A new supersonic passenger airliner project took a step closer on October 7 with a successful test flight over the Mojave desert.
The Boom Overture, like Concorde before it, is planned to carry transatlantic passengers at 2,000 kmph from London to New York, at a fraction of the cost. The revival of the 3.5-hour flight option has been generating excitement in the absence of Concorde, which was retired over 20 years ago.
Concorde was a thirsty bird, consuming 25,629 litres of fuel per hour at top speed, and it was very noisy, causing sonic booms when it would fly over land. Added to that, a transatlantic flight in Concorde was really expensive, with round trips costing around €10,000. As a result, the delta-winged icon was taken out of service on October 24, 2003, ending rapid transatlantic public transportation for the foreseeable future.
Lower cost supersonic flights
Nonetheless, Boom Technology has been determined to reintroduce supersonic travel with a lower-cost business model and has been developing systems and test flying them at Edwards Air Force Base in the Mojave Desert in California, the site of the first ever supersonic flight in 1947.
On October 7, the company achieved a new milestone in the development of their project with ‘XB-1 Baby Boom’, their one-third-scale test vehicle. Chief Test Pilot Tristan ‘Geppetto’ Brandenburg set a record for the XB-1, taking it up to 17,800 ft (5,425 m) and as fast as Mach 0.69 (791 kmph, true airspeed) over its 50-minute-long test flight, marking the highest and fastest it’s flown so far.
Baby Boom tested its ‘flutter excitation system’ (FES), unnerving for any test pilot, in that it deliberately induces vibrations into an aircraft’s frame to help engineers find potential structural issues, particularly at higher speeds, avoiding potential dangers for when they go for the sound barrier test later this year.
The Boom Overture project for an 80-seater passenger jet has set its sights on a 2030 commercial launch. It has already taken over 20 years in development, but now a reality in supersonic travel’s return is a significant step closer to reality.
