FlyerTalk Forums - View Single Post - Surprised to see ...[NASA developing supersonic jet]
Old Aug 1, 2017 | 10:34 am
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pinniped
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Originally Posted by wco81
Yeah but how expensive was it back in the day and now with these designs which carry much smaller number of passengers than the Concorde, it would be very expensive.
A big part of why it originally failed was because it could only be deployed in basically one place - TATL. The economics weren't there in the 70s for TPAC, plus the value prop of flying supersonic starts to decrease if you have to make fuel stops due to the range of the aircraft. The sonic boom was a problem for overland routes.

Boomless technology changes some of that, since U.S. transcons plus Europe-ME routes could present some high-yield demand. My guess is that's why they're started with a business jet...it's an easier problem to solve than a large airliner and they must believe there's *some* demand there.

I'd love to see a large SST with range to fly all TPAC routes, but it still feels like we're 50 years away from that...if the business case ever develops at all.
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