Why bother, when airlines show little interest in jets that
carry fewer people, burn more fuel, and can fly only over
oceans because of the awful racket they make?
Given all this, the idea that a guy who’s best known for
Amazon’s ad-buying tech could make supersonic work
seems unlikely. Scholl’s plan sounds absurd when you
realize his aviation experience is limited to flying small
planes. Yet he exudes the ebullient confidence typical of
startup founders. “All the technology we need to do this
already exists,” he says. “It’s safe, reliable, and efficient.
So let’s take that same proven technology and make pas-
senger’s lives more efficient too.”
For Scholl, the path to that vision is clear. Boom’s suc-
cess hinges on developing a jet engine capable of achieving
supersonic speeds without that fuel-guzzling afterburner.
And he believes the boom problem won’t be a problem
for his company. His business plan relies on convincing
airlines that with new, more-efficient technology, they’ll
make plenty of money shuttling business-class passengers
across the Atlantic in three hours or the Pacific in six. The
Virgin Group and Japan Airlines are among five carriers so
intrigued by the idea that they’ve lined up to buy Boom’s
airplanes, should they make it to production.
That’s one way of sparking a supersonic revival. The
other is to technologically hush the boom and open up
an avenue the U.S. and Europe closed to everyone but
the military in the 1970s: overland flights, where Mach
speeds let you cross the country in the time it takes to
watch a movie. The market could be huge, but so are
the costs, which is why two other aviation upstarts—
Aerion and Spike—are focused on the lucrative business-jet
sector. Those companies believe they can mitigate sonic
booms with aerodynamic tweaks and clever flying. NASA
has spent decades pursuing the same objective, and in
2018, the Trump administration allocated a healthy slice of
its $633.9 million aeronautics research budget to the task.
Fifteen years after the Concorde’s last landing, civilian
aviation might be ready to go supersonic again.SCHOLL FOUNDED BOOM
because he was surprised no one
was applying advances in avia-
tion tech to supersonic jets.
“We’re trying to do for commer-
cial airplanes what SpaceX is
doing for rockets,” he says.
The company expects to
spend $6 billion or $7 billion bringing its jet, dubbed
“the Overture,” to market. So far it has raised about
$141 million. That’s only a little more than it’ll cost to
build the XB-1. Starting so small is unusual—but essential
given that Boom’s ultimate goal is a 170,000-odd-pound
airliner capable of Mach 2.2. It’s highly likely they won’t
get it right the first time, Scholl admits.
Boom’s headquarters, a gleaming white hangar in aPOPSCI.COM•SPRING 2019 89THE SECOND WAVESo Much for
the Afterglow
(1) Test-burning
a GE J85-15 engine;
(2) Boom Supersonic
founder Blake
Scholl.2
1
S