Aerion is taking matters into their own hands. Since the retirement of the Concorde in 2003, companies within the commercial airline industry have done little to nothing about supersonic flight. As Boeing, Dassault, and Airbus have dabbled into designs, they are mainly waiting for policies to change. The FAA has restricted supersonic flight in U.S. Domestic airspace. A common way to get around this policy is by flying over the ocean. Aerion isn’t waiting. They are looking to bring their finished product to the market by 2021.

The Concorde was a flawed engineering product of the 1970s. Almost 40 years ago, the idea of looking into the NLF(natural laminar flow) was out of reality. Engineers didn’t have the technology or the capability of creating simulations and prototypes accurately to benefit from this concept. The NLF is the area between the atmosphere and fuselage that allows clean and smooth flight.  This allows significant potential for fuel efficient flying at and near supersonic speeds. Aerion’s philosophy was centered around fuel efficiency and maximizing the NLF. Aerion’s engineers optimized the NLF to within almost 60% of the SBJ’s airframe. However, these concepts weren’t the only priorities. In order to fly over Europe and meet regulations they needed to minimize the sonic boom. To dampen the booms, they moved the traditional swept back wings to being thin and perpendicular to the fuselage. Look at the picture closely, it does not look like the ideal fuselage that you see today. Aerion maximized the SBJ’s flight speed to be right below supersonic speed (647 mph) and one at cruising speed out on the ocean at 1056 mph. Aerion is looking to push the FAA into updating it’s regulations and restrictions to allowing supersonic flight in the U.S., but will not wait for the policy to change. They will be the early birds in this bright morning competition.

http://www.popsci.com/article/technology/beyond-boom

http://aerioncorp.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerion