‘Son of Concorde’ jet that could fly from London to NYC in 3.5hr reaches new heights ahead of major supersonic flight

THE soon-to-be supersonic XB-1 plane has flown higher than it ever has before in its most recent flight test.

The super-fast jet, fromColorado-based Boom Technology, completed its eighth flight test this weekend.

During a flight lasting approximately 54minutes, the XB-1 plane reached a new max altitude of 25,040ft.

That is more than 2,000ft higher than its previous flight test.

Engineers intend to fly the plane higher, and faster, until it eventually reaches supersonic speeds of Mach 1, which is the speed of sound.

At this speed, the XB-1 plane could ferry passengers fromLondontoNew York Cityin just 3.5hours.

The eighth flight test confirmed that flying at eyewatering speeds of Mach 0.8 or 614mph is safe, even with the stability augmentation system switched off.

“XB-1 cleared this requirement, confirming that the pilot can safely control the aircraft at higher speeds even in the event of a stability augmentation system failure,” the team wrote in a flight test update.

Designing a plane that is stable, very fast, and doesn’t rely on computerised augmentation to stay safe in the air has been a challenge, the team said.

Many modern fighter jets, which can fly from Mach 1.2 to Mach 2.5, use automated systems that make constant adjustments to the flight path in order to maintain stability.

They added: “While XB-1 does have this kind of system, called the stability augmentation system, the team is assessing the aircraft with the system off at increasing speeds – this is a requirement prior to supersonic flight that XB-1 successfully cleared during this flight.”

A little over a week ago, the jet took off for its seventh test flight, in which it reached a new top speed.

It hit speeds of Mach 0.82 – or 499 knots, up from Mach 0.67 on its sixth flight.

The XB-1 made its inaugural test flight in March this year.

It is unclear when Boom will commence the ninth test flight; however, it could be in as little as two weeks’ time if the company follows its current pace.

Commercial supersonic flight over land has been banned in the US for more than 50 years, and about 20 years in the UK, because of the noise of sonic booms.

There have been no commercial aircraft even capable of supersonic flight since the Concorde.

The aircraft were banned in the UK because they were deemed too noisy and extremely expensive to operate.

With restricted flight availability, fares were often too high for most customers.

There are an increasing number of companies trying to build supersonic aircraft, now regulators are poised to review the bans.

Plans to build even faster hypersonic jets are also rolling off the shelves.

Supersonic and hypersonic are basically one and the same.

Supersonic means faster than the speed of sound.

While hypersonic means specifically five times faster than the speed of sound.

So anything that reaches hypersonic speeds, is also technically supersonic.

But not every supersonic aircraft is hypersonic.