Boom Supersonic, the company that believes it can succeed in following the steps of the Concorde, passed a key benchmark in its plans with a supersonic flight with its one-third scale prototype, called XB-1.
The plane, which has flown eleven other test flights testing various systems, made its first supersonic flight over California’s Mojave Desert Tuesday, reaching Mach 1.122, or about 750 miles per hour.
XB-1 was built as a prototype for a plane the company calls Overture, and which is designed to carry 65 to 80 passengers in supersonic airline service. Both the prototype and the planned airliner are designed around carbon-fiber composite materials to reduce weight and fuel burn. Boom has received funding and orders from several airlines, including American and United, all on the assumption of a successful development. The company says it has 130 firm orders.
The prototype uses three GE J85 engines, a type developed in the 1950s and used extensively for small military aircraft. After failing to find a major engine manufacturer for the Overture project, Boom is developing its own engine, which it calls Symphony.
While a number of airlines appear quite enthusiastic about the prospects of a renewed supersonic service, skeptics question the economics of a plane that would carry so few passengers, reducing it to likely a premium-only cabin.
No article about this plane mentions what the supersonic boom sounded like. To make the boom quieter is one of the goals, yet no mention.
I’ve read several articles that claim this plane is the first privately funded supersonic plane but the BD-10 is a privately made supersonic jet that debuted many years ago.
Certainly true that a lot of articles have not been clear: unlike the BD-10, this project is for an airliner, not a general aviation plane for private use.
The boom is a serious question, although the design for Overture is said to greatly reduce what Concorde produced. It remains to be whether or not that is true, but it is still a factor in airline planning.
For trans-Pacific flights over water, that’s less of an issue, although the plane’s planned range limits some of the possible routes. For trans-Atlantic, there are real noise-over-land issues that have led some writers to suggest that it might fly mainly to coastal points like Dublin or Lisbon, where passengers would catch shorter flights to bigger hubs.
Frankly, I don’t see a flight like that being attractive to someone willing to pay serious thousands to save a few hours over the Atlantic—and it will have to be serious thousands to support a 65-80 seat plane of that sort.