Meet the XB-1: A Prototype For a Modern Supersonic Passenger Jet

On Wednesday, Boom Supersonic unveiled the XB-1, a prototype aircraft for the company's planned commercial supersonic airplane. Ars Technica reports: The rollout marks the handoff from the design, development, and build phase to testing, said Blake Scholl, Boom founder and chief executive. After undergoing a series of ground tests, the 21-meter-long aircraft will begin a flight test campaign in the third quarter of 2021 at Mojave Air and Space Port, Scholl said. "We'll be supersonic by the end of next year," he added. This is about a year later than the company's original plans. Founded in 2014, Boom is planning to build a new generation of supersonic passenger jets and sell them to airlines. Scholl said the company has already pre-sold $6 billion worth of its full-size aircraft, called Overture. These airplanes are expected to seat 65 to 88 passengers and will travel at subsonic speeds over land and supersonic speeds over water -- more than twice as fast as current commercial aircraft. Boom hopes to begin flying Overture for the first time in 2026 and hopes the craft will be available for commercial flights before the end of the decade. To make that happen, the XB-1 demonstrator represents the first step, Scholl said, to test key technologies for Overture, including shape and materials. Perhaps the biggest difference between XB-1 and the full-scale aircraft, besides the size, is that XB-1 will use a smaller, off-the-shelf J85-15 turbojet engine. The company announced a partnership with Rolls Royce earlier this year to work on development of the Overture aircraft engine and expects to select a final design by the end of this year. The challenges in building this engine include designing the inlet to convert supersonic air flow to subsonic air flow before entering the engine and challenges with some of the internal components. However, Scholl said, "It's not much of a technology leap at all."

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