Aerodynamic shapes don’t simply “scale up”. Plus, supersonic cruise is going to require revolutionary engines, a lot of fuel, and some kind of strategy to deal with heat dissipation. All of this means that, like the Concorde, it will be non-competitive for the average passenger dollar. But then John Kerry can get to the annual Davos forum much more quickly and without having to rub elbow with non-elite passengers who rudely snap pictures of is maskless horse-face.
Probably over $4,000 per seat, one way.
“Plus, supersonic cruise is going to require revolutionary engines, a lot of fuel, and some kind of strategy to deal with heat dissipation.”
Say hello to the SR-71.
Um, I really don’t have time to debate the reality of supersonic cruise engines but with a little websearching, you can find many current examples, all of them with very good SFC and decades of flight history in their predecessor engines.
Note the paragraph about “In 1988, ...Preliminary study had shown that IDF could supercruise with the new engine. ....”
In addition, the AS2 will use the GE Affinity Engine which is really just an adaptation of the CFM56 with some interesting extra diffusion provided by the second stage fan compounding and a not surprising medium bypass flow split, typical for a supersonic design point.
Nothing “revolutionary” unless you compare it to their now aging 1970s F404 designs.
So the engines are really the driving factor. The modern 3D Viscous/MDO code designs are light years ahead of where we were in 1965, which is the last time real supersonic aircraft were even attempted.
The real issue is sonic boom, and there are all kinds of good approaches now to mitigate that, but it’s an airframe/operations problem, not an engine problem.
The winner of the supersonic bizjet/airliner competition starting now will be the one with the best marketing plan, not the latest/greatest technology - the technology is there to do this.
That fact has been recognized by many and that’s why there’s so much activity: just takes the will power to get it done now.