Boom Supersonic carried out its first faster-than-sound flight Tuesday, reaching a remarkable milestone as it seeks to bring commercial supersonic flight back to the skies.
The company’s XB-1 demonstrator jet reached speeds of Mach 1.122 during a test flight above the Mojave Desert in California shortly after 8 a.m., its first supersonic flight after about a dozen test flights carried out since last March.
It was a major accomplishment for Boom and marked the first time that a private company had built a supersonic jet without government support or involvement. It also represented a step closer to Boom’s ultimate goal of operating the first commercial supersonic flight since the Concorde was retired in 2003.
“A small band of talented and dedicated engineers has accomplished what previously took governments and billions of dollars,” said Boom’s founder and CEO, Blake Scholl. “Our ultimate goal is to bring the benefits of supersonic flight to everyone.”
Despite the landmark, however, commercial supersonic flight remains years away, and Boom’s success is anything but certain.
While the XB-1 demonstrator is a clean-sheet — or entirely new — design by Boom, it’s roughly the size of a small fighter jet and has just one seat. It’s meant to test various systems that Boom hopes will translate to its full-size prototype.
That aircraft, dubbed the Overture, will be far more difficult to create. In order to be commercially viable, Overture, which is designed to seat roughly 60 to 80 passengers, will need to be fuel- and cost-efficient enough for the airline to operate it profitably while selling tickets at a price that passengers are willing to pay.
And although supersonic travel sounds appealing, the actual use case could be more limited. Faster-than-sound travel is prohibited over populated land, due to the sonic boom it causes, and Overture would not have the range to make it across the Pacific Ocean without refueling — that stop would significantly cut into the time advantage of supersonic flying. That leaves transatlantic travel as the most practical market.
Boom also does not have an engine prototype yet. The company was unable to find an existing engine on the market that could work, nor an engine manufacturer that was willing to design one, and will instead build a new engine in-house. That engine, which Boom calls Symphony, is still in the production phase, and until it’s completed, there’s no easy path for Boom to actually cross the finish line.
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It remains unclear whether Boom can build a prototype, begin production and get the jet certified without running out of investor money. Boom, meanwhile, has argued that modern technology and manufacturing can allow it to succeed where the Concorde, which was notoriously expensive to operate, did not.
Still, even though the company has faced doubts for years, it’s managed to sign numerous major suppliers, build a talented engineering staff and secure 130 orders from airlines, including American Airlines and United Airlines.
With Tuesday’s test flight, Boom appears to at least be one step closer to the ultimate goal of supersonic commercial travel.
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