Boom Overture

The Boom Overture is a supersonic airliner under development by Boom Technology, designed to cruise at Mach 1.7 or . It is expected to carry 64 to 80 passengers, depending on configuration, with a range of . Boom aims to introduce the Overture in 2029. The company projects a market for up to 1,000 supersonic aircraft serving 500 viable routes, with fares comparable to business class. Featuring a delta wing design similar to that of the Concorde, the Overture is expected to use composite materials in its construction. A 2022 redesign specified four dry (non-afterburning) turbofan engines, each reportedly producing of thrust.

Market

According to the company, up to 500 daily routes could be viable. At Mach 1.7 over water, transatlantic flight times would be reduced significantly: Newark to London in 3 hours 30 minutes, and Newark and Frankfurt in 4 hours. With a range of , transpacific flights would require a refueling stop, meaning a trip between San Francisco and Tokyo would take about 6 hours. Boom estimates a potential market for 1,000 supersonic airliners by 2035. In 2016, the company targeted a unit price of per aircraft, before discounts and excluding options and interiors. Boom also claims that the operational cost per premium available seat mile will be lower than that of subsonic wide-body aircraft. The Overture factory is expected to have the capacity to assemble up to 100 aircraft per year, supporting a market of 1,000 to 2,000 aircraft over a 10-year period.

Boom expects that Overture's fuel efficiency and other operational factors will enable round-trip fares of approximately for a recliner-style business-class seat on the New York–London route, comparable to the cost of a lie-flat business class seat on a subsonic aircraft. By comparison, a round-trip ticket on the Concorde for the same route in 2003, its final year of service, cost . On longer routes, such as San Francisco–Tokyo or Los Angeles–Sydney, the aircraft could be configured with 30 lie-flat first-class seats and 15 recliner-style business-class seats.

In March 2016, Richard Branson confirmed that the Virgin Group held purchase options for 10 Overture aircraft, and that Virgin Galactic's subsidiary The Spaceship Company, would assist with manufacturing and testing the jet. However, in 2023, Virgin Group announced that its purchase options had expired. An unnamed European carrier also holds options for 15 aircraft, bringing the total value of the two deals to approximately US$5 billion. At the 2017 Paris Air Show, Boom announced 51 additional commitments, increasing the backlog to 76 aircraft with significant deposits. In December 2017, Japan Airlines was confirmed to have pre-ordered up to 20 aircraft as part of those commitments from five airlines. On June 3, 2021, United Airlines announced an agreement to purchase 15 Overture aircraft, with options for an additional 35, and expects to begin passenger service by 2029. On August 16, 2022, American Airlines announced a similar agreement to purchase 20 aircraft, with options for an additional 40.

Order summary

Development

By March 2016, the company had created concept drawings and wooden mockups of parts of the aircraft.

In October 2016, the design was stretched to to seat up to 50 passengers with ten extra seats, its wingspan marginally increased, and a third engine was added to enable ETOPS with up to a 180 minutes diversion time. The plane could seat 55 passengers in a higher-density configuration. In June 2017, its introduction was scheduled for 2023. By July 2018, it was delayed to 2025. At the time, it had undergone over 1,000 simulated wind tunnel tests.

Boom initially targeted a Mach 2.2 cruise speed to fit with transoceanic airline timetables and allow higher utilization, while keeping airport noise to Stage 4, similar to subsonic long-range aircraft. The plane configuration was intended to be locked in late 2019 to early 2020 for a launch with engine selection, supply chain, production site. Development and certification of the airliner and its engine were estimated at $6 billion, requiring Series C investors. Enough money was raised in the B round of fundraising to be able to hit key milestones, including flying the demonstrator (XB-1) to prove the technology, building up an order backlog, finding key suppliers for engines, aerostructures, and avionics, and lay out the certification process, with many special conditions but with precedents.

At the June 2019 Paris Air Show, Boom CEO Blake Scholl announced the introduction of the Overture was delayed from 2023 to the 2025–2027 timeframe, following a two-year test campaign with six aircraft. In September 2020, the company announced it has been contracted by the United States Air Force to develop the Overture for possible use as Air Force One.

On October 7, 2020, Boom publicly unveiled its XB-1 demonstrator, which it planned to fly for the first time in 2021 from Mojave Air and Space Port, California. It expected to begin wind tunnel tests for the Overture in 2021, and start construction of a manufacturing facility in 2022, with the capacity to produce 5 to 10 aircraft monthly. The first Overture would be unveiled in 2025, with the aim of achieving type certification by 2029. Flights should be available in 2030, as estimated by Blake Scholl.

Boom currently targets a slower Mach 1.7 cruise. In January 2022, Boom announced a grant of US$60 million from the US Air Force’s AFWERX program to further develop the Boom Overture supersonic airliner. In July 2022, Boom announced a partnership with Northrop Grumman to develop a 'special mission' variant for the U.S. Government and its allies. As of January 2022, the Overture's first flight is planned for 2026 with introduction into service expected in 2029.

On July 19, 2022, Boom unveiled a significantly revised proposal for the production version of the Overture at the Farnborough Airshow. This version has four engines and a tailed delta wing.

On December 13, 2022, Boom announced that it would develop its own turbofan engine after "Big Three" engine manufacturers Rolls-Royce, Pratt & Whitney and General Electric, as well as CFM and Safran previously declined to develop a new engine due to high capital costs. Named Symphony, the engine will be developed under partnership with three entities: Kratos subsidiary Florida Turbine Technologies for engine design; StandardAero for maintenance; and General Electric subsidiary GE Additive for consulting on printing components.

Design

Boom's original design for Overture was a trijet, and the XB-1 "Baby Boom" test vehicle was designed and built on this basis; this took its first flight in March 2024. In July 2022, the company announced a radical redesign of Overture into a quadjet, to closely resemble the unsuccessful Boeing B-2707-300 design from the 1970s. The new design features four large external engine pods rather than the two more compact engine 'box' nacelles, used on Concorde. This design has not been seen in high speed aircraft since the Convair B-58 Hustler bomber of the 1960s, due to high supersonic wave drag implications. It also now features a small horizontal stabilizer. Increasing the number of engines to four allows for smaller less technically challenging engines and takeoff at derated levels to lower noise. The gull form wing and fuselage were also modified to reduce drag.

Due to the low 1.5 wing aspect ratio, low-speed drag is high, and the aircraft requires high thrust at take-off. Boom also needs to address the nose-up attitude on landing. Airframe maintenance costs are expected to be similar to those of other carbon fiber airliners. The Overture should have lower fuel burn than Concorde by relying on non afterburning engines, composite structures, and improved technology since Concorde's development, although until Overture flies, Concorde remains the only Mach 2.0 supercruising aircraft in history and carried 30% more passengers than Boom is currently projecting.

In 2017 the FAA and International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) were working on a sonic boom standard to allow supersonic flights overland. NASA plans to fly its Low Boom Flight Demonstrator for the first time in 2022 to assess public acceptability of a 75 boom, lower than Concorde's 105 PNLdB. The Overture is expected to not be louder at take-off than current airliners like the Boeing 777-300ER. Supersonic jets could be exempted from the FAA takeoff noise regulations, reducing their fuel consumption by 20–30% by using narrower engines optimized for acceleration over limiting noise. In 2017, Honeywell and NASA tested predictive software and cockpit displays showing the sonic booms en route, to minimize its disruption overland.

Engines

The Boom Symphony engine is planned as a two-spool medium-bypass turbofan for use on Overture. The engine is intended to produce 35,000 pounds (160 kN) of thrust at takeoff, sustain Overture supercruise at Mach 1.7, and burn sustainable aviation fuel as an option.

Boom announced in December 2022 that development of the engine will be conducted in partnership with Kratos subsidiary Florida Turbine Technologies for engine design, GE Aerospace subsidiary GE Additive for additive manufacturing consulting, and StandardAero for maintenance. FTT/KTT is currently a maker of microturbines for drones and cruise missiles.

Boom aimed for initial production of the engine to begin in 2024 at the Overture Superfactory at Greensboro, North Carolina.

Environment

Drag increases (and therefore fuel efficiency decreases) with cruising speed, and there is a particularly severe increase in drag around the sound barrier. Boom agrees that the fuel burn of the aircraft will be higher than subsonic competition, but states that operators of the aircraft "must use sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) and/or purchase high-quality carbon removal credits" to reduce the environmental impact. However, sustainable aviation fuel is not yet widely available, with large-scale production relying on technology that does not yet exist, and carbon-offsetting schemes have been widely criticized as being unable to deliver net zero.

Specifications

See also

References

External links

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{{Supersonic transport

Supersonic transports
Proposed aircraft of the United States
Quadjets
Overture
Low-wing aircraft
Aircraft with retractable tricycle landing gear
Inverted gull-wing aircraft