The high-speed supersonic jet race just got a lot faster with the introduction of Virgin Galactic’s hat into the race. But how does it compare to the legendary Concorde? And will it be worthy of the mantle of Concorde 2.0?
What is the Virgin Galactic Mach 3 Aircraft?
For many years Sir Richard Branson has dreamed of owning a fleet of Concorde aircraft. After failing to acquire some from the original builders, BAC and Aérospatiale, he then missed out when they went to British Airways for a pound and finally couldn’t take control of them when the aircraft was retired.
It seems that finally, his company Virgin Galactic has decided to build his supersonic aircraft as revealed yesterday.
But how will the aircraft compare to the original Concorde? Let’s compare.
Passengers
We begin our comparison with the typical cabin configuration of both aircraft.
The Concorde carried a crew of three (two pilots and a flight engineer), and up to 120 passengers in an all-business class configuration. Now, remember, because the Concorde flew so fast, it didn’t have any lie-flat seats nor a lot of legroom typically found in business class cabins today.
The Virgin Galactic airframe, on the other hand, will only support nine to nineteen passengers depending on cabin configuration (likely lie-flat sets or private jet configuration).
Winner: Concorde
Speed
Generally, in our many, many comparisons, we don’t compare the speed of the two aircraft. After all, once they reach a cruising speed of around Mach 0.89 (the most fuel-efficient speed for a typical sub-sonic plane), they rarely go faster.
However, speed is the point of a supersonic aircraft. If you can get from A to B faster than another design, then you will get business.
The Concorde flew at a speed of Mach 2.04 (1,354 mph or 2,179 km/h).
The new so-far unnamed Virgin Galactic Mach 3 aircraft will fly at a speed of Mach 3 (3704.4 kilometers per hour or 2301.81 miles per hour). This is roughly double the speed of the Concorde.
Winner: Virgin Galactic
How long will it take to fly?
In real terms, if you were flying to London from New York (5,585 km/3,470 miles) it would take approximately:
- Seven hours and fifty minutes on a standard sub-sonic aircraft
- Two hours 52 minutes is the record time of the Concorde
- Virgin Galactic’s new offering can fly the distance in 1 hour, 30 minutes, and 28 seconds. This is twice the speed of the Concorde (not accounting for take-off and landing speeds).
Once you understand how fast this aircraft is, it becomes no contest for anything else on the market. While researching this article, this author also tested some other destinations with staggering eye-watering results:
- Sydney to Melbourne in 11 minutes and 33 seconds.
- Sydney to London in 4 hours, 35 minutes, 5 seconds.
- Los Angeles to New York in 1 hour, 3 minutes, 46 seconds.
- Los Angeles to San Fransisco in 9 minutes, 3 seconds.
- London to Paris in 5 minutes, 35 seconds.
- London to Dubai in 44 minutes, 19 seconds.
- Tokyo to Los Angeles in 2 hours, 22 minutes, 37 seconds.
- Tokyo to Honolulu in 1 hour, 40 minutes, 20 seconds.
There are plenty of issues with the above numbers (such as take-off and landings, range, and sonic boom restrictions), but it does give you a great perspective.
Bottom line
It seems that Virgin has traded passenger capacity for speed. This aircraft is not designed for airlines but rather for private individuals (although we would not rule out airlines like Qatar or JAL having a few on their books). After all, the Concorde was designed to fix the one unsolvable problem of air travel for high wealth individuals – long travel times. After all, you can get more wealth but not more time.
Thus we would like to still award Concorde a win in this analysis, thanks to an hour difference in speed compared to what would be a staggering ticket price difference.
If the Virgin Galactic aircraft is successful, it is likely they will upscale the technology to 100 passengers or more. When that’s the case, it will be no contest.
If you want to read how the Boom Supersonic aircraft compares to the Concorde, you can here.
What do you think? Let us know in the comments.