India Inc goes supersonic, books five Mach 1.6 jets

Have you ever fancied flying from Mumbai to Singapore in three hours flat (half the time taken by a commercial airliner) or taking off from Dubai to London in five hours or, for that matter, taking a quick trip between Mumbai-Delhi in just nearly half an hour?

That's what Aerion Corporation's supersonic business jet will exactly do for you. It is the speed that has caught the fancy of globe trotting Indian corporates - combining speeds of 1.15 Mach over land and 1.6 Mach over sea, beating the sound barrier of 760 mph(1 Mach). The aircraft seats eight to 12 passengers in stand-up comfort as well.

However, as you might have guessed, it comes at a price. At a cool $80 million (Rs 320 crore), it costs at least $20 million more than the current top-of-the-line business jets, or b-jets, rolled out by Gulfstream or Bombardier in the ultra long-haul range.

That, however, is not a deterrent for India Inc which has already gone ahead and booked at least five orders with Aerion Corporation, the Nevada company headquartered in Zurich, Switzerland, which brought the focus back on the design of a practical and efficient supersonic b-jet employing patented natural luminar flow technology.

"We are expecting at least three more orders from Indian corporates in the next three months taking the order book to eight. The first tranche of $10 million will come in 2009. We are focussed on India as it is one of the most important markets on the global aviation scene today. We are looking to set up a joint venture here with one of the Indian partners within the next three to four weeks," said Peter Smales, executive director, ExecuJet, the aviation group headquartered in Zurich, which is the sales representative for Aerion supersonic business jet worldwide.

Environment regulations against the sonic boom have always been a major hurdle. What Aerion has smartly done is that it has designed the b-jet to be stable in the subsonic condition too (under Mach 1.0 speed) and has capped the aircraft to Mach1.6 with no hard thrust noise complaint engines.

"We have not ventured into manufacturing new parts and spares so there will be no regulatory issues involved," said Smales. But what it has done is given a variant to the drag wing design of Concorde and replaced it with a suspended wing which puts less drag on the b-jet and makes it more fuel efficient.

But it is some more time before the aircraft finally is delivered - in 2016 - as against the roll-out year of 2014.

"By 2008-end, Aerion will finalise the OEM partner. It is in a stage of underwritng risk on the programme which will be complete by the 2008. In 2009, there would be a pre-launch validation study and the launch programme will be completed in 2009 where the design would be frozen. The first flight will be in 2012 and, by 2014, the jet will be pressed into service," said Andrew Hoy, executive director, group sales, ExecuJet.