TRUMP has shown off designs for the “Son of Concorde” supersonic jet, as the firm behind it readies to run ultra-fast flights from London to New York.
The President beamed as he posed with a miniature model of a plane being built by Boom Technology – presented to him by the firm’s CEO.
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Boom chief Blake Scholl posted the proud photo to X.
He suggested that Boom should manufacture Air Force One – the President’s personal plane – and took a cheeky dig at China.
He wrote: “Air Fore Once should be supersonic. Xi [President of China] can keep his 747-8.”
The design in the President’s hand is Boom’s Overture model, dubbed the “Son of Concorde” because it will fly faster than the speed of sound – as the original Concorde did.
Bosses at Colorado-based Boom Technology say it will be the first US-built commercial supersonic jet to hit the market.
The super-jet is expected to whizz up to 80 passengers from London to New York in just 3.5 hours.
It promises to slash the current 8hr 15mins passengers spend in the air over the Atlantic.
The company has built a plane called Boom XB-1 – known as “Baby Boom” – which is a one-third scale model of the Overture airliner design.
Progress has been rapid since XB-1’s first test flight in March last year, but the real fun started in January when it made its first supersonic flight.
The aircraft smashed through the 767mph sound barrier – sending a sonic boom rippling through the air on two occasions.
It was followed by a chase plane, T-38, which live-streamed the action.
The jet took off from Mojave Air & Space Port in California at 11:22am, and soared to 35,000ft above the Earth’s surface.
Its top speed was a jaw dropping 844mph.
After the mission, Scholl said: “Today, XB-1 took flight in the same hallowed airspace where the Bell X-1 first broke the sound barrier in 1947.
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“I’ve been looking forward to this flight since founding Boom in 2014, and it marks the most significant milestone yet on our path to bring supersonic travel to passengers worldwide.”
The first-ever takeoff was in March 2024, and it successfully completed its second test flight in August last year – also over Mojave in California.
The aircraft was in the skies for around 15 minutes, reaching an altitude of 10,400ft – about a quarter of typical cruising height.
The pilot fired up the jet to a more cautious top speed of 277mph on that occasion.
The full-sized older brother of XB-1, Overture, will be 199ft and travel at more than twice the speed of sound.
Boom has already received 130 pre-orders for the finished product, with American Airlines, United Airlines and Japan Airlines all requesting fleets.
Flight tickets are predicted to cost around $5,000 per customer.
Why did Concorde fail?
CONCORDE was the supersonic passenger jet considered the ultimate luxury in air travel.
Air France and British Airways announced they would be retiring their fleet of Concorde planes on April 10, 2003.
The plane had its first commercial flight on January 21, 1976, so was retired after 27 years of service and 50,000 flights.
Several reasons led to the decision to retire Concorde.
Air France and British Airways cited low passenger numbers and high maintenance costs.
By the early noughties, the planes were outdated and expensive to run, despite being incredibly advanced when they were first introduced almost three decades previously.
The 9/11 terrorist attack in 2001 majorly impacted passenger numbers, as people opted not to fly.
Passenger numbers also fell after an Air France Concorde crashed just minutes after taking off from Paris in July 2000.
The disaster killed all 109 people on board and four others on the ground.
The plane ran over a small piece of metal on the runway, which burst a tyre and caused an engine to ignite.
It was also the only aircraft in the British Airways fleet that required a flight engineer.
