Boom Supersonic’s XB-1 demonstrator aircraft broke the sound barrier during a flight test today, becoming the first civilian jet plane to go supersonic in 22 years.
“Supersonic civil flight is back,” Boom CEO Blake Scholl declared in a posting to X / Twitter.
XB-1 exceeded Mach 1 three times during the 33-minute flight, which was conducted from California’s Mojave Air and Space Port. Boom said the top speed was Mach 1.122, or 750 mph, and the plane reached an altitude of 35,290 feet.
This was the 12th flight test for XB-1, which first took to the sky last March for subsonic testing. The one-third-scale, single-seat demonstrator is designed to further the development of technologies for the full-scale Overture aircraft, which Boom is marketing as a commercial jetliner capable of accommodating 64 to 80 passengers.
Like XB-1, Overture will be made almost entirely from carbon fiber composite materials, and will make use of an augmented virtual-reality vision system to provide the plane’s pilots with enhanced visibility.
After the flight, chief test pilot Tristan “Geppetto” Brandenburg said the supersonic outing “was smooth, it was predictable and it felt great.”
“Supersonic was really her happy place,” said Brandenburg, referring to the airplane. “She really liked it there.”
Boom says XB-1 is the world’s first independently developed supersonic jet, and the first civil supersonic jet made in America.
It’s challenging to design an aircraft that can accommodate the stresses of transonic and supersonic flight — as military test pilots discovered more than 75 years ago. XB-1’s flight profile paralleled the parameters of the milestone X-1 supersonic flight that was conducted over the Mojave Desert in 1947 with U.S. government backing.
Commercial supersonic flight ended when the Concorde jet, built by French and British companies, was retired in 2003 due to economic and environmental factors as well as concerns raised by a fatal crash. But thanks to the technological advances made over the past couple of decades, there’s increasing interest in reviving supersonic transport.
Colorado-based Boom Supersonic says Overture could reduce the flight time for a trip between New York and London from today’s typical eight hours to three and a half hours. Japan Airlines, American Airlines and United Airlines have signed on as future customers.
“The world needs supersonic flight,” Scholl said during today’s post-flight news briefing. “Passengers deserve it. Airlines need an alternative that’s better. America needs to build the next generation of airplanes, and the significance of the mission is what causes great people to come and be a part of this.”
Scholl said XB-1 is due to make one more test flight.
“After next week’s final flight of XB-1, our attention goes back on that Overture airplane,” he said. “It’s just about time to, quote-unquote, ‘break the engineers’ pencils,’ meaning we have a design that accomplishes what we need to accomplish.”
The near-term focus will be on perfecting the Symphony turbofan engine that’s designed to power Overture.
“We’re about 18 months away from starting to physically build the first Overture,” Scholl said. “Our goal is to roll it off the line in about three years and put it in the skies in about four.”
Overture isn’t the only supersonic aircraft in the works: NASA and Lockheed Martin are partnering on a low-boom supersonic flight demonstrator jet known as the X-59. That jet’s first flight test is due to take place this year.
Last November, Dawn Aerospace conducted a supersonic flight test of its Mk-II Aurora rocket-powered aircraft in New Zealand. The uncrewed rocket plane climbed to an altitude of 82,500 feet and reached a speed of Mach 1.1.
Scholl said he’s looking forward to the day when supersonic flight becomes routine. “I feel really determined that we’re going to keep doing this until supersonic flights are way less exciting because it’s just the normal way we fly,” he said.
