Supersonic Flight Is Coming Back

This is the face of a madman, and this is what he sounds like.

So there's an inverse square law. If you double the altitude, the intensity drops off by a factor of 4.

Yeah. For the past 11 years, Blake Scholl and his company Boom have been trying to bring supersonic flight to the masses. We've obviously been here and done that and failed. Here's the Concorde soaring through the skies in the '80s. Here's the champagne and the poulet à mâche. And of course, here's the French succeeding at something. But the world could not sustain such ambition and decadence. And since the Concorde retired in 2003, civilization has been pushed backwards. We're slower, grungier, and sadder. 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 on to 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. And 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.

So Concorde was established in 1962 via treaty between the British and the French. So the goal was not really, let's go build a commercial supersonic airliner. The goal was to show that Western technology was superior to Soviet technology. So it is very much like Apollo. So, you know, 1969, we flew Concorde for the first time. 1969, we landed on the moon. Half a century later, can't do either of those things. I think it really shows the folly of prestige-driven innovation. You can do some very technically impressive things, but it creates the illusion of progress.

And they're not lasting.

It's not lasting because it's not done in an economically viable way. People remember Concorde as meaning that supersonic commercial flight wasn't a good idea. And it took a Herculean effort to get the world to be open to that idea again. And if we screw it up, it won't be because it was impossible. It'll be because we screwed it up. And so I feel, you know, a lot of responsibility to make sure it actually happens.

Tomorrow, Boom will be testing the XB-1, but that's just the first step. Boom's real goal is to get to this plane. It's called Overture, and it will hold up to 80 passengers and fly at Mach 1.7. The term Mach speed means the local speed of sound, which at sea level is 768 miles per hour. Today, commercial airplanes typically cruise at around 460 to 575 miles per hour. Pathetic, if you ask Blake.

That's just getting started. There's gonna be an Overture 2, an Overture 3. We've already got some of those on the drawing board. And the goal is to get the fares down to where cost is just not an impediment.

There's already a factory to make Overture in North Carolina, and its Symphony engines are being constructed, but the plane itself remains years away. In the meantime, Boom is trying to find out if its team and the XB-1 have what it takes to make a hunk of metal survive Mach-level forces. For a peek under the supersonic hood, let us turn to Nick Sureika. He's the chief flight test engineer for Boom and has done his penance in the Mojave Desert, both at Scaled Composites and now Boom.

So the challenge is making an aircraft that's both very fast and also safe and stable at low speeds. That was something that was way harder to do. If you're going to air launch an airplane and all I had to do was go supersonic and then not land, that would be incredibly easy. But this is really almost two airplanes in one where you have to design a low-speed airplane and a high-speed airplane.

This particular plane has flown 11 times, each flight test more daring than the last.

You start with a really small circle of, of stuff you know about, 'cause maybe you've turned the engines on once or something on the ramp, and that's all you know. You progressively start to increase engine power, activate systems, start moving things, moving the flight controls. Then you start taxiing and do that slow, and then you do that fast.

Then you fly.

Your first flights are slow at low altitude. Later flights get faster and higher. And so you're progressively expanding this envelope of things that you know work.

And large problems can hide in the tiniest of spaces.

Beneath the wing, you see one of three inlets. So this is supersonic inlet that feeds what I'll call a conventional turbojet engine behind it. So what the inlet's job is, is it conditions that flow from supersonic condition slows it down so that by the time that air gets to the front of the engine, it's slowed down to Mach 0.8, 0.6 to 0.8 or so, which is the optimal condition for what the engine wants to consume. But doing that is a challenge. At high speed, you could make a big inlet face to capture a lot of area, but then that would cause a lot of drag, so it has to be small. And at the low speed condition, because you sized it for that drag case going really fast, you end up with something that's probably smaller than it otherwise would be. And we actually, we got it wrong. We screwed it up 3 times. And this added, you know, calendar months to the program.

Just even just this little bit right here.

Just taking some sharpness off and putting a little bit of a more generous radius gave it a tremendous amount of more ground capability.

All right, I want to nerd out on the engines with you.

Okay, cool.

So there's 3 of these exact same things on the plane.

These are just 2 spares, but there are 3 of these installed in XV-1. The engine type is a J85-15 engine. It comes out of a Canadian variant of an F-5 aircraft. So from, you know, this portion of the engine from here to about here, that's the turbo machinery, that's the turbojet. And then from about here aft, that's the afterburner, which augments the thrust, but it burns a lot more fuel to get that thrust. XP-1 was originally laid out to not use afterburners, and we were going to use that -21 variant. So we designed the airplane assuming we could get them. We went out looking for them in the secondary market, and they were just— they're unobtainium. The year that we were trying to source these things, we were calling other foreign countries, looking everywhere for them, people's garages. Who has a -21? In any event, we We couldn't get it. So the design challenge we were faced with was, do we redesign the airplane or do we pivot to a different engine? We were able to get the Dash 15s, and so we made the decision to pivot to the 15s. But now you've got all this extra weight, and that forced us to put some ballast in the nose of the airplane, made the whole airplane a little bit heavier. The first variants of this engine, yeah, were in the '60s. More time separates us from these engines. Than separates these engines from the Wright brothers.

Right. Okay.

So one human mind cannot wrap their head around every single interaction that exists on a platform like this. And so you have to go and you have to strategically test as many of those as you possibly can. And when you're talking about millions and millions of interactions and you're trying to test them all, you're going to run into roadblocks.

This is a level of engineering and hard work that could compel someone to have a momentary spell of patriotism, as we're reminded that America still knows how to make things. The company started at Blake's house back in 2014, and some people like Erin Young have been along for the entire ride.

It's been a really fun journey. I started, uh, back in early 2016. I walked into Blake's basement and It's 5 guys kind of sitting in the dark with their computer screens glowing. And somehow in that moment, Blake's pitch really convinced me that if someone's going to do this, it's this group of people. Although it's been a long time, it's actually kind of the dream in engineering and especially in aviation. A lot of the products that are out there in aviation stay theoretical, especially if they're supersonic. So I got to come in and from nothing on a computer screen. We generated the model for XB-1, how we're actually going to make this aircraft look and function. Then we got to build it. Then we got to test it in the hangar, and then we got to test it in Mojave on the runway, taxi testing. And then we finally get to flight test it. In aviation, you can't learn the final lesson until you actually fly it. So getting to do that whole lifecycle really lets you see the engineering come to life and makes it all real.

The Boom team has solved countless challenges over the years, like developing VR helmets that allow the pilots to see during takeoff and the very unnatural angles during landing. When you guys started, I remember you wanted cameras on the outside that were supposed to feed into a screen, but now in— but the helmet was like a later addition.

In XB-1 specifically, we're working with those cameras to come up with how we pipe that landing system into the MFD so the pilot has it right in front of him. We use that camera feed to show him the runway below and make it safe for him to land. And it's been working very well on all of our test flights.

To test the camera system, Boom has this XB-1 simulator and a simulator of the future Overture aircraft. It's the Overture one that I'm really into. It's a cockpit with a modern twist. Finally.

So I just come in through the center here and climb, climb over.

I'm gonna go left.

Yeah, go left. So this, this is the, what's called the primary flight display. You and I both have one. It'll have infrared cameras, both millimeter wave radar, plus it'll have synthetic terrain that's overlaid out of a terrain database.

And the pilots will only wear the headset for takeoff and landing?

That's right. Okay. So your throttles are here, and we are lined up straight in for London Heathrow, and your landing gear is already down, and your approach speed is about 165 knots. As we get down, like, right over the runway threshold, you can start bringing the power back, and it will grade your landing based on how much you maintain your glide slope and how gentle your touchdown was.

All right, ready? I think.

So I'd push the nose a little bit and take all 4 of those and pull them back.

Okay.

Oh wait, I want to be in the blue line. Do I want to be in the blue line?

Yeah, that's your, that's your 3-degree glide slope. But that little green target is your flight path indicator. A little bit more push and a little bit more to the right. Oh, there we go. Okay, uh, small correction, come back to left. Where's the runway? Oh, your power's all the way off. You're going to bring a little more power in now.

Oh, God.

Yeah, the runway's on the left.

I don't even think I was— uh, hey, baby, to the right.

Runway!

Oh, we're going to mow the yard.

To put my shame behind us, let's pause for a moment and learn some things. In this case, some Mojave history. As told by one Matt Steinmetz. Matt is the canonical example of the Mojave Airport hangar rat. He's always tinkering and tuning something, whether it goes on the road or in the air. Mojave called to him, he answered the call, and now he can't leave.

So the history of Mojave is pretty long, actually, this airport. You know, Mojave itself, the town, has been around for a long time. Like their mines out in the desert, and they would put borax, say, on a bunch of mule train. They drag it into Mojave, load it on the trains. But World War II, they built this base for the Marines, and they would train fighter squadrons and stuff here, and then they'd ship them out to, you know, where Guadalcanal or wherever for the war. And really nothing happened here until '70s, '80s. This guy named Dan Savovich showed up, and then another guy showed up, guy named Burt Rutan, very famous in the aerospace community.

Yeah.

He started at the border and he started working north looking for a place that he could afford to do flight tests and do cool airplane stuff. And Mojave is the first place he got where he could actually pay for the rent. But it just so happens there's huge runways here and it's always, you know, sunny and far enough away from civilization that everybody leaves you alone.

Yeah.

So you can do weird stuff with airplanes and nobody bugs you. And then his brother came out of Vietnam and jokingly, to keep him out of his hair, they sketched out this thing called the Voyager. That was an around-the-world airplane. One tank of gas.

Kind of one of my more vivid childhood news memories is seeing that.

1986, right? Top Gun and Voyager.

Yeah.

Dick down the ramp with a bunch of volunteers, they built the Voyager while Burt was running his company called Rutan Aircraft Factory. They kind of broke off this thing called Scaled that now was a legit company to go build prototypes for big companies and legit customers, not, you know, came like a Powerhouse. It became a powerhouse. They built, you know, roughly an airplane a year, if not more.

Which is crazy, right? I mean, nobody else—

Super crazy. It's just not done. Around about 2000 to 2003-ish, right? We started working on Spaceship One, and that was my baby. And also we started working on the Global Flyer for Richard Branson. That was the around-the-world airplane the second time. This one was a single pilot, Steve Fossett. And so Spaceship was being done for Paul Allen. Burt kind of dreamed it up. And then as soon as he had the idea, he said, hey, Paul, once you fund this, we're going to go to space. And so Paul jumped in. And at some point after that, we did Stratolaunch, the world's biggest airplane down around the corner. And a lot of what you see here is just because Burt Rutan, you know, found this place. I won't say I ever was like, where's Mojave, California? I want to live there.

Yeah, I mean, like, look, this is an amazing town because it's so unique, and if you're into this kind of stuff, you're gonna be here. But it's also like small, weird, small, weird, dusty, hot, cold. But you've obviously stayed.

Yep.

Through all that. I mean, mostly because of the work.

The reason I'm here is real simple. It's all like really high-end, really risk-taking super cutting-edge, like aerospace stuff. Everybody that came here was like a risk-taker and kind of like what you imagine the covered wagon, you know, early pioneers were like. So all the people I knew that kind of flocked to that culture, and that's really what it was, it was a culture, are kind of a different breed and they're cool people to be around. The stuff we did is just mind-blowing, you know.

Here we are, 6 in the morning. It's early, but not criminal. Weather seems okay. The rain stopped. It is cold. It's freezing right now, but it's supposed to be maybe warm enough to go. And all we're worried about really, I think, is the clouds. I'm pretty excited. I've been to many a rocket launch, but I have never been to a supersonic test flight. At all.

So this—

gonna check it off the old aerospace box. The people are gathering. We're getting a little closer to something like 7 o'clock, which I think is when everyone's supposed to show up. They're doing some checkouts. It's a little funny to see supersonic jet getting tugged out, but what else are you going to do? I can feel the patriotism and capitalism cruising beside me. We have possibly made America great again. The weather seems kind of awesome.

Yeah, yeah, no, uh, it's not, not, not too shabby.

I mean, the cloud seemed like the clouds were going to be the biggest thing.

Yeah, that's what I was worried about.

And like, it's not even about Coke, Not even that cold.

Yeah.

The gods are with you.

Thank you so much.

Fingers, toes, and eyes crossed.

Okay, well, the planes came out of the hangar. They are obviously fueling it up, doing some of the last checks. Previously, the XB-1 has hit Mach 0.95, 5% shy of supersonic. Essentially, we all know what's going to happen today, but the flight has an extra special ceremonial detail. History is made by this aircraft. The XS-1 and its pilot, Captain Charles E. Yeager. The plane will enter what's called the Bell X-1 Supersonic Corridor, the airspace named after Chuck Yeager's plane when he first broke the sound barrier back in 1947. And for the nerds livestreaming at home, don't worry. Boom's got you covered. Welcome everyone, wherever you are in the world. Good morning, good afternoon, or good evening.

Here we are at the Mojave Air and Space Port.

Thank you so much for joining us.

And we're off! Come on baby, we're in the air! And she leveled! I just said that, dude, come on.

Wow, that was Fantastic!

Doesn't she look gorgeous?

Easy, tiger, it's just a plane. Kenny Loggins, I can feel you. And there it is. History has been made. Cue the old-timey newsreel music. Ashlee Vance reporting from Mojave, California, where boom, Supersonic has just gone supersonic, Mach 1.1. In addition to the XB-1, there was a human who went supersonic today. His name is Tristan "Geppetto" Brandenburg, Boom's pilot-y looking pilot. Also, his glasses can do this.

And he just flipped them up.

I didn't know they flipped up.

Supersonic is certainly, it's difficult. It takes, it, Yeah, the stresses the airframe is under, especially at like the higher Mach numbers when you really have to start considering temperatures, like it's a hard thing to do. It also takes a lot of energy to get there. So the engines that have to develop that thrust, but we've come a really long way on all of that technology.

So like you're probably going to have to be in this group photo.

That is perfect. Thank you.

Dear Diary, it's true enough that Mojave is not the prettiest town. It's a bit run-down and ragged. But that's also sort of the point. You can do stuff in a place like this that you can't do elsewhere. Just ask Rattan. For Boom, there's much work ahead to really make Mojave proud. The company will need more time and lots more money to produce a supersonic airliner that has room for 80 Geppettos. But the important thing that this flight taught us is that we're gonna try and do just that.