Enlarge / Could Air Force officers fly on Boom Supersonic’s Overture aircraft one day? (credit: Boom Supersonic )
The US military has indicated its interested in commercial supersonic flight by granting as much as $60 million to Growth Supersonic for its airliner development efforts.
The Colorado-based company offers announced that the Air Force awarded a three-year contract to Boom to accelerate research and development of its Overture airliner. Separately this week, Boom also selected Piedmont Triad International Airport in Greensboro, North Carolina, as the site of the first full-scale manufacturing facility. There, Boom plans to begin production in 2024, with the first Overture aircraft slated to roll out within 2025, fly in 2026, and carry its first passengers by 2029.
Boom is designing Overture to carry between 65 and 88 passengers at subsonic speeds over land and supersonic rates of speed over water—more than twice as fast as current commercial plane. The aircraft is designed to operate on 100 percent “sustainable” fuels, and the company says the particular vehicle will be net-zero carbon from day one.
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