What planes can go supersonic?

Supersonic flight is routine for modern fighters and interceptors. Any front-line fighter in service today can exceed Mach 1 in level flight, and most reach Mach 1.6 to Mach 2.5 with afterburner: the F-15 Eagle and F-16 Fighting Falcon, the F-22 Raptor and F-35 Lightning II, the Eurofighter Typhoon, the Dassault Rafale, the Saab Gripen, the Russian Su-27 family and Su-57, and the Chinese J-10 and J-20. The F-22, the Typhoon and the Su-57 can also supercruise, holding supersonic speed without afterburner. Among bombers, the Rockwell B-1B Lancer is the only supersonic one still flying in the West, at about Mach 1.2; the B-2 and B-52 are subsonic. The Russian Tu-160 and Tu-22M are supersonic as well. Supersonic trainers exist too, such as the Northrop T-38 Talon, which has trained US pilots since 1961.

Only two passenger aircraft have ever flown supersonic in service. The Soviet Tupolev Tu-144 flew first, in December 1968, but carried passengers for only a few months in 1977-1978. The Anglo-French Concorde cruised at Mach 2.02, about 2,150 km/h (1,160 kn), at 17,000 m (56,000 ft), and crossed the Atlantic in under three and a half hours from 1976 until its retirement in 2003. Every airliner in service today, from the A320 to the 777, cruises between Mach 0.78 and Mach 0.85 and is not designed to go faster: its swept wing and engines would suffer a sharp rise in drag close to Mach 1.

The list of supersonic aircraft opens with the Bell X-1, which reached Mach 1.06 in October 1947, and includes the X-15, which touched Mach 6.7 in 1967, still the fastest crewed aircraft ever, and the Lockheed SR-71, which cruised above Mach 3. Today NASA's X-59, built by Lockheed Martin, began flight testing in late 2025 at Armstrong Flight Research Center to prove that a shaped fuselage can turn the sonic boom into a soft thump; its data will feed rules that could allow supersonic flight over land. On the commercial side, Boom Supersonic's XB-1 demonstrator broke Mach 1 in January 2025, and the company is developing the Overture airliner, though no supersonic passenger aircraft is certified or in service (as of September 2026). Supersonic business jets by Aerion and others were announced and cancelled. In short: military fast jets, a few bombers and trainers, and experimental aircraft can go supersonic; no plane you can buy a ticket for can.