Facts about Boom
The aircraft’s design will go through more than 1,000 wind-tunnel tests before construction.
Boom will test never-used engines designed for missiles for the aircraft.
Before founding Boom, Blake Scholl held leadership roles at Amazon and Groupon and co-founded mobile technology startup Kima Labs.
Supersonic flight has existed for more than 50 years, but the technology to make it efficient and mainstream has only recently been accepted by aviation regulators.
The supersonic airliner Concorde, built by a British-french conglomerate, was introduced in 1976 and retired in 2003. Twenty were manufactured. It wasn’t economical to fly because airlines couldn’t maintain loads for the 100-seat plane while charging a premium for tickets. coastline, and the potentially lucrative cross-country market couldn’t be tested.
Boyd said the fear is in potential damage created by sonic booms, the noise created when a vehicle travels faster than the speed of sound.
But Scholl said engineering designs in the aircraft and the relatively small size of the vehicle would minimize the sound.
Other environmental noise is more disruptive, said Boyd.
“Today, a (Boeing) 737 on approach into Laguardia (International Airport) over Jackson Heights makes more noise than the sonic boom of this airplane,” Boyd said. “The trash truck that goes by your house at 6 a.m., that makes more noise. The problem is, when you say ‘sonic boom,’ everyone thinks of their Limoges china being blown away.”
Contact Richard N. Velotta at rvelotta@reviewjournal.com or 702477-3893. Follow @Rickvelotta on Twitter.