Announced to great fanfare in July this year, the XB-1 demonstrator aircraft from Supersonic Boom is officially here – and it’s already made history without ever leaving the ground.
Boom’s XB-1 is the world’s first independently developed supersonic aircraft, as CEO Blake Scholl made sure to underline in the first minutes of the live rollout of the aircraft. You can see it in full in the video at the bottom of the page.
However, XB-1 is made for far greater things than to just write history by being a first in something: it is a demonstrator that will precede an upcoming supersonic commercial jet from Boom called Overture. In short, it’s a miniature replica of Overture, meant for testing: a 1:3 scale prototype, to be more exact.
Measuring 71 feet (21.6 meters) in length and with a 21-foot (6.40-meter) wingspan, XB-1 will only carry a pilot (no passengers) and is powered by three J85-15 engines from General Electric that deliver more than 12,000 pounds of thrust, in order for it to achieve Mach-2.2 speeds. It’s made of carbon-composite and will undergo a 100% carbon-neutral flight test program. Before it takes to the air for the first time next year in Mojave, California, it will undergo rigorous testing on the ground.
Should all go according to plan with the XB-1, Overture will be taking commercial flights in 2030, hopefully as early as 2029. Scholl says that, unlike the Concorde or other current supersonic jet endeavors, Boom is looking at the average flier for a target customer. Flights on Overture will be affordable (comparatively to other supersonic flights, one assumes), ushering in a new era of afforable aerial mobility.
“We want to build an aircraft that we can see our friends and our families and our loved ones flying on,” Scholl says.
There will be no compromise in terms of comfort or amenities, though. Overture will carry between 55 and 75 passengers, there will be no middle seats, there will be sizable windows and lots of touchscreens for passengers, to make transoceanic flights a breeze.
Each Overture jet will come with a price tag of $200 million, but Boom has $6 billion worth of pre-orders right now, counting Virgin Group and Japan Airlines as investors.
Elena has been writing for a living since 2006 and, as a journalist, she has put her double major in English and Spanish to good use. She covers automotive and mobility topics like cars and bicycles, and she always knows the shows worth watching on Netflix and friends. Full profile
Would you like AUTOEVOLUTION to send you notifications?
Google News