Posted on 06/27/2025 5:50:24 AM PDT by Red Badger
British Airways Concorde G-BOAC Eduard Marmet/Wikimedia Commons
The legendary Concorde, a supersonic airliner, is slated to make its commercial comeback by 2026.
The U.S. President Donald J. Trump signed legislation that lifted the previous ban on supersonic flight over land on June 6, 2025.
“This order begins a historic national effort to reestablish the United States as the undisputed leader in high-speed aviation,” the official White House statement stated.
Since 1973, this ban has ensured that American skies remained free of sonic booms.
The new rule change paves the way for a new age of air travel, which will be “faster, quieter, safer, and more efficient than ever before.”
With this new rule, Fly-Concorde Limited plans to return supersonic passenger flights from the U.S.
The redesigned Concorde is expected to fly with greater speed, less noise, and reduced emissions compared to the original version.
Use of sustainable fuel
The new Concorde version will keep its classic look, but it’s been redesigned with modern engineering, making it a very different aircraft from the original.
It’ll be 50% lighter, thanks to advanced composite materials.
And in a monumental leap for environmental responsibility, it will run on Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF), slashing emissions by a remarkable 80%.
As per the website, the new Concorde is expected to fly at 60,000 feet, a considerably greater height than standard commercial jets.
Interestingly, it could slash the London to New York flight time to just 2 hours, down from the current 6 hours and 12 minutes.
“A lot of people are already talking about supersonic flight, that it’s an enormous step forward to get there and would require billions of dollars of investment — we have to take all this one step at a time, because our airplane the CONCORDE already flew for the past 60 years and for 30 years carried more than 2 million paying customers across the skies,” said Dr Pano Kroko Churchill, founder and CEO of Fly Concorde.
“It’s an evolution that’s come full circle with the new CONCORDE,” Churchill added.
High competition
To fully grasp the significance of this return, it’s essential to understand its beginnings.
The Concorde’s development began with a visionary 1962 treaty between France and the UK, a joint effort to conquer the challenges of supersonic transport
After its first flight in 1969, the Concorde began commercial service on January 21, 1976.
British Airways and Air France launched initial routes, quickly adding transatlantic flights to Washington Dulles and New York JFK that took less than three and a half hours, a remarkable speed for its time. Flying at Mach 2.04 (2,179 km/h), it was considered an engineering marvel.
Despite initial worldwide interest, the original Concorde struggled commercially due to high operating costs, restricted routes (primarily because of its loud sonic boom), and continuous financial losses. Reportedly, only 14 aircraft ever entered service.
Then, tragedy struck. On July 25, 2000, Air France Flight 4590 crashed shortly after takeoff from Paris. The incident involved a tire bursting, a fuel tank puncturing, and a devastating fire erupting. All 109 on board and 4 on the ground perished.
This terrible accident, compounded by rising maintenance costs and fewer passengers, signaled the end for the Concorde.
Air France retired its planes in May 2003, and British Airways followed in October of the same year, seemingly ending commercial supersonic flights.
With its planned return by 2026, the Concorde is re-entering a competitive field.
It now joins several other companies – Boom Supersonic, Exosonic, Spike Aerospace, and Hermeus – all actively working to develop the next generation of supersonic (and even hypersonic) aircraft.
,,, neither do I, apart from the time Richard Branson was crossing the Atlantic in a high tech hot air balloon. The crew of a Concorde flight sent him a radio message to say they were approaching, albeit a fair distance from him as they were to pass. He said the balloon rocked violently from the wake and [probably] the boom.
Well yeah. It’s a museum on the Hudson River. Maybe Sully landed near by but that’s about it.
Think barges and cranes
“ BTW. Ever heard a sonic boom? It’s a thunder clap right next to your head. You really don’t want them flying supersonic over your house, unless you own a window replacement company. ;~))”. You are mistaken. Years ago, Concorde was flying over my house every Sunday around 2 pm on its way to landing at IAD, and there were no sonic boom, just a thrilling sight.
The Concord did not fly supersonic over land, only over the ocean. That was agreed to before it began operations.
Anyone who believes a new commerical airplane will be designed, built, certified and flying passengers over the Atlantic by 2026 is more gullible than a Biden voter.
Even if you use the existing Concord as the basis for your platform. There is ZERO chance a new concord will be flying passengers by 2026
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