Now that things are getting very real for Boom Supersonic – the ultra-fast jet maker that chose to locate its manufacturing plant in Guilford County – something can be said that could not be said before.
It’s this: While local leaders, economic development officials and regular residents were thrilled to see Boom Supersonic decide to locate its $500 million manufacturing plant at Piedmont Triad International Airport (PTI), a whole lot of people thought the project might be a bust in the end.
For one thing, it sounded way too futuristic and ambitious to be real, and, for another, it just simply seemed too good to be true. You know, that Greensboro, North Carolina and our humble little airport would be ground zero for the next major paradigm shift in commercial aviation.
And, though practically no area official would say it out loud, there was a lot of doubt whether the project would ever really, well, take off.
That was especially true in September of 2022 right after London-based Rolls-Royce – which planned to do much of the work on the propulsion system for the new Boom planes – announced it was ending its partnership with the supersonic jet maker.
The two companies had agreed in 2020 to work together on the next-gen airliners, and the pullout of Rolls-Royce from the project was a major setback.
However, this week, Boom showed it could do what it thought it could. The company held a successful supersonic flight of its XB-1 demonstrator aircraft – a giant advancement in aviation technology. Until now, supersonic aircraft were the work of the military of major countries or, as in the case of the Concorde, two countries working together.
Boom Supersonic is planning, by the end of the decade, to be producing and selling their commercial aviation jets that fly faster than the speed of sound and get people to their destination much, much faster than current existing commercial aircraft.
On Tuesday, Jan. 28, the XB-1, which was piloted by Chief Test Pilot Tristan “Geppetto” Brandenburg, took off from the Mojave Air and Space Port in California and, after flying about 12 minutes, blew past the speed of sound – Mach 1(660 miles per hour)– at an altitude of approximately 35,000 feet.
The plane hit a speed of roughly 750 miles per hour before throttling down.
The XB-1 flew through the same airspace where Chuck Yeager famously broke the sound barrier for the first time 77 years ago.
Now Boom’s dream is becoming very real and Boom has already piled up more than 125 pre-orders for the coming superfast commercial airliners.
American Airlines, United Airlines and Japan Airlines all have orders in.
So, it’s all coming together for Boom, which some local skeptics thought might be too optimistic about its abilities.
A good number of major projects over the years in Guilford County have been announced and then those big plans never materialized or had to be scaled back in a major way. Dell is one blast from the past, and FedEx pulled back on its plans. Currently, a giant biomedical manufacturing plant planned for Greensboro by ProKidney appears to be dead in the water.
Boom got a lot of incentives to come to PTI – more than $120 million in state and local incentives – and build its manufacturing and testing facility at the airport.
Boom has committed to hiring more than 1,750 people and investing $500 million in the site over the next several years. The plan is for the Piedmont facility to produce the Overture, Boom’s four-engine passenger jet that will be able to fly at 1,300 miles over water and 770 miles an hour over land.
The people who run PTI Airport were, of course, thrilled after the test flight this week.
Paul Mengert, the chair of the Piedmont Triad Airport Authority – the seven-member board that oversees and runs PTI – was one person delighted with the successful exhibition of the first time a private company-designed civil aviation aircraft broke the sound barrier in US airspace.
“Boom Supersonic’s accomplishment today is a testament to their dedication to innovation and the future of air travel,” Mengert said. “We are proud to support and celebrate this pioneering step towards making supersonic passenger flights a reality.”
PTI Executive Director Kevin Baker was also excited by the proof-of-concept flight.
“PTI is honored to be the home of Boom Supersonic’s Overture Superfactory, where the next generation of supersonic airliners will be manufactured,” Baker said after the test run over the Mohave desert. “Today’s success with the XB-1 demonstrator brings us closer to a future where passengers can experience faster and more efficient air travel.”
The XB-1 “demonstrator aircraft” is the precursor to the Overture, planned to be Boom’s supersonic commercial airliner.
I just saw on flying low today. Did anyone else see it.
….and only half a century behind Concorde!
Concorde’s commercial viability was doomed when the FAA prohibited it from flying at supersonic speed over the US. It would have got from NYC to LA in less than half the time of any US airline, and represented a serious commercial and technological threat to the legacy domestic carriers.
The FAA said they banned it because the sonic boom would have been too disturbing to people. I bet that problem will magically evaporate for BOOM, and they will be permitted to fly cross country….