Global Trend

The Need for Speed and the Supersonic Boom

In prior issues, we’ve discussed the emerging category of $1 million to $2 million micro-jets and the even more exciting VTOL Skycar technology. These developments promise to bring business aviation to a whole new category of small and midsize businesses. But what’s going to happen for the elite who already spend $40 million to $100 million for Gulfstreams and Boeing Business Jets?

For those top-of-the-line business travelers, there is a boom ahead: a sonic boom. As early as 2010, the new fleets of business jets will include sleek, supersonic 12-passenger aircraft that can deliver passengers from New York to Paris in just over four hours. Commercial service and today’s corporate planes take eight hours. Until a few years ago, you had the option of the Concorde, but then, of course, you had to leave at the airline’s convenience.

Aviation Week & Space Technology reported in October 2004 on the ongoing development of two supersonic business jets, or SSBJs, and the high expectations for business aviation in general. First, Aerion Corporation, an engineering group based in Reno, Nevada announced that it was working on a jet that would cruise at Mach 1.5.

Close on the heels of that announcement, Supersonic Aerospace International said that it was developing a supersonic business jet that it called the Quiet Small Supersonic Transport, or QSST. It is expected to cruise at Mach 1.6, with a range of 4,000 nautical miles. Both planes will cost around $80 million.

What is driving this push for such a specialized aviation product for such a relatively small market?

First, there’s pent-up demand, fueled by the perceived advantages of doing global business anywhere and anytime around the globe.

Second, technological breakthroughs have addressed some of the traditional supersonic drawbacks ? such as reduced sonic boom signatures. Additionally, there is something called supersonic natural laminar flow technology that paves the way for a wing design that promises previously unachievable supersonic range and efficiency. Also, various aircraft engine manufacturers are making radical modifications to their engine designs in order to push beyond the limited commercial aircraft marketplace.

Third, a substantial amount of money is poised to seed these ventures ? largely because of the potentially huge payoff, but also because some venture capitalists haven’t seen a product this attractive in a long time.

Traditional aircraft companies have looked into coming up with supersonic business jets for a decade or more. Lockheed Martin’s research projects a market demand of between 250 and 700 aircraft over the next 10 years. Plus, global corporations have stepped up the need for transcontinental business travel. However, most flights aren’t any faster than they were 40 years ago. The 1960s-vintage Concorde turned out to be unworkable because of high costs and sonic booms.

The major aerospace companies ? Lockheed, Gulfstream, and others ? have complained to the FAA that they are unable to develop the next generation of super-fast transportation until the government comes up with regulations that cover supersonic flights over land ? which will likely limit the nature and intensity of supersonic noise.

With this in mind, let’s take a look at the new contenders for this business.

Aerion’s jet is the one that would utilize the patented supersonic natural laminar flow technology that had been 10 years in the making from Asset Group, whose president is now Aerion’s chief of technology. Aerion’s jet has a 1,400-square-foot, straight, upswept-wing design that, according to Aviation Week & Space Technology, “substantially reduces drag at supersonic and transonic cruise speeds.” Aerion Vice Chairman Brian Barents characterizes their SSBJ as “a blend of the new and proven,” able to cruise at Mach 1.5, with eight to 12 passengers aboard.

Fort Worth billionaire Robert Bass was impressed with the new technology and created Aerion to develop an SSBJ. The jet will have a range of 4,000 nautical miles ? whether it’s cruising at subsonic or supersonic speeds. More importantly, it creates a low-sonic-boom signature, and even achieves a boom-free cruise up to Mach 1.1.

Today, supersonic commercial flights are banned over the continental U.S. because they produce unacceptable booms. But, if Aerion can convince the FAA that its jet can fly above the speed of sound while not producing a sonic boom, it could fly coast to coast in just under four hours.

J. Michael Paulson chairs the other player, Supersonic Aerospace International. SAI, as the company is known, announced that it had produced a real “achievement in tackling the challenge of producing a supersonic business jet with innovative sonic-boom technology.” The company has turned over the design work for its Quiet Small Supersonic Transport to the Lockheed Martin Skunk Works and is recruiting a global group of partners to raise the $3 billion necessary to fund the project.

Paulson claims that Lockheed Martin has come up with a technology that shrinks the plane’s sonic boom to about 1 percent of that of the Concorde. His late father, Allen E. Paulson, the founder and chairman of Gulfstream, tried to produce an SSBJ in the late 1980s. Michael Paulson spent $25 million left in a trust by his father to fund research by a group of engineers at Lockheed. Lockheed is a company that has plenty of experience building supersonic aircraft for the U.S. military, including the legendary SR-71 Blackbird.

SAI has already applied for 27 patents covering various aspects of supersonic aircraft. The design model the company unveiled is of a swept-wing plane, with an inverted-V tail, that would seat eight to 12 passengers and be able to cruise at between Mach 1.6 and 1.8. Paulson expects to market 300 to 400 of them over 15 years. The first flight is expected to take off in 2010.

The success of both planes, however, is ultimately predicated on the solution of the noise problems posed by supersonic flights over land. Flight International recently reported on the progress scientists have made in being able to design aircraft so as to “shape” a sonic boom so that its intensity can be predictably reduced. The scientists can even give the boom its own signature. What they are now working on is which signatures might be acceptable to civilian populations under flight paths of planes that will accelerate beyond the sound barrier.

According to this and other reports, we seem to be close to solving the technological issues that have limited high-speed air travel over land. And it looks as though the high-end business jet market will lead the way to solving the problems.

We expect the SSBJ trend to have a substantial impact on both aviation and business. Looking ahead, the Trends editors would like to offer four forecasts:

First, global business will embrace supersonic jets. Corporations are already generous with their top executives in terms of private jet travel. SSBJs will seem like a small step up in cost, with a huge perceived advantage. Fractional ownership services and charters can be expected to make these tools available to midsize businesses as well.

Second, the advances in business jet technology will trickle down to commercial aviation ? but only to a very small segment of the industry. Supersonic transcontinental air travel is the shot in the arm commercial aviation has been waiting for. The beleaguered airlines will use it sparingly and will charge dearly for the luxury of speed.

Third, SSBJs will reinforce global, multinational corporations whose operations and influence already make borders and time zones essentially meaningless.

Fourth, Aerion and SAI are likely to become “glamour stocks” of the coming decade. Today, both are privately funded ventures. But they are producing precisely the kind of exciting product that inspires the imaginations of investors. Once product deliveries start, can a well-publicized IPO be far behind?

References List :
1. Aviation Week & Space Technology, October 18, 2004, "Show Hits Mach 1: Supersonic Bizjets, Derivative Aircraft Mark 57th Annual NBAA Convention," by Edward H. Phillips. ⓒ Copyright 2004 by Aviation Week, a division of The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.2. The Fort-Worth Star ? Telegram, October 12, 2004, "Bass-Backed Firm Plans Supersonic Business Jet," by Ilene Aleshire. ⓒ Copyright 2004 by The Fort-Worth Star ? Telegram. All rights reserved.3. Flight International, October 5, 2004, "Aerion to Unveil Supersonic Plans," by Kate Sarsfield. ⓒ Copyright 2004 by Reed Business Information Limited. All rights reserved.