Following Concorde’s retirement in 2003 after a little over a quarter of a century of service, air routes were left without any commercial supersonic aircraft, with no sign of anyone trying to develop a replacement. Things seem to be going in the right direction though, if the partnership between Airbus Group and Aerion Corporation is any indication.
The European aerospace giant and the Nevada-based corporation have teamed up to work on making the AS2 supersonic business jet prototype a feasible method of travel. Each company is expected to bring its vast expertise to the table: Airbus will be offering technical support, including in the form of senior engineering staff who will work closely Aerion, which is working on building and certifying a supersonic business jet by 2021. Aerion will, in turn, provide proprietary technologies to Airbus, including patented aerodynamic designs.
In the end, both sides have much to gain from this collaboration, with the ultimate winners being the eventual passengers, who will have their travel times greatly reduced (three hours less for a flight from Paris to Washington, almost four and a half hours from San Francisco to Tokyo).
