Ashlee VanceNYT Best Seller | Reporter at Bloomberg Businessweek

Supersonic Flight Is Boom's XB 1 the Future of Travel

5 Aug 2025 · 2 min

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1:31

In this on‑location YouTube report, journalist Ashlee Vance travels to the Mojave Desert to assess Boom Supersonic’s XB‑1 test program. He frames the story around whether founder Blake Scholl’s multimillion‑dollar effort will finally deliver affordable civil supersonic travel. The segment introduces the imminent first‑time sound‑barrier breach by a privately‑built civil jet—the first such event in 22 years. Vance highlights Scholl’s unconventional tech‑industry background (Amazon, Groupon) and suggests that this non‑traditional leadership may help avoid the costly missteps of the historic supersonic “old guard.” The tone is investigative yet conversational, with a mix of excitement about a faster future and skepticism about the commercial viability of supersonic travel for the “reasonably well‑to‑do.”

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With that, I have come to Mojave, California to find out if Blake has been wasting his time and hundreds of millions of dollars on a fruitless quest, or perhaps if he's onto something. If supersonic flight really can be had by all, or at least by the reasonably well-to-do. I have come to see a plane zip through Mojave's famed Supersonic Corridor. And break the sound barrier and to think of a faster future. It's late January and Boom is gearing up to fly this supersonic jet for the first time. It's called the XB-1. Boom has done several test flights with the aircraft already, but it's never pushed it past the sound barrier before.. And so there's excitement in the air.
Tomorrow's a big day. It's the first civil supersonic flight in about 22 years and the first time a supersonic jet built by something other than a nation-state has broken the sound barrier.
Blake is in many ways an unlikely person to be overseeing this effort. He's an internet dude who used to work at Amazon. Groupon, for God's sake. But to avoid the costly mistakes of the supersonic old guard, Blake has his eye on a different path for Boom.