metres) at a speed of about 940 mph (1,513 kph) and create a sound about as loud as a car door closing, 75 Perceived Level decibel (PLdB), instead of a sonic boom.
After the initial flight, NASA will perform multiple flight tests before flying the X-plane over select cities by mid-2022 to get feedback from communities. The collected data will be provided to regulators for consideration of new sound-based rules regarding supersonic flight over land. The key to success of this mission, therefore, will be to demonstrate the ability to fly supersonic aircraft, yet generate sonic booms so quiet, people on the ground will hardly hear them.
“Lockheed’s design should allow the aircraft to mitigate the shock waves emanating from the nose, wings, engine and other protruding areas of the plane when the sound barrier is broken,” Bloomberg explains. The plane will utilise existing parts, like the landing gear from an F-16 Fighting Falcon and the pilot seat from a T-38 Talon. It will be 94 feet (28.7 metres) long with a wing span of 29.5 feet (9 metres). NASA has been designing the experimental plane for several years. The design has already been tested in computer simulations and wind-tunnel experiments. If the X-plane is successful then the ban on overland commercial flight, imposed since 1973 can be lifted. NASA says it expects private business jets to be the first ones to adopt the design.