Plan to build superfast jet
Boston-based Spike Aerospace is designing the world's first supersonic business jet, which will be capable of flying from Perth to Sydney in less than two hours.
Spike is working with a consortium including Boeing, Gulfstream, Airbus and NASA on the project.
Targeted at business users, the Spike S-512 will carry up to 18 passengers in luxury and will cost $80 million. It could fly from Perth to Sydney in one hour and 50 minutes.
The plane will have a range of 7400km and will be 40m long with an 18m wingspan. Spike hopes to make the first deliveries by 2018.
However, the company said there were many obstacles - the biggest being the plane's sonic boom.
The greatest failure in the supersonic stakes was the Boeing 2707, which was scrapped in 1971. US president John F. Kennedy launched the 2707 - America's counter to the Concorde - in 1963.
Boeing won a tender to build the giant swing-wing plane in 1966 and planned to build two prototypes at a cost of $2 billion in 1967 dollars.
Twenty-six airlines, including Qantas, took 122 delivery positions.
But as work progressed, it became evident that the swing-wing design was flawed and might not even be able to carry any passengers, while the level of noise it produced, together with the sonic boom, loomed as insurmountable difficulties.
Boeing redesigned the plane but it was eventually scrapped by the US Congress.
At the time, the investment in the 2707 was $1.47 billion and all the US had to show for it was a mountain of paperwork and a mock-up.
