American Airlines announced an agreement in mid-August to buy 20 supersonic Overture planes from Boom Supersonic, a US-based start-up company focused on the production of supersonic commercial aircraft.
The Overture is planned to transport between 65 and 80 passengers at speeds of over 1.7 times that of the speed of sound (235 km/h) - twice that of the fastest traditional commercial airplane on the market today.
The idea of riding aboard a plane at supersonic speeds might seem like a scary one; but, in fact, it might even be smoother than flying on a traditional airplane.
Most commercial airliners fly between 11.5 and 12 kilometers high in the sky, but the Overture will fly at about 18.29 kilometers by comparison. The higher a plane flies, the thinner the air is, resulting in less turbulence (颠簸).
As Lourdes Maurice, a mechanical engineer and advisor to Boom Supersonic, remarked about her supersonic flight on the Concorde, the Overture's predecessor: "Climbing to 60,000 feet (about 18.29 km) was incredibly smooth. There was no turbulence. We knew we were flying supersonically, but our bodies didn't give us any signs."
Since the first supersonic flight by the US Air Force in October 1947 and the first commercial supersonic flight in 1976, the promise of supersonic flight has been an alluring goal; yet, the path forward has seen many obstacles. The biggest problem is that massive, powerful sound waves called "sonic booms" are created when an object breaks the sound barrier.
Similar to thunder, these sonic booms are difficult to ignore when flying over residential areas. Besides noise pollution, the use of supersonic aircraft has also been criticized for is huge fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions, resulting in bans on supersonic commercial flights in many countries.
Since the last commercial supersonic flight of the Concorde in 2003, the dream of supersonic travel appeared dead. However, with improvements being made to supersonic plane designs and fuel efficiency, the dream could come back to life once more.
