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.
Plus putting modern engines on them not 1960s tech afterburner turbojets is going to cut fuel burn in half if not more. This is why they on their website show trans Pacific flights nonstop something the original Concorde could not do. They are expecting the range to double at least and with custom high density SAF add 15-20% more range due just to the fuel itself. That’s LAX to Sydney or San Francisco to Tokyo ranges. Which they show in then web information.
So the cost of $3 on a JFK to London is not 655 each way it’s half that with new engines.
Oil is running out eventually and aircraft need high density liquid fuels the sooner we move to SAF the better it is for our species. The Permian will be drilled and tapped out in less than 2 decades at the current drop rates. I should know I drill there in the regular as a petroleum geo.
Exxon bought the remainder of the tier one acreage for Pioneer for cheap for a reason. PNR had already drilled out with megapads the prime tier one lands. I spent 5 years with PNR and 5 more with Exxon doing just that. I can DD drill the wolfcamp in my sleep literally thousands of wells under my hat. We need to be thinking about saving some of that valuable resource for plastics,fertilizers,medications, lubricants and everything else that makes modern life work.
Actually it’s right next to it. Though a space shuttle sits on the deck
I’m pretty sure it didn’t get there by landing............😁
But a massive Agenda 2030 violation or anyone but the global elite.
“As I said”
$8.81 vs 6.18 is only $2.63 per gallon and SAF is a boutique fuel with limited production. When it scales up that price difference shrinks. Plus as petroleum products get more expensive with resources depletion only makes the case stronger for SAF.
In the sense of this aircraft and it’s price point for fares it won’t matter much on since it needs specialty fuels, and with modern engines it’s going to burn half as much as it’s old 1960 engines did.
Air travel used to be a luxury and only well off people flew or could fly. It will go back to that unless SAF tech is done and done before resource depletion pushes oil to a price point that makes budget airlines break. Again Concorde is not abudget airline they will price this at what the jet set will bear the demand will be huge even at $10000 tickets two flights a day would be sold out for sure.
Do you not understand net zero?!?
I doubt that very much. It expensive as hell to keep aircraft in mothballs. Who’s paying all these years for that? And those are 50 year old airframes not modern composites. And the idea that they could build a new aircraft, flight test it, and go through all the required approvals in what… 18 months? Someone’s playing games here. Watch your wallet.
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. ;~))
The Concorde was,is and, always will be for the elite. That’s just how it is.
If they succeed in getting new composite frames and wings, plus modern engines that don’t need afterburner to supercruise they might get business class down to something the upper middle class can afford for a trip just to do it as a bucket list thing. The regular users are always going to be executives, and trust funders, and silicon valley types.
Right. And their flights must go on, no matter how hypocritical their UN-compliant posturing.
How long ago?
Ive lived both too
80s
It sure looks changed
I was in Manhattan six years ago
A bit more ethnic
Apparently the owners of Concorde just got a patent on boom reduction this year. NASA has been working on it for a while now. Boom sonic the business jet sized competitor also holds patents and have been flying a test rig for some time too with NASA. They aim to reduce the PSI from 60,000 feet to something that won’t break glass. I am sure POTUS was shown the data before he signed off on overland flights. The routes will be transcon across flyover country in the Dakotas, Montana and the desert South West. There won’t be Concorde to anywhere but probably NYC to LAX, SFO, SEATAC to NYC maybe DFW or Houston to NYC. All the main flights will be from NYC,LAX,DC,MIAMI to intercontinental destinations.
Boom.sonic is a 50 seater and they do plan on flights all over the USA. I could see a partnership as Boom doesn’t have the legs for trans Pacific flights. They get people to LAX or NYC and then Concorde does the long legs. Boom has flown over land already at white sands and you could barely hear it at ground level impressive tech.
“Do you not understand net zero?!?”
I am aware of netzero it cannot be achieved without a massive drop in resource use. In theory nuclear power, solar ,wind and biomass could get close. Add in some seawater capture or bury biomass in landfills salted with rock salt to keep decay at near zero and yea the math works it would be hideously wasteful yo bury biomass but it could be done as that would turn the overall balance negative. The question would be can you have 8.8 billion people with anywhere near a livable standard of living if you have to bury 3/4 of your biomass per year to offset the petrochemicals you still need for all the not fuel uses of liquid hydrocarbons. The answer is probably not, a small select few could live pretty lavishly and hit net zero it won’t be cheap that’s for sure.
Again as at today, only 15% of London’s population is Muslim, despite years of having a Muslim mayor.
NYC at less than 10%.
That’s not the issue. It is the hypocrisy of globalists who claim to support it burning fuel to travel—and shave a couple of hours off at that.
Everything will run out eventually, but we have no evidence of the maximum output of oil produced within the earth and how near we are to that end.
The jet set liberals are the loudest of the climate commies bunch.
But SAF made with lignin and other biomass via syngas is at least 80% net zero it actually wouldn’t be that hard to tune the gasification process to leave behind solid biochar which is 95+% pure carbon. Simply putting that into a old mine shaft or salt mine or landfill would turn the equation fully negative as you are removing carbon from the air in larger amounts than the burning of the SAF makes. Better use would be to plow that biochar into the fields used to grow the biomass it is the same thing as terra preta soil which holds more water, has higher yields, and needs less fertilizers while locking carbon into soil for thousands of years. There is 1000+ year old terra preta soil in the Amazon basin made by ingenious people so that proves the soil lasts and also is known for it’s high fertility.
The point is if they burn SAF they largely get to actually say it’s green, well greener you still have NOx ,and particulates in the stratospheric levels, but all jets do this and with 100,000+ flights per day a dozen Concorde flights per day is not even a rounding error.
The ticket price used to be $1500. I wonder what it will be now?
Probably the same, adjusted for inflation, since now there will be more competition from other planned supersonic craft.........
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.