Four years after the last paying airline passenger broke the sound barrier, an American company has taken its first orders for a supersonic business jet.

It will be slower and smaller than Concorde but will still knock three hours off the normal flight time between London and New York.

While mere millionaires could afford a Concorde ticket, most of the owners of the $80 million (£39.2 million) Aerion jet will be billionaires wanting to be seen boarding the fastest available passenger aircraft.

“There is a saying that you can tell the men from the boys by the price of their toys,” said Brian Barents, Aerion’s vice-chairman and a former supersonic fighter pilot for the US Air Force. “But while prestige is a factor, this is primarily a timesaving tool to make executives more productive.”

Of the three companies that are developing supersonic business jets, Aerion is the only one taking orders and has the earliest launch date. It plans to begin flight tests in 2012 and to deliver its first aircraft two years later.

Mr Barents said that Aerion had started taking deposits of $250,000 per aircraft three weeks ago and had received 20 orders so far, the majority from super-rich individuals buying them for private use.

There was an awkward moment at yesterday’s press conference in London when the company admitted that one of the first customers had been Tarek bin Laden, the half-brother of Osama. The only other known customer is Sheikh Rashid Bin Humaid Al Nuaimi, a member of the ruling family of the Gulf state of Ajman.

Two Gulf-based business airlines have also ordered the aircraft. They will be restricted to about 800mph, just over the speed of sound, when cruising at 45,000ft (13,700m) over land because of the need to avoid the sonic boom reaching the ground. But over the sea the aircraft will be able to accelerate to more than 1,000mph (1,600kph), reducing the flight time from Chicago to London to 5hr 25min, compared with 9 hr by a conventional jet.

Like Concorde, the 12-seat Aerion jet has a long pointed nose and sleek fuselage. But she lacks the delta wing that gave Concorde her distinctive appearance when seen from the ground.

Mr Barents said that the short rear-mounted wings on the model presented yesterday had, in wind tunnel tests, generated 20 per cent less drag than a delta wing. This means that the aircraft can fly efficiently at high sub-sonic speeds, unlike Concorde, which suffered a heavy fuel penalty below the speed of sound.

He claimed that the aircraft would be as fuel efficient as today’s large sub-sonic business jets. However, this claim conceals the fact that manufacturers such as Boeing and Airbus are planning to improve fuel efficiency by at least 20 per cent compared with existing aircraft by 2012. Aerion estimates that it will sell 300 aircraft by 2024, with the number rising sharply if the US abolishes its ban on civilian aircraft breaking the sound barrier.

Other countries, including Britain, observe the International Civil Aviation Organisation rule that a supersonic boom must not be audible on the ground. Under the rule, the Aerion jet will be able to cruise over land at up to Mach 1.15 (Mach 1 being the speed of sound) because the shock waves that cause the boom will have dissipated by the time that they reach 5,000ft above ground level.

Mr Barents said that speeds of up to Mach 1.6 would be permitted over sparsely inhabited regions, such as parts of Canada, Australia and Siberia.

Mr Barents said that it would cost about £5,000 an hour to charter one of the jets, raising the prospect of short tourist flights over the Bay of Biscay.

Aerion plans to sign an agreement next year with an existing aircraft manufacturer to build the jet.

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