Editorial roundup

March 24

Winston-Salem Journal Boom Supersonic

Boom Supersonic, the plucky, Colorado-based start-up aircraft manufacturer that aims to move passengers faster than the speed of sound — on sustainable fuel, no less — still seems too good to be true.

After all, it has been more than 20 years since Boom’s svelte, needle-nosed forebear, the Concorde, made the last flight of a commercial supersonic passenger jet for British Airways in October 2003.

As lean and mean as it may have looked, Concorde turned out to be a clunker. It was mothballed as impractical and unprofitable.

So, say what you will (and many skeptics do), Boom keeps plugging away. On Friday morning it reached a major milestone in the evolution of its Overture jet with the first successful flight of its X-B1 prototype over California’s Mojave Desert.

This matters to the Triad, of course, because it has significant skin in the game.

Boom plans to build the new supersonic airliner in Greensboro in a $500 million “superfactory” under construction at PTI Airport. The manufacturer plans to employ as many as 1,761 workers in the plant by 2030.

In exchange, the state and Guilford County have offered more than $115 million in incentives.

If Boom successfully delivers on what it is promising, the state Commerce Department projects an impact of $32.3 billion to the North Carolina economy over 20 years.

As for Friday’s flight, you might imagine a full-sized prototype of the airliner scorching the desert landscape. Uh, not exactly.

The XB-1 looks nothing like the models and artists’ renderings of the Overture. For one thing, it’s much smaller, a one-third-scale prototype of the Overture. Nor are its engines that power it the latest in technology. In fact, they’re a pair of 1950s-era turbojet engines.

But the purpose of the XB-1, flown Friday by Boom Chief Test Pilot Bill “Doc” Shoemaker is to confirm in the real world what simulator data has told engineers, a critical step in moving forward. And though the XB-1 does not physically resemble the Overture, it does resemble it technologically. For instance, it’s made with carbon-fiber composites and advanced avionics.

And there have some steps backward along the way, most notably Rolls-Royce’s withdrawal as the developer of the new airliner’s engine.

Boom hasn’t blinked. It’s designing its own engine, called Symphony, in partnership with other companies.

There are other substantial challenges, most notably, financial ones. Boom has raised more than $700 million so far, says the company’s founder and CEO, Blake Scholl. It needs an estimated $8 billion.

So, the XB-1 serves a dual role as both a test plane and a sales tool for investors that is tangible and operable. Pretty drawings and plastic models don’t fly.

“The way ventures like this are always financed, you raise some capital, you prove some milestones,” Scholl told Tim Stevens of The Verge last week.

“And flying this airplane here is a very important one of those milestones. That demonstrates the track record of execution, demonstrates that progress is being made, and enables access to capital and ever higher valuation,” Scholl says. “That’s how you look at Space X, any other kind of private aerospace venture; that’s how they all work.”

It bears repeating: The XB-1’s first flight is only a baby step. As many as 15 more test flights will follow, with each incrementally pushing the proverbial envelope further until it breaks the sound barrier.

There’s still an engine to design and build and a planeload of money to raise.

So, inevitably, there will be highs and lows in the development of the Overture, which Boom hopes to deliver to customers by the end of this decade.

But you have to start somewhere. In case you’re interested, the maiden flight of Boom’s XB-1 took 12 minutes, reaching a top speed of 273 mph and an altitude of 7,120 feet.

The Wright Brothers’ first flight at Kitty Hawk lasted 12 seconds, reached a top speed of 6.8 mph and traveled 120 feet.