Boom Supersonic has achieved the first supersonic flight of its X-B1 demonstrator aircraft, heralding a major step forward in the development of its Concorde-like Overture plane.
Tuesday’s XB-1 flight marks the first human-piloted civil supersonic flight since Concorde’s retirement more than 20 years ago, and paves the way for the return of commercial supersonic flights aboard Overture, possibly before the end of this decade.
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Boom’s XB-1 jet took off from the Mojave Air & Space Port in California on Tuesday morning, with chief test pilot Tristan “Geppetto” Brandenburg at the controls.
The one-third-scale demonstrator aircraft reached an altitude of 35,290 feet before accelerating to Mach 1.122 (652 KTAS or 750 mph) 11 minutes and 34 seconds after takeoff, marking the first time for the aircraft to break the sound barrier. You can watch it achieve the feat at the 1:01:25 mark in the video above.
“XB-1’s supersonic flight demonstrates that the technology for passenger supersonic flight has arrived,” Boom Supersonic founder and CEO Blake Scholl said in a release shared after the plane returned safely back to base. “Next, we are scaling up the technology on XB-1 for the Overture supersonic airliner. Our ultimate goal is to bring the benefits of supersonic flight to everyone.”
Following its inaugural flight in March 2024, the XB-1 completed 11 human-piloted test flights under increasingly challenging conditions to evaluate systems and aerodynamics, Boom said, systematically expanding the flight envelope through subsonic, transonic, and supersonic speeds.
Some of the XB-1’s technologies are destined for Overture, which is designed to run on sustainable aviation fuel. They include carbon fiber composites, digital stability augmentation, and an augmented reality vision system for landing visibility, as both the XB-1 and Overture have a long nose and a high approach angle that makes it difficult for pilots to see the runway.
Overture will carry up to 80 passengers at Mach 1.7, about twice the speed of today’s subsonic airliners, on more than 600 global routes, with Boom already having taken 130 orders from American Airlines, United Airlines, and Japan Airlines.