All
← Back to Squawk list
Concorde Successor AS2 Takes Leap Forward
The race is heating up to produce the first supersonic passenger aircraft to enter commercial service in more than 50 years. US planemaker Aerion, whose AS2 jet promises to fly New York to London in 4.5 hours, is seeking to produce the supersonic craft in 2023 after securing $300 million in capital investment. The 8-12 passenger AS2 business jet will travel at Mach 1.4 (more than 1,000 mph), which means it could shave three and a half hours off standard journey times from New York to Cape Town,… (www.cnn.com) More...
Sort type: [Top] [Newest]
At 8-12 passengers this is not really a successor to Concorde. The AS2 is a niche business jet, Concorde was an airliner.
The company’s business plan is to start with the private 8-12 version as it has been deemed more feasible as a starting point. Larger commercial versions are slated once the platform is proven. I would venture that the commercial version never gets built unless they can show an economical feasibility for airlines to take the risk.
Assets make money when they are in use, not when sitting idle. For the 200 pax version to be feasible, it would need to be able to make 2 r/t daily between New York and London, being in the air for about 18 hours in a 24 hour cycle.
Something like this:
Depart NYC for London at 0300 GMT (2200 local time), arrive London at 0730 GMT
Return from London to NYC at 0900 GMT arriving NYC at 1330 GMT (0830 local time)
Depart NYC again at 1500 GMT (1000 local time), arrive London at 1930 GMT
Return flight from London to NYC at 2100 GMT, arriving in NYC at 0130 +1 GMT (2030 local time)
Yes, at only 1.5 hours turn-around time, that is an agressive schedule, but that would allow for maximum efficiency, have reasonable departure / arrival times locally. and likely make for more reasonable fares making for higher demand and more of these a/c in service to cover for "expected" unscheduled problems.
As I understood the Concorde, there was only 1 r/t daily each between NY/London and NY/Paris, so the plane was idle more than half the day.
Something like this:
Depart NYC for London at 0300 GMT (2200 local time), arrive London at 0730 GMT
Return from London to NYC at 0900 GMT arriving NYC at 1330 GMT (0830 local time)
Depart NYC again at 1500 GMT (1000 local time), arrive London at 1930 GMT
Return flight from London to NYC at 2100 GMT, arriving in NYC at 0130 +1 GMT (2030 local time)
Yes, at only 1.5 hours turn-around time, that is an agressive schedule, but that would allow for maximum efficiency, have reasonable departure / arrival times locally. and likely make for more reasonable fares making for higher demand and more of these a/c in service to cover for "expected" unscheduled problems.
As I understood the Concorde, there was only 1 r/t daily each between NY/London and NY/Paris, so the plane was idle more than half the day.
Phase 1 is a bizjet, phase two is for 200 pax (last time I read up on the program).
Exato!
I look upon the 3.5 hours difference in flying time between NYC and Cape Town as a loss of adult beverage consumption time.
