Aerion, a Florida-based supersonic jetliner company, recently debuted its prototype AS3TM, a “quadruple-sonic-plus” airliner that it claims will cut the flight time from Los Angeles to Tokyo from the current 9+ hours to 2.5 hours at speeds in excess of 3,000 mph.
Aerion reportedly said that conceptualization and design work on the aircraft is underway, with the design “based on input from potential customers.” The aircraft is designed to carry 50 passengers at “Mach 4+” speeds, reducing the time for the 8,000-mile or so flight from Los Angeles to Tokyo to 2.5 hours from the current 9+ hours.
The AS3TM is a supersonic jetliner that is said to be “four times faster than the speed of sound” and travels at more than 3,000 mph.
Aerion said the AS3TM airliner will “use revolutionary technology advances” to improve the efficiency of supersonic flight and reduce the environmental impact.
Earlier this year, Aerion reportedly expanded its partnership with NASA’s Langley Research Center to accelerate commercial high-speed flight and faster point-to-point travel, with a particular focus on commercial flight in the Mach 3-5 range.
Tom Vice, Aerion’s chairman, president and CEO, said the company’s vision is to achieve a future where humans can travel between any two points on Earth in less than three hours.
The 1,000-mile-per-hour AS2 business jet.
Before the AS3TM takes to the skies, Aerion reportedly plans to launch the 1,000-mile-per-hour AS2 business jet.
This year, the company began building what it says is the “world’s most advanced” headquarters, Aerion Park, where the airliner will be built, tested and customized, and eventually operational by 2027. The headquarters will reportedly produce the first 300 jetliners.
According to Tom Vice, Aerion Park will be a fully integrated campus for aeronautical design, research and manufacturing, covering more than 110 acres with 2 million square feet of buildings alone, the size of 14 soccer fields.
A schematic of the supersonic jetliner park being built by Aerion.
Within the campus will be all the major elements to build a complete aircraft on site, as well as an engineering flight test headquarters that will allow the company to test the AS2 business jet directly on site and in the surrounding airspace.
Aerion is reportedly not the only player in the supersonic airliner market, with U.S. startups Boom Supersonic and Spike Aerospace also working to introduce supersonic passenger transport.
However, Tom Vice said that Aerion is the “leader” in supersonic airliners. He said the team behind the AS2 is made up of “the world’s largest aerospace companies,” including Boeing, GE, Spirit Aerosystems, Safran, BAE, Honeywell, Aernnova, GKN and Raytheon Technologies, which will collaborate with Aerion to design and build the aircraft.
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