Paris 2019: Boom Supersonic announces new partnerships

Boom founder and CEO Blake Scholl, was joined by Takeshi Morita, director, business creation strategy department at Japan Airlines – a strategic partner and investor in Boom – at the Paris Air Show to review the company’s plans for rolling out the XB-1, a two-seat supersonic demonstrator aircraft, in December 2019, with supersonic flight planned for 2020.

“Boom has experienced great success on its journey towards building a new generation of airliner that will transform the travel experience across the globe,” said Blake Scholl, founder and CEO of Boom. “Today, we have the advanced technology to realise faster air travel, and our teams have been working tirelessly over the past few years to build the first civil supersonic plane since Concorde.

“Our continued strategic partnership with Japan Airlines as well as new partnerships are a testament to our commitment to make supersonic flight a reality.”

Boom was founded with the purpose of removing barriers to experiencing the planet, and to realise this vision, it is building Overture, the first new supersonic commercial jet to emerge in 50 years. It is claimed Overture will allow airlines to offer a revolutionary service to passengers while earning superior economic performance relative to current aircraft in an environmentally sustainable way.

Japan Airlines (JAL), an early investor in Boom that committed $10m in 2017 and has options on 20 Overture airliners, joined the stage with Boom at the press conference held at the Paris Air Show. JAL is a strategic partner for Boom in the development of Overture, and the two companies are working closely to help make Overture an aircraft that meets JAL’s exacting operational needs, while also providing the highest level of client service. Over the past several months, teams from JAL and from Boom have collaborated in Denver and in Tokyo to review aspects of JAL’s operations, so that Boom engineers can understand the environment in which Overture will fly.

The XB-1 is expected to roll out of Boom’s hangar in December and fly supersonically in 2020. This important milestone will provide Boom with critical learnings and will continue to yield experiences and data that will support the development of Overture; this data will influence the aerodynamic design and calibration, stability and control, evaluation of handling qualities and development of propulsion inlet, nozzle and control systems.

The Boom team also announced a partnership with Prometheus, an innovative company in the field of sustainable alternative fuels. Prometheus’ technology economically removes CO₂ from the air and uses clean electricity to transform it into gasoline, diesel and jet fuel. The electricity used in this process is generated from alternative sources, such as wind and solar power, meaning there are no net CO₂ emissions generated throughout the process. Because the fuel is made from atmospheric CO₂, it is carbon neutral when burned, releasing no net carbon into the air. Boom plans to use Prometheus fuel to power XB-1 in the world’s first supersonic flight using carbon-neutral fuel.

Boom also announced several important strategic partnerships. In addition to the collaborations with JAL and Prometheus, Boom announced further collaboration on the supersonic programme with: Dassault Systèmes - using its 3DEXPERIENCE platform to accelerate the design and development; JPA Design, collaborating on the design of the interior and Stratasys, extending its partnership to 3D print crucial polymer-based parts for XB-1 and Overture.

https://boomsupersonic.com/