Comment by SkyMarshal
18 hours ago
That may be true for domestic coast-to-coast flights, but not for transoceanic ones across the Atlantic, or especially the Pacific, or north-south across hemispheres, that can take 8+ hours. Flight time is a higher portion of the total travel time in those cases, and seems like the main market for Boom, especially if they initially target Business Class flyers who do those kinds of trips regularly.
Boom XB-1 did 750 mph air speed. If I've got an 8 hour flight at 561 mph in an A380 that's a reduction to 5.984 hours when I move to the Boom XB-1. Who cares about saving 1.1 hours on a transatlantic flight. There is a reason why Concorde's cruise speed was 1,341 mph.
So when Boom makes a commercial airliner that hits 1000+ mph with the same availability and turnaround time as a typical passenger plane then I'll pay attention. Until then, it's for rich people who can buy their own plane.
XB-1 is only the demonstrator. They aim to produce commercial airline that can cruise at 1.7 Mach. NYC to London in 3.30h instead of 6h.
Rich people can already buy private jet that is much more comfortable than supersonic one.
https://boomsupersonic.com/overture
8 hours - 5.984 hours = 1.1 hours? My math works out to just over 2 hours of time saved.
My mistake, it is 2 hours of time saved.