Breaking the Sound Barrier...AND the Bank?!

0:00 what's going on with Boom Supersonic let's find out Back in January Boom Supersonic XB1 demonstrator got into the history books by becoming the first independently developed aircraft to break the sound barrier XB1 is supersonic faster than the speed of sound And America's first civil supersonic jet ever And that's a big deal But now what what's the next step for the company are they still on track to build and deliver an airliner that will build on Concord's legacy and if so how will they fund it stay tuned So here's a quick quiz for you When was the last time that an aircraft carrying fair paying passengers flew through the air faster than the speed of sound well I'm sure you're all thinking of Concord which last flew in 2003 and you'd be

0:47 right But did you know that the last time you flew on an airliner there was a very good chance that the aircraft you were flying in actually had supersonic air flowing over certain parts of the airframe and that's because all modern airliners have something called a supercritical wing Now on a traditional wing the top surface is highly cambered or curved which results in air speeding up as it flows over it due to a phenomenon called Boni's conservation of energy Now this is a vital part of how a wing generates lift But other aircraft fly closer to the speed of sound This very vital part of the lift process actually begins to limit us Now imagine an aircraft flying subsonically well below the speed of sound at say Mac.7 or 70% of the speed of sound It would be

1:33 logical to think that a subsonic wing would be flying quite happily But due to Berni's principle the air flying over the top of the wing could be accelerated to supersonic speeds And on a wing designed to fly subsonically that's a problem Now the speed at which this happens is known as the critical MAC number or M crit And once MC crit is exceeded large shock waves can begin to form rapidly increasing drag and disrupting the air flow behind the wing destroying the lift being generated similar to how a low-speed stool destroys lift Now to delay the onset of these lift destroying shock waves the super critical wing was developed This design basically flattens the top surface of the wing which delays and reduces the shock wave formation

2:18 enabling higher cruise speeds And sometimes you can actually see this phenomenon out of your window Take a look at this This is a video of an Airbus A320 wing during a perfectly normal flight A member of our mentor team shot this with their phone And the only thing that's just a little bit unusual here is the sun hitting the wing at just the right angle to reveal this Well what you're looking at here might look fairly insignificant but it's actually a small shock wave or more specifically the shadow of a shock wave on the upper surface of the wing This happens because the aircraft is flying in what is known as the transsonic speed regime where some parts of the aircraft like the upper surface of the wing accelerate the air to supersonic speeds Now the air flow forward of that shock

3:03 wave as you look at the wing from above is supersonic but slowing back down to subsonic speeds afterwards And that's pretty cool and definitely worth looking out for during your next flight And let us know in the comments if you've ever seen this But of course this is not what we mean when we talk about supersonic flight If we want all of the plane to fly faster than the speed of sound then obviously the last airliner to do so was Concord before it was retired in 2003 And I find it really sad to think that it's been over two decades since the beauty of Concord graced our skies above us But if Blake Skull the CEO of Boom Supersonic has his way the company will make supersonic passenger travel possible again in just a few years And to that end Boom took a key step in

3:49 achieving this on the 28th of January this year when the XB1 experimental test bed broke the sound barrier There we are XB1 is supersonic faster than the speed of sound This was the 12th and final flight of this aircraft and it was a long time coming Boom rolled out this plane back in 2020 describing it as a 1/3 scale test aircraft meant to test the layout of Overture which is a name that Boom uses to describe its future supersonic passenger jet But it's not just planes that travel faster than the speed of sound Someone as techsavvy as you probably has personal data zooming all over the internet without your knowledge or consent opening you up to higher risk of harassment scams and identity theft Data brokers are people

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5:20 you're with them Now if you want to do the same scan this QR code or head over to joindeleteme.com/mentor now and use the code mentor now and you can even get 20% off DeleteMe's US consumer plans if you're based out there Thanks so much Delete Me for sponsoring this video and stay safe out there Now let's get back to the groundbreaking XB1 Now the XB1 has something called an Ojivvil Delta wing which is a similar design to that of Concord and it's the same wing design that Boom originally planned for the overure Now while that wing design is excellent for high-speed supersonic flight it's not very efficient when flying at the lower speeds required for takeoff and landing So in order to generate sufficient lift during the approach Concord had to fly with a very

6:07 high angle of attack This meant that Concord's long nose was pointing more towards the sky than it was the runway And without any modifications it would make it impossible for the pilots to see the runway and that's not good So to overcome this problem Concord's designers came up with a novel but costly solution a droop nose system that can move out of the way Now whilst this was a very innovative solution to the problem it also added a high degree of complexity and weight which not only delayed the certification process but also required costly maintenance So to avoid having to install a similar system to the XP1 its designers incorporated an augmented vision system called the FLVS or the forward-looking vision system This system includes two redundant

6:53 cameras a multi-function display a data acquisition system and an inertial navigation system which provides pilots with everything they need to fly safe approaches Now while this is an innovative solution to a problem this plane itself is a bit of a mix of old and new For example the wing and front half of the fuselage are made of modern composites whereas the rear structure is aluminium which houses the engines which themselves aren't exactly modern These are General Electric J85s basically a 1950s design for small fighter jets and military trainers And Boom actually uses a T38 aircraft with two of the same engines as a chase plane for the XV1 Now if all of this sounds a bit familiar it's because I briefly spoke about the XV1 a few weeks ago in a

7:39 monthly news roundup which was actually my first appearance here on the channel And I'd just like to take a moment to say a massive thank you for the warm welcome in the comments and just to say how blown away I've been by your positivity The mental family which you're part of is truly amazing And as I said back then the first supersonic flight lasted just over half an hour and the XB1 and its pilot broke the sound barrier three times reaching a speed of Mac 1.1 before coming back in for a safe landing Then a couple of weeks later on the 10th of Feb Boom's XB1 took off again for its second supersonic flight This one lasted a little bit longer and the aircraft flew slightly faster at Mac 1.12 But all of the XB1's flights took place in special airspace over the

8:25 Mojave Desert where NASA has special testing equipment for just such flights And during the XB1 second supersonic flight Boom and NASA arranged for a special photo to be taken This process is called Schluran photography And if the aircraft flies at a certain angle in relation to the sun then it becomes possible to see the way the air density changes around the aircraft as shock waves form Similar to shock waves that we saw over the Airbus A320 wing but on a much bigger scale More importantly perhaps Boom announced that neither of the XV1 supersonic flights actually featured a sonic boom that reached the ground And that's really a big deal During testing the aircraft flew high enough and at a low enough supersonic speed and in the right atmospheric conditions that no sonic boom reached

9:12 the ground Something that NASA's special array of microphones in the desert was able to confirm Boom calls this boomless cruise and it can occur when the aircraft flies between Mac 1 and Mac 1.3 but again in the right altitude and atmospheric conditions In very simple terms as the shock waves travel downwards the warmer denser air causes these shock waves to defract bending them back upwards away from the ground But believe it or not this isn't actually a new idea The phenomena is called MAC cutoff and NASA has been studying it and the conditions it can happen in for quite some time now with their own test aircraft which is why they already had those special microphones in place Now as it stands at the moment commercial supersonic flights over land are not permitted And even if

9:57 they were Boom currently intends to optimize overture for cruise speeds of Mac 1.7 much too fast for Boomless flight to be possible But if these rules change to permit overland supersonic flights when they're quiet enough then Boom's overture could still take advantage of this gaining a big speed advantage over conventional airliners and more operational flexibility than Concord ever had Crucially though the focus is now shifting from the XB1 to the Overture passenger jet because Boom doesn't intend to fly the XB1 again The plane's done its job now and Boom plans to display it in the lobby of its headquarters in Denver Now the Overture will be utilizing a wide variety of new tech bringing supersonic flight to the 21st century Its flight deck will incorporate modern avionics with 17-in

10:44 touchscreens active side sticks that allow pilots to be aware of each other's inputs which in my view is a distinct advantage over the Airbus system plus the enhanced flight vision system which will basically be a wearable head-up display to increase situation awareness especially in low visibility conditions Also somewhat unusually perhaps the overture will be able to receive what Boom calls overthe-air upgrades allowing new system features and improvements to arrive on the entire fleet regularly and quickly similar to how modern cars receive software updates So what's next how quickly can we expect the development of Boom Overture to advance from now on well Boo remained quite ambitious with its development timeline but ultimately this is a question of

11:30 money and the company has already secured funding from many interested players which I'll come back to in a bit But let's start with something that was a pressing problem for Boom the last time he made a video about them Engines In the summer of 2022 Boom effectively parted ways with Rolls-Royce who had been a strategic partner for the company for around 2 years Now the purpose of that partnership was to explore the possibility of using Rolls-Royce engines in Overture But Rolls-Royce later stated that the job they'd actually been contracted to do was to help Boom with studies about the engines that such an aircraft would need To start with Boom's overture had a three engine layout one under each wing and a third one in the rear of the fuselage As a result of those studies Boom revised its design to

12:15 feature four underwing engines and a new type of wing The company moved away from the ojival delta wing that Concord and the XP1 had for a more conventional delta wing design along with horizontal tail surfaces The configuration is actually really similar to late versions of Boeing's ill- fated 2707 SST from the late 1960s Although Boeing's design was much bigger it would have been a widebody with seats for well over 200 passengers But that's not all that changed Boom's new aircraft also got slower Originally Boom wanted the Overture to cruise at Mac 2.2 which was slightly faster than Concord but the company now says that the new version will cruise at Mac 1.7 which is still pretty rapid Also this newer overture is bigger The original was big enough for

13:02 around 55 passengers but the new one will have room for 66 to 80 passengers And that growth has had some interesting implications for those engines Originally each of the three engines of the first overture was to have a thrust rating of between 15,000 and 20,000 lb of thrust And to put that into perspective the thrust rating on the 737 Max Leap engines that I fly are rated at £27,000 So you may ask why does a supersonic aircraft have significantly less thrust than that of a subsonic airliner well we've got to remember here that the 737 Max is two to three times the size of the overture and has two engines as opposed to four Boom says that each of the four engines of the new version will now generate 35,000 lb of

13:48 thrust more than doubling the total installed thrust of the aircraft despite the lower cruise speed You also may ask why does Boom need a new engine can't they use an existing jet engine instead well modern airliner engines designed for subsonic speeds are known as high bypass turbo fans And by bypass we mean the part of the air flow well actually most of it doesn't actually go through the core of the engine Instead after passing through the big fan that we see at the front of the engine almost 90% of the air goes around the central core and out of the rear of the engine meaning that the fan at the front is effectively acting like a giant propeller The other 10% goes through the central core of the engine where it gets compressed ignited and shot out of the rear of the engine which provides an element of thrust as

14:34 well as spinning the turbine blades which are connected to the compressor blades at the front of the engine via a shaft and in turn spin those blades Broadly speaking though a high bypass ratio allows turbo fans to increase their efficiency which is what we all want But when flying faster than the speed of sound the large frontal area of these big engines becomes a problem That's why even very modern jet engines for military supersonic jets are low or medium bypass turbo fans and that's exactly what Overture needs But with Rolls-Royce out of the picture and no interests from the likes of General Electric Pratt and Whitney and Saffron to design and build an engine for Overture Boom decided to take matters into their own hands and develop their own engine They named this Symphfony Now this doesn't mean that Boom won't have

15:20 partners with engine making experience They do And these partners do make components for many existing jet engine manufacturers for commercial and military applications while others have experience in maintaining such engines But by taking the lead in this project means that Boom will need to shoulder the cost of developing this engine on top of what needs to be spent to develop the rest of the aircraft itself And that brings us neatly to money How much does Boom have and what will they actually need to get overure into service well Boom estimate that they will need between six and eight billion dollar to develop the aircraft and seasoned analysts like Richard Abania raise the estimate to at least 10 billion which frankly still seems quite conservative given that a modern subsonic airliner

16:07 can cost twice as much to develop Also Abola made that estimate back in 2020 when Boom was hoping to get an engine from a supplier According to the air current developing an allnew engine for a project like this would realistically add at least $1.5 billion to the total development cost So how much money has Boom managed to secure so far well by the time the XB1 broke the sound barrier for the first time the company had managed to secure around $600 million And this money includes deposits from launch customer airlines contributions from various investors like Open AI Sam Ortman and LinkedIn co-founder Reed Hoffman plus support from potential customers like the US Air Force in a collaboration with military contractor Northrop Grumman The company's also

16:54 received support in different ways To assemble the overture Boom will use a purpose-built site in Piedmont Tri International Airport in South Carolina Boom calls this overure super factory The construction of the main building was completed in June 2024 and the work was made possible in large part thanks to the funding from the state of North Carolina In essence the state believes that the jobs that Boom will create in the region and the taxes they expect to collect from the company and those who work for it make it worthwhile to fund part of the project The relevant paperwork lists approvals for $56.75 million for the construction of the hangers $15 million for related work around the airport plus $35 million to improve the road access to the airport specifically for this project And that's

17:39 a total of $106.75 million Now for a facility like this Boom would need to have a steady demand for overtures from customers around the globe And that means that the economics and features of the aircraft need to make it a practical proposition for as many routes around the world as possible Which brings us back to those updated specifications of overture and the choice to use four 35,000lb turboan engines And one potential issue here though is range The overture will be able to fly a bit further than Concord around 4,250 nautical miles instead of Concord's 3,900 That means that the transatlantic routes that Concord flew will be no problem for Overture But Boom also hopes to sell the aircraft to airlines that will perform

18:25 transpacific routes which won't be possible without a fuel stop along the way Boom argues that the plane will still be significantly faster than conventional airliners For example flying from Seattle to Tokyo in a regular airliner takes around 9 hours but Overture will be able to fly the same route in half that time even with a 30inut fuel stop Boom also claims that it's designed overure for quick refueling to make this process easier But weirdly many analysts believe that this speed is actually too slow for the economics of the aircraft to work There's a reason why the original overture design was planned to cruise at Mac 2.2 As explained by Scott Hamilton and Liam News the speed was necessary not just to please the passengers but for practical and operational reasons

19:11 too At Mac 2.2 two an aircraft and its flight crew would be able to fly two legs in a day For example a return flight between London and JFK which is pretty insane For many routes reasonable arrival and departure times at airports with different time zones also became trickier to organize if the flights aren't quick enough In practice designing the aircraft for Mac 1.7 meant that the engines could be simpler Unlike the complicated intakes of many military jets the intakes of the Overture Symphony will be fixed and simpler than those that the XP1 test bed was originally meant to test Fuel efficiency is another issue here Boom says that the Overture will be able to use 100% sustainable aviation fuel or SAF from its introduction into service But with

19:57 SAF being quite scarce and very costly many question the use of SAF in supersonic applications Finally there's the project's timeline Despite mounting delays Boom still claims it will fly passengers in the overture before the end of the decade and that seems quite difficult especially given the delays at certification of other aircraft that we've seen recently Engine certification timelines are even tighter John Ostraa of the Air Current points out that engines from established manufacturers like GE Rolls-Royce and Prattton Whitney can take four years to develop even when they're basically updated versions of existing engines All new engines like the CFM Leap needed 5 years from launch to service entry despite using the same technology from G's widebody engines

20:43 Boom launched the Symphfony engine at the end of 2022 for a 2029 entry into service which seems quite optimistic given their inexperience and the unusual nature of the engine's application Frankly though the daunting task that Boom faced today really emphasize how ahead of its time Concord was when it entered into service all of those years ago On paper at least the decades since then offer many opportunities for improvements from more efficient engines composites lighter stronger metal alloys better aerodynamics and yet matching Concord speed is still proving difficult Now I don't really want to end this on a negative note though Is this an ambitious project absolutely But you have to be ambitious creative and maybe a little crazy to take on something as monumentally challenging as this And to

21:30 be fair Concord's development timeline and its costs didn't exactly go to plan either You need to be a good storyteller to get the right funding and support for a project like this and you need to do so in creative ways Which brings us back to where we started this story with the XB1 supersonic test bed You see even when the overture still had three engines and a different wing many questioned the need to make a one-off test bed like the XP1 suggesting that this plane was as much a test vehicle as it was an investment vehicle And when asked about this Blake Skull the CEO of Boom didn't deny it telling Forbes "You're right It has many purposes It opens eyes to what's possible and what his team is capable of." Now we miss Concord so we hope that Boom really can

22:15 prove its critics wrong And now that their demonstrator is done demonstrating it's time for them to show the world what they can really do But let me know what you think in the comments Would you love to see this succeed would you fly supersonically on Overture let us know what you think I'm Ben Watts You're watching Mentor Now Have an amazing week and I'll see you next time