Supersonic Test is a blessing to the company aiming to build faster carriers: NPR

Boom Supersonics XB-1 breaks the sound barrier on January 28.

Boom Supersonic

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Boom Supersonic

A private company aimed at building the first supersonic flyer since Concorde retired more than two decades ago, achieved its first sound beam-busting flight over the California Mojave Desert on Tuesday.

Denver-based Boom Supersonics XB-1 demonstrator planWith Chief Test Pilot Tristan “Geppetto” Brandenburg Hit Mach 1,122 or 750 km / hi a height of approx. 35,000 feet. Brandenburg brought the plane to a successful landing at the end of the approx. 34 minutes of flight.

Founder and CEO Blake Scholl described the flight as “phenomenal.”

“We’re ready to scale up. We’re ready to build the passengers Supersonic Jet who wants to pick up where Concorde escaped and ultimately allows the rest of us to fly supersonically,” Scholl said.

Mach 1 milestone was reached on the 12th test flight of XB-1. The company says it is planning to incorporate what it learns of XB-1 in A supersonic passenger jet known as overture It can carry up to 80 passengers. The new passenger aircraft is designed to maintain a cruise to the Mach 1.7 or about twice as fast as current commercial jets.

According to Boom, United, American and Japan Airlines have all expressed interest in buying the overturn. In a statement sent to NPR, United Airlines said that by 2021 it “reached a conditional, non-binding purchase agreement” with the company to buy 15 of the airlines with “opportunities for up to an additional 35 aircraft.”

Boom says It expects overture to be ready for commercial flights by 2030. “Flying at supersonic speeds tends to be smoother than subsonic flight because at 60,000 feet you fly over the most turbulence,” it says.

Unlike Concorde, which proved to be uneconomical to operate, Boom says that airlines should be able to make money selling seats on ticket prices similar to them for first and business class seats on current commercial carriers .

“The biggest problem with Concorde was that it was just too expensive to operate,” Scholl said. “So the only most important problem to solve is not to break the sound barrier but to break the economic barrier.”

Concorde made his first operational flight from London to Washington, DC, in 1976. Developed jointly by Britain and France, Concorde was driven for almost three decades of Air France and British Airways.

However, Jet was criticized for his inefficiency. Compared to a Boeing 747 Guzzled Delta-Wing Concorde four times as much fuel and carried only one-fifth as many passengers-oming 100.

Scholl says Concorde had very high, converted military engines, but overture will be “dramatically quieter, and that means over an airport, overture, will not be higher than the subsonic aircraft flying today.”

In 1996, Concorde Set a speed record In just 2 hours, 52 minutes and 59 seconds between New York and London. In 2000 a Concorde was involved in a Fisky crash Shortly after the start of Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport, which killed all 100 passengers and nine crew on board France Air Flight 4590. The Supersonic aircraft were grounded, but eventually returned to service. Concorde always became a money loss, and eventually retired in 2003.