Last night I got into a conversation about how amazing it is that commercial flight has actually devolved in the last 20 years (with the death of the Concorde). Anyway, I read an article a while back somewhere that talked about companies trying to reignite supersonic travel, but couldn't dig it up. (If anyone can find it, that would be awesome. It talked about two different approaches: Save fuel over land and dampen the sound.) Anyway, in the course of looking for the article I did come across some interesting stuff.
Aerion, a private company making a supersonic business jet,
just sold it's first one to Sheikh Rashid Bin Humaid Al Nuaimi of Ajman for $80 million. As the article puts it, "Sheikh Rashid will become one of the first world leaders to routinely fly above the speed of sound." Good to know.
Also uncovered,
two Wired articles on
the subject and
the New York Times farewell to the Concorde, which opens with: "The long but ultimately sterile era of commercial supersonic transportation will come to an end today, when the last scheduled Concorde flight, by British Airways, is scheduled to leave Kennedy International Airport for London."