Japan completed its first successful test flight of a jet-powered aircraft that reached Mach 2, or twice the speed of sound. A scale model of an airliner designed to replace the Concorde, one of only two types of supersonic passenger airliners that ever entered service, which was retired in 2003, took off with the aid of a rocket booster at Woomera test site. At around 18000m, the 11.5 meter scale model of the 104 meter to-be airliner separated from its rocket and glided at Mach 2 for about fifteen minutes, and then landed safely by parachute. This is the second test of the model of the supersonic airliner. During first test in 2002, the rocket propelling the model veered sharply a few seconds after takeoff, which resulted in a fiery crash.

The full-scale model of the aircraft, which will probably enter service around 2025, will be able to fly twice the distance and carry three times the number of passengers as the Concorde. Gaining passenger capacity will mean lower prices which ordinary people could afford, not just the rich and famous which were the majority of passengers who traveled on the Concorde. It will also be quieter and less polluting than the Concorde.

Since the first flight of a powered aircraft by Orville Wright in 1903, people have wanted to fly faster. By World War II, many fighter pilots claimed to have flown past the sound barrier, but because of wartime disorder, none of those claims were officially confirmed. The first official supersonic flight by a manned aircraft was in 1947 by Charles (Chuck) Yeager in a Bell X-1 rocket-powered plane. By the 1950’s, fighter jets have already reached twice the speed of sound (about 1500mph), but passenger planes were still moving at the speed of around 400mph. The first jetliner, the de Havilland Comet, led developers to build more powerful planes with more speed. The first supersonic passenger airliner was the Tupolev Tu-144, which first flew on Dec 31, 1968, and broke the sound barrier 6 months later. However, a series of crashes led the plane to be withdrawn from service in 1978. The Concorde first flew in 1969 and following a crash in 2000, was withdrawn from service in 2003.