Raise the Boom

One of my biggest regrets is that I screwed myself out of the chance to fly on the Concorde. My then-boyfriend, who was richer than God, had booked us tickets to Paris on the supersonic aircraft, but an argument ended up getting me disinvited from the trip as punishment. Although I'm certain I was in the right over whatever it was we were fighting about, I should have had the good sense just to keep my yap shut long enough to get on the plane. 

For those of you too young to remember, the Concorde was a super-luxurious aircraft that began commercial service in 1976 and could travel at speeds over Mach 2.0 (or, twice the speed of sound), which meant a transatlantic flight from London to New York took half the time of a regular commercial flight. However prohibitively expensive ticket prices and a crash of one of the planes in 2000 effectively spelled doom for supersonic travel. And so, the remaining Concordes were retired in 2003, simultaneously murdering my dreams of hurling through space faster than sound.

That is, until now (or, at least, soon from now). A new company called Boom Technology has plans to bring supersonic travel back in a big, affordable way. In fact, they plan to rollout the fastest passenger plane ever made (Mach 2.2) with seats costing the equivalent of a business-class fare on regular planes. Think 3.5 hours from New York to London for around $5,000.

Boom plans to fly a one-third scale prototype in late 2017 and already has 25 aircraft on order (10 from Virgin Airlines and 15 from another, not-yet-named European carrier.)

Haha! Suck it ex-boyfriend.