Aerion, in partnership with Airbus, is developing the Mach 1.5+ AS2 supersonic business jet (SSBJ), which is now expected to be certified in 2023. Final assembly is likely to be conducted in the U.S. (Photo: Aerion Corp.)
Posted on 09/25/2015 8:36:24 AM PDT by sukhoi-30mki
Speaking at the Wichita Aero Club on Monday evening, Aerion Corp. chairman Brian Barents said that “we are on the verge of a new supersonic age” in air travel. Aerion, in partnership with Airbus, is developing the Mach 1.5+ AS2 supersonic business jet (SSBJ), which is now expected to be certified in 2023. Final assembly is likely to be conducted in the U.S., he revealed.
The company’s market studies suggest a demand for 600 SSBJs over 20 years, even at the three-engine AS2’s $120 million price point and with a restriction that the aircraft be operated at subsonic speeds over land, he noted. “For the first 10 to 15 years, the supersonic market will consist of entrepreneurs, ultra-high-net-worth individuals and, over time, more corporate customers, as well as perhaps governments,” Barents told attendees. “These will be the pioneers of the new supersonic age.”
Speaking about the AS2’s powerplant, he said that Aerion is seeking an engine that meets Stage 4 noise and emissions standards, as well as provides for growth. “We have had some fruitful discussions with the major engine suppliers,” Barents noted, “about which we hope to have more to say soon.”
He said the largest hurdle for the company is not sonic boom mitigation—since the AS2 can reach about 5,000 nm at either Mach 0.95 or Mach 1.4—but meeting airport noise standards. “Without a change to community noise regulations, a new generation of low-boom supersonic [aircraft] will literally not get off the ground,” Barents maintained. “That is why we are advocating in our discussions with NASA, the FAA and international bodies for new research aimed at the development of an appropriate noise standard for supersonic aircraft—one that provides an equivalent level of noise reduction to that required of subsonic aircraft.”
This “physics based” approach is consistent with the “equivalent technology” and “economic reasonableness” principles that the FAA has employed in the noise-reduction requirements in current rules. “A new standard would enable the development of supersonic aircraft that are aerodynamically efficient, fuel efficient and minimize community noise emissions consistent with maintaining economic viability,” Barents said.
Meanwhile, Airbus “will play a large role in the development of the AS2,” he noted, adding that the airframer is “our OEM partner” and is with Aerion “to the finish line.” Barents also pointed to Airbus’s “significant U.S. resources,” saying that he would not be surprised to see the company collaborate with Airbus divisions in the U.S. “Aerion will own the AS2 type certificate,” he said. “And we anticipate Aerion will conduct final assembly in the U.S., with extensive support from Airbus in engineering manufacturing and certification.”
Aerion, in partnership with Airbus, is developing the Mach 1.5+ AS2 supersonic business jet (SSBJ), which is now expected to be certified in 2023. Final assembly is likely to be conducted in the U.S. (Photo: Aerion Corp.)
You might say that without allowances by individual local authorities, the project is nothing but sound and fury, signifying nothing.
If an F-104 and a DC-10 had a baby...
You’ll just love the opver-land sonic booms!!
OTOH - if you live in the vicinity of an airport and don't hear much, or are comfortable with what you do hear --- but then the rules change to allow a few billionaires or corporations to go screaming in and out in SS jets, then you have a legit gripe.
I’ve been designing supersonic spaceplanes in the “Kerbal Space Program” game. Tricky stuff. Got one to fly to the moon and back. Then I tried to redesign it add a small lander craft, but that seems to be breaking the camel’s back.
120 tons, I can get into orbit and then on to other destinations, but 130 tons, and I can’t get the weight balanced right and the thing starts flipping head over heals :(
The world needs dreamers and visionaries but this sounds like a scheme to separate investors from their money.
Notice the very small amount of the fuselage dedicated to windows. I guess the after section is dedicated to fuel.
Looks like a wishful boondoggle to me. FAA isn’t going to budge on noise standards.
Are Al Gore and Nancy Pelosi already on waiting list for one of these?
In fact, I expect this new private jet to have these characteristics:
1. Full ICAO Stage IV noise compliance.
2. Full compliance with the latest jet engine exhaust emission standards.
3. Limited to a top speed of around Mach 1.6.
4. Mach 1.6 limit means less need for fuel-consuming afterburner operation (possibly even less so if the engine can supercruise like the F-22A Raptor engine).
5. Mach 1.6 limit means far less need for very expensive high-temperature tolerant stainless steel or titanium structural components. In fact, it allows for far more use of composites, lowering the plane's weight even further.
5. Mach 1.6 limit means it makes it easier to "shape" the fuselage design to effectively eliminate the sonic boom at flight altitude (55,000 to 57,000 feet).
6. The plane will be able to fly 5,500 to 5,800 nautical miles, which means Los Angeles to Tokyo non-stop at full cruising speed or one-stop flying from Los Angeles to Sydney at full-cruising speed.
Indeed, NetJets--owned by Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway holding company--would immediately buy 100 planes if they were available now, because they know many clients are willing to pay the cost of flying just under twice the speed of today's jet airliners.
Didn’t Richard Gere
have something to do
with a kerbal
a few years ago?
These are Kerbals:
This thing is supposed to have a ‘soft boomlet’ around MACH 1.1 that theoretically, would allow for SS speeds overland.
Doncha’ just love “theoretically”? The glass in your windows will be the final judge.
I grew up in the 60s. The Navy pilots occasionally got over-enthusiastic. It wasn’t a big deal when you got used to it.
Wonder if you could weaponize it.
Not being a pilot, most people will quickly tire of the noise and novelty, not to mention the occasional lawsuit and broken window ... this is over land, not over water sonic booms.
Which is what I was talking about. The old piston propeller planes were a lot more intrusive. They’d always mess with the TV signals.
Yeah I remember the over the air TV flutter form low flying planes - high flying planes and cable/TV boxes have solved that problem. Sonic booms, which is what I was talking about, are, at best, annoying.
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