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London: Three US companies have joined force with NASA to create a supersonic jet that may be able to fly from London to Sydney in four hours.

Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Gulfstream are leading the way to build the new supersonic passenger plane, which will be targeted at first at the business jet market.

All three companies believe they are close to reduce the sonic boom to a sound described by a Gulfstream engineer last week as ‘closer to a puff or plop’.

The prototype successors to Concorde will be revealed at the Farnborough air show next month, a newspaper reported.

According to the Sunday Times Lighter, composite materials, more advanced engines and smaller fuselages could enable new jets to travel about twice as fast as Concorde, which flew at up to 1358mph.

Passengers will travel at speeds of more than 2,485mph, allowing them to cruise in luxury from London to Sydney, just over 12,000 miles away.

Currently, the fastest subsonic executive jet, Gulfstream’s new G650, can fly 7,000 miles at a 46mph and has a top speed of just 704mph.

The first Anglo-French Concorde entered service in 1976 and flew for 27 years. It cut the usual 8-hour journey to New York to three and a half hours.

Only 20 were ever built, but the sleek droop nose aircraft quickly became an iconic symbol around the world.

On 25 July 2000, Air France Flight 4590, crashed in Gonesse, France, killing all 100 passengers and nine crew members on board the flight, and four people on the ground.

But its successor, codenamed X-54, will “prove that an aircraft can be shaped for low sonic boom,” according to Aviation Week and Space Technology magazine.

It will be ‘sketched out’ at Farnborough along with other supersonic prototypes, say show executives.