'New Concorde' to break sound barrier today in big step back to supersonic commercial flights
A new company plans to go supersonic today, potentially opening a new chapter in the story of ultra-highspeed commercial .
Boom Supersonic plans to break the sound barrier during a test flight this morning, with the flight due to be streamed live online.
If the test is successful, it will mark the first time the company has achieved the feat. The Colorado-based company is launching its XB-1 test plane from California's Mojave Air and Space Port today at around 4pm GMT, with the sound barrier breaking roughly 25 minutes later.
Boom will webcast the mission live via its website. The XB-1 is smaller version of the eventual plane that the company plans to use for supersonic commercial aviation, called Overture. If that is launched as planned, the 64-seat Overture will become the first supersonic passenger jet since the British-French Concorde, which was retired in 2003.
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"It will still be a few years before we welcome the return of the first supersonic passenger. Success is far from guaranteed. Yet, there's more reason than ever to be excited and optimistic," founder and CEO Blake Scholl wrote in a post on X.
Supersonic aviation is both controversial and expensive. Despite the love it received from the public, Concorde proved too expensive and difficult to run, largely due to the very large amounts of jet fuel it used. Typical commercial jets may fly around 300 miles an hour slower than the 760mph needed to break the sound barrier, but they tend to be much more fuel-efficient.
Boom has made some positive noises around the of its aircraft, pledging to engineer the Overture so it can run on 100% sustainable aviation fuel (SAF). However, whether or not the high cost of SAF - typically six or seven times greater than normal jet fuel - renders flight price too expensive for customers remains to be seen.
The company has announced that it has agreements in place with SAF producers for 10 million gallons of SAF per year for Overture’s flight test program.
"The re-introduction of supersonic commercial travel brings with it a novel opportunity for new entrants to integrate sustainability from the beginning of the design process. Sustainability and high-speed travel are not mutually exclusive concepts, as new aircraft like Overture – optimized for speed, safety, and sustainability – demonstrate. Modern supersonic airliners such as Overture, along with its propulsion system, Symphony, will be able to achieve net-zero carbon operation upon entry into service by optimizing the design of both aircraft and engine for 100% SAF," Boom's website reads.
.It adds: "Initial jet aircraft were approximately three times as energy intensive as the piston-engine airliners of the time. Over the next 30 years, improvements in aircraft and engine technology increased the energy efficiency of jet aircraft to meet and even surpass those of piston airliners."