Aircraft

American Airlines puts down deposit for 20 Boom supersonic aircraft

View 8 Images
Artist's concept of Overture
Boom Supersonic
United has already ordered Overture aircraft
Boom Supersonic
Overture with cumulonimbus cloud and cirrus cloud
Boom Supersonic
The hull and wing design of Overture will minimize the sonic boom
Boom Supersonic
American Airlines has ordered 20 of the supersonic aircraft
Boom Supersonic
Overture is scheduled to enter service in 2029
Boom Supersonic
Overture will ba able to fly at Mach 1.7
Boom Supersonic
Overture taxiing
Boom Supersonic
Artist's concept of Overture
Boom Supersonic
View gallery - 8 images

The future of civilian commercial supersonic travel looks a bit firmer today after American Airlines and Boom Supersonic signed an agreement for the airline to put down a non-returnable deposit towards the purchase of 20 Overture supersonic aircraft, with the option for an additional 40.

Though it made its last service flight in 2003, the famous Anglo-French Concorde supersonic airliner's fate was sealed almost as soon as it entered service in 1973. Though over 100 orders were filed with the British Aircraft Corporation/Sud Aviation consortium for the aircraft by major airlines around the world, these orders were all non-binding, and by February 1980 every order was cancelled except for 12 airframes for BOAC and Air France.

There were many reasons for this turn of events. Concorde was so cutting-edge and ambitious that it was comparable to NASA's Apollo program, but it suffered from cost overruns, fierce environmentalist opposition, and soaring fuel prices after the Arab Oil Embargo. Any one of these was like dropping a cannonball into a lifeboat, but the loss of every order except for two national airlines that were ordered by their governments to buy Concorde was the economic death knell to an aircraft that was expected to wear the livery of every major international airline.

Overture is scheduled to enter service in 2029
Boom Supersonic

That's the reason why today's announcement is so significant. Following on from last year's purchase agreement by United with Boom and Northrop Grumman teaming with the company to create military variants of the Overture, American Airlines not only promising to buy 20 of the aircraft but putting down earnest money to back it up shows strong confidence that is likely to bolster Boom and the re-emerging commercial supersonic market.

According to Boom, the agreement is subject to its aircraft being able to meet industry-standard operating, performance, and safety requirements. In addition, the company must meet other conditions set by American before accepting delivery.

Scheduled to make its maiden flight in 2026 and enter service by 2029, Overture boasts a new hull and wing designed to reduce the infamous sonic boom to an acceptable thud. It will have a range of 4,250 nm (4,890 miles, 7,870 km) and will be able to carry up to 80 passengers at speeds of Mach 1.7 over water and Mach 0.94 over land, allowing it to fly from Tokyo to Seattle in as little as four and a half hours.

"Looking to the future, supersonic travel will be an important part of our ability to deliver for our customers," said Derek Kerr, American’s Chief Financial Officer. “We are excited about how Boom will shape the future of travel both for our company and our customers."

Source: Boom Supersonic

View gallery - 8 images
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Flipboard
  • LinkedIn
8 comments
martinwinlow
Well, they won't be getting the California DMV complaining about the name for this thing, then!
Captain Danger
Why slower over land? Once up high enough the Boom should not be so bad.
Nelson
We should be looking for ways to reduce our energy use, not expandit, which will happen here because it take ten times the amount of energy to fly supersonic than atcureent speeds.
WB
Nelson has a point.. if we were to walk it would be 1000x less energy than flying... so lets all just walk there... somehow....
christopher
Nutty name (everyone loves aircraft sounds already, right?). Nutty idea.

They should have built a SLOWER one that's vastly more efficient (think Celera), and vastly larger, but carries fewer passengers, in sleepers.

It is infinitely more worthwhile (and valuable to both the airline and customers) to go to sleep at launch, and wake up the next day on arrival (avoiding all unnecessary delays and accomodation expenses to-boot) than waste your day going extra fast to get to your hotel sooner.
Towerman
First This is not the concorde so its much more efficient. Second who wants a ride in a ferrari ?

Everyone so this will sell tickets by the buckloads.

Do i personally like the noise. NO(but are they not planning on keeping this noise low or eleminating it ?)

Do i like its fuel burn NO i hate fossil fuel combustion i would make it electric if it was possible ! but right now it isn't. Would i rather walk or cycle, Yes i would !
ljaques
Making so much off the little guys after Covid that they can afford to buy both these planes and the fuel they'll guzzle? I see.
I miss hearing the sonic booms over LRAFB in the '60s, before they were outlawed. Don't think the B-52s were responsible, tho.
EH
I recall reading an article by a famous engineer, published in an aeronautics journal back in the late '50s, when progress in the field seemed like it would never level off, noting that greater aircraft speed would not effectively deliver passengers to their destination any faster unless the frequency of service along each route was high enough that the sum of travel time plus the waiting time for the next departure for the faster, more expensive-ticket aircraft was shorter than that for the slower, cheaper-ticket aircraft. That's a very difficult standard to meet for Boom, the service along each route will have to be quite frequent.

The difficulty becomes practically insurmountable considering that the '50s engineer was assuming that tickets could be obtained on the spot at the airport for a standard price and passengers could just walk on without scheduling weeks in advance or having to spend hours going through security. When one calculates the cost in higher ticket price even per nominal travel hour saved, it's going to be horrendous, and in fact it almost certainly will actually be slower for emergency travel to go by supersonic jet because one will have to wait several times as long for the next supersonic flight as one would for a regular flight.