After a long search, start-up Boom Supersonic has selected Piedmont Triad International Airport in Greensboro (North Carolina) as the manufacturing site of its Overture supersonic transport, it announced on January 26. Boom plans to start production of the first prototype in 2024, but this looks optimistic. Is Boom's Overture schedule really realistic? Boom has acquired a 65 hectares site next to the airport’s runway and Interstate 73 motorway. The project is hailed as bringing 1.750 jobs in 2030 and even 2.400 two years later to North Carolina, which is close to a number of tier 1 suppliers to the aviation industry. Boom claims that SST production will benefit the state’s economy with $32.3 billion in the coming twenty years. But as we wrote in June last year, Boom still needs to tick quite a few boxes before it is ready. The manufacturer an order for fifteen Overtures plus 35 options from United Airlines, but these are conditional to meeting specific targets and requirements. Japan Airlines placed a pre-order for twenty aircraft and has invested $20 million in Boom. Its order book is valued at $14 billion, says Boom, but this includes seventy orders and options that need confirmation. Boom’s time schedule also remains most optimistic. According to its January 26 press release, it plans to break ground on the Greenboro site this year and start production two years later, with the first roll-out planned in 2025, the first flight in 2026, and the first commercial service in 2029. Its website mentions production starting in 2022 and roll-out in 2025, so two years of production and assembly seem to be missing from the latest schedule. If the development of its XB-1 demonstrator is something to go for, this time schedule is far from certain. The XB-1 was supposed to fly in 2019, but Boom-founder Blake Scholl announced a delay until 2020. But since the rollout in October 2020, the demonstrator still has to start its flight test program. Lessons from these tests are crucial for developing the Overture, so the longer it takes for XB-1 to fly, the longer it will take these lessons to spill over into the 65 to 88-seater transport. Even more crucial is that Boom still hasn’t confirmed the powerplant for the Overture. It entered a partnership with Rolls-Royce in July 2020 “to identify a propulsion system to complement Overture’s airframe.” The UK engine maker hasn’t provided any updates since then on what engine would be available for Boom. Unless design and development are happening behind closed doors, it’s difficult to believe that the Overture will have a mature engine within the time schedule provided by Boom.
