Speed.

1350 MPH, twice the speed of sound.

The Concorde was an incredible aircraft, super gorgeous, well ahead of his time.

It took more than 30 years to develop, led by aeronautical engineer Sir James Hamilton, who famously designed the Concorde's Delta wings, adding to the overall distinctive appearance of it's tilted nose and long, ultra thin body.

But initial public all quickly dissolved When one of Air France's Conchords crashed shortly after takeoff in July 2000, It added one more thing to criticize to an already growing pool.

Critics said the Concorde was too expensive to elitists and much too noisy.

It wasn't that the technology didn't work.

It was that the economics didn't work.

It was simply too expensive for enough people to afford to fly.

That's because fuel was pricey and almost 22 hours of maintenance was required for every hour in the air.

That maintenance also needed a specialized crew, in part because of the cooling mechanisms that managed the plains high speed temperatures.

And then there was the boom a thunder like noise from breaking the sound barrier that could be heard on the ground.

The noise caused many countries to ban the Concorde's overland routes altogether, meaning less money to be made By the fall of 2000 and three, Air France and British Airways had retired there.

Concord fleets 17 years later, we still don't have another Concord.

So what's the super hold up on supersonic planes?

Well, Cos Air still solving the challenges the Concorde faced speed, fuel efficiency and noise from the sonic boom?

Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Airbus are all at various stages of development to bring the supersonic passenger aircraft back in.

The Federal Aviation Administration stated in 2000 and eight that interest in supersonic aircraft technology has not disappeared today.

Companies air choosing one of two paths to go beyond the speed of sound private planes or commercial airliners.

Spike Aerospace is on the first path.

Private supersonic jets, it's designed, has reduced the sonic boom to the sound of a car door slamming.

You do that by changing the aerodynamics of plane, the shape of the plane, the shape of the nose, its aircraft has a long, pointy nose to help bounce the shockwave towards space instead of the ground, and its sleek, windowless fuse lodge will help lower the cabin noise.

Finally, Spike substantially updated Conchords famous Delta Wing to a crank Delta wing to control the pressure waves.

It's what's called a clean sheet design.

We're not basing in our pre existing model.

We're basing it on knowledge about aircraft.

It has to have a wing and engines, but otherwise the cabin can be done completely differently.

How we shape the nose is different.

To deal with the Concorde's temperature issues, spite build its aircraft with composite materials lighter than aluminum and capable of tolerating higher temperatures.

And instead of creating a new engine from scratch, Spike is simply modifying an existing engine, shaving 10 to 15 years of development and potentially billions of dollars.

Three.

Catch spike plans on flying at a slower speed of 1100 MPH, still faster than the speed of sound, but slow enough to manage the temperature, sonic boom and engine efficiency while cutting passengers flight time by 50%.

Spike hopes eventually work its way up to larger commercial passenger planes, a path that boom supersonic is also on.

The Denver company, has been building smaller prototypes to test designs for a larger supersonic passenger jet.

And since the company is initially focusing on overseas travel, the sonic boom isn't as big of an issue.

Speed and efficiency are.

We started from that same basic Delta being approached the Concorde head.

We've applied a lot of innovations through a combination of shaping the wing and optimizing the propulsion.

We have a design for overture that will be no louder than aircraft flying today.

The seamless angle is design is key.

Not on Lee is a fuse lage made of carbon fiber composites that can tolerate higher temperatures.

It also tapers by the wings.

There's a principle called area ruling, which basically says you want to keep the distribution of cross sectional area continuous and smooth from tip to tail with the aircraft.

And so where the wing stick out, the fuselage actually gets a little bit skinnier, and then it could be fatter after the wings.

And so there's it's hard to find a straight line anywhere on the aircraft.

It's like a smooth flowing, continuous shape and updated engine is also in the works in order to improve propulsion and make the aircraft more fuel efficient.

And Boom is aiming to make history next year by testifying its supersonic jet XB, one hopefully paving the way for overseas flights before tackling routes overland.

But as of right now, no company working on supersonic aircrafts has conducted a test flight.

In the meantime, companies are testing via traditional wind tunnel tests and modern computer flight simulators.

Drawings are then rendered to design each and every part of the aircraft, measuring everything from noise, wind and speed to temperature.

And then companies can make adjustments for future tests.

Supersonic jets will be here by 20 twenties.

I expect that the general public will be able fly in a supersonic jet by the mid 20 thirties.

This is really gonna grow dramatically.

And it's just the beginning of supersonic flight.

On Lee, Time will tell what our future of flight will look like and how fast will get there.

Thanks, Michelle, for being the voice behind this.

Something interesting I learned from these interviews was how Concorde's engineers designed and built the aircraft.

They didn't have computers, so they drafted hundreds of thousands of drawings for each part of the aircraft.

Now, of course, we have computers, see if d systems and even wind tunnel testing, which makes it easier to get the results from these tests and make improvements on their design.

Pretty crazy.

Right?

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