You have to love the name…
We’re building the supersonic airliner that anyone can fly? Call be Thomas but I very much doubt that.
You may laugh but apparently there is a worldwide market for a few hundred supersonic bizjets at around the $200M mark.
A number of design bureaus around the world are working on this stuff.
Plenty of people to whom 200M is nothing… a must-have item.
They are stupid. And always have been. Development of such a thing costs more than that of an airliner. Only that airliner development costs can be shared among 2000 units built. Of these supersonic bizjets, 200 will ever be built (at best). My estimate would be less than 50. (How many Concordes did they want to build? And how many were actually built…). Other than with Concorde, there will be zero government funding for such a project, which will bring the unit price up to a level which not even international mafiosi (or “oligarchs” or whatever they are called in various parts of the world) can afford. Add to that the fact that operating such a plane will cost as much as operating a Concorde, only that the price will not be shared by 100 ticket holders.
And now, coming back to my initial statement, instead of concentrating the industry effort on funding and developing one such project, a total number of 8 design bureaus are competing for a market of 50 units (this new Boom-thing and those seven here: https://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/m-as-in-mach-seven-supersonic-business-jet-dreams-412079/ ). How stupid is that?
Re the Flight Global list, the ‘Supersonic Aerospace International’ effort was I believe started as a retirement project of Allen Paulson, Gulfstream founder. At that time, an old girlfriend worked for a non-aviation partnership he led. I had dinner with him once, in a group, and was the only one there interested in planes so he was interested in talking with me. That day he had been to Lockheed Skunk Works to discuss the project with them. I got the impression he could call them up and drop by when he wanted 
He mentioned pursuing the idea with Suhkoi first, but that they were in disarray by that time. You can see similarities between the SAI and Suhkoi concepts.
Go Boom ?
Silvaire wrote:
Silvaire
19-Oct-16 14:08
#06Re the Flight Global list, the ‘Supersonic Aerospace International’ effort was I believe started as a retirement project of Allen Paulson, Gulfstream founder. At that time, an old girlfriend worked for a non-aviation partnership he led. I had dinner with him once, in a group, and was the only one there interested in planes so he was interested in talking with me. That day he had been to Lockheed Skunk Works to discuss the project with them. I got the impression he could call them up and drop by when he wanted He mentioned pursuing the idea with Suhkoi first, but that they were in disarray by that time. You can see similarities between the SAI and Suhkoi concepts.
Last Edited by Silvaire at 19 Oct 14:43
Pilot
Silvaire
USA
I remember reading somewhere at the time that he had talk to Suhkoi about the airframe and Rolls about the engines. The story was that the British government weren’t too enthusiastic about Suhkoi getting access to RR engine technology at that time.
One of my books has a concept drawing of an XB70 Valkyrie modified as a high speed transport for a dozen or so military bigwigs. McNamara must have had kittens.
I wanted to post this yesterday but some Chinese webcams were stopping me:
The world’s ultimate Bizjet carrying 36 persons at Mach 3+:
