Brash British billionaire Sir Richard Branson will soon revive trans-Atlantic supersonic passenger travel that ended with the retirement of Concorde by ushering in what he calls a new era of "affordable supersonic travel."

Branson has unveiled the prototype for a supersonic passenger plane that can cruise at 2,700 km/h or Mach 2. Reports said he might order at least 10 of these planes, which are being dubbed "mini-Concordes" because they're smaller than the Aérospatiale/BAC Concorde that flew passengers across the Atlantic from 1969 until 2003.

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The mini-Concorde prototype called the "XB-1 Supersonic Demonstrator" is a smaller but technically accurate model for what Branson hopes will lead to a revival of blitz fast supersonic flight.

The jet, nicknamed "Baby Boom," will be produced by an American startup called Boom based in Denver, Colorado and owned by former Amazon executive Blake Scholl, whose team assembled a prototype of Boom in a Colorado aircraft hangar.

The full-fledged version of Baby Boom will zip from New York to London in just 3.6 hours, or half the time it takes on a jumbo jet.

Test flights of Baby Boom are planned for 2017. The jet will be fashioned from a carbon-fiber composite instead of aluminum to save weight.

It will have 40 seats split into two single-seat rows and will cruise at 60,000 feet where passengers will be able to see the curvature of the Earth.

A round trip from New York to London is expected to cost $5,000.  A trip from Tokyo to San Francisco will cost $6,500 and will take close to five hours compared to the current 11 hours.

"Concorde's designers didn't have the technology for affordable supersonic travel, but now we do," said Scholl, who also noted Boom's design is quieter and 30 percent more efficient than Concorde.

"The idea is for a plane that goes faster than any other passenger plane built before, but for the same price as business class," he noted.

Branson said Virgin Galactic's manufacturing arm, The Spaceship Company, will provide engineering, manufacturing services and flight test support to Boom. Boom and Virgin Galactic haven't announced a target date for the first commercial flight, however.

TagsSir Richard Branson, XB-1 Supersonic Demonstrator, baby boom, Aérospatiale/BAC Concorde, supersonic passenger travel, Blake Scholl