Boom Supersonic nudges closer to magical Mach number
January 13, 2025
In a flight test campaign that has been quite literally picking up the pace in recent months, Boom Supersonic is “on track to break the sound barrier in early 2025,” having successfully completed the 11th flight of its XB-1 demonstrator on 10 January.
During the 44 minute flight, chief test pilot Tristan “Geppetto” Brandenburg took the experimental aircraft to an altitude of 29.481 feet, reaching a transonic speed of Mach 0.95 and the aircraft’s highest dynamic pressure experienced to date. At 383 KEAS (knots equivalent airspeed), this is a higher number than the aircraft will be subjected to whilst supersonic.
Although the team had predicted flight 11 would be the final test before taking XB-1 supersonic, “following a thorough review of aircraft performance and handling qualities,” Boom may undertake one more transonic flight before breaching the sound barrier – on what would then be XB-1’s 13th flight.
During the flight, Blake Scholl confirmed that despite getting “all the aerodynamic test points complete to clear XB-1 past Mach 1,” the team did encounter some “GPS and radio issues,” with Boom contemplating one more subsonic flight “to ring these out”. Additionally, during the post-landing rollout, XB-1 experienced a bird strike which “hit the camera that drives the augmented reality system… so [the] team is also checking that everything is still within calibration for the next flight,” confirmed Scholl.
The 11th flight was the first test in which Boom’s customary T-38 ‘chase plane’ was joined by a Dassault Mirage, which – equipped with high-resolution cameras – will attempt to capture images of the shockwave the moment Mach 1 is reached. “XB-1’s first supersonic flight will be live-streamed on X, with an up-close air-to-air view via Starlink,” Scholl added on social media.
XB-1’s endeavours are intended to inform the design and development of Boom’s proposed Mach 1.7-capable airliner, Overture, predicted to enter service by the end of the decade – with Blake having previously described Concorde as “the story of a journey started but not yet finished”.
