Tesla Inc and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk on Monday expressed optimism for Boom Supersonic looking to design a supersonic airliner named Overture to succeed the Concorde.
What Happened: “I hope they succeed!,” Musk said about Boom on Monday, following the announcement of the completion of the company’s Overture superfactory in North Carolina.
The factory is located at Piedmont Triad International Airport in Greensboro and is where Boom expects to build the Overture. While the first assembly line at the plant can make 33 Overture aircraft per year, the company plans to build an additional assembly line to produce 66 Overtures annually, it said.
Boom, founded in 2014 in Colorado, flew the XB-1 for the first time earlier this year in March at the Mojave Air & Space Port in Mojave, California. The XB-1 is a supersonic demonstrator aircraft for Overture and the company is continuing its flight test program to confirm the aircraft’s performance and handling. Boom Supersonic is backed by popular names including Y Combinator, Emerson Collective, Bessemer Venture Partners, and Prime Movers Lab.
"Supersonic flight will transform air travel, and Overture provides a much-needed innovative alternative for airlines across the globe," said Blake Scholl, founder and CEO of Boom. The company has already received orders and pre-orders from American Airlines, United Airlines, and Japan Airlines.
Why It Matters: Overture is expected to have a cruising speed of Mach 1.7 or about twice the speed of current-day subsonic airliners with the ability to carry 64-80 passengers.
Musk is seemingly a fan of supersonic airliners. In October, the billionaire entrepreneur took to social media platform X to recommend changes to the now-retired Concorde airliner to increase its efficiency.
"Just updating the engines would cut fuel use in half," Musk wrote on X. "Also, max altitude should be raised to ~80k ft. Would solve both efficiency and heating problems," he added.
"Carrying up to 100 passengers in great comfort, the Concorde catered to first-class passengers for whom speed was critical,” the National Air and Space Museum says about the supersonic Concorde. Though the airliner could cross the Atlantic in fewer than four hours or in half the time as a conventional jet airliner, its high operating costs resulted in high fares, limiting the number of passengers who could afford to fly it, the museum said.
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Photo courtesy: Boom Supersonic
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