Is Boom’s Overture schedule really realistic?

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.