About 35,000 feet (10,670 metres) over the Mojave Desert, northwest of Los Angeles, Boom Supersonic’s XB-1 became the first privately funded airplane to break the sound barrier during a test flight on Tuesday.
“She was real happy supersonic,” Boom Chief Test Pilot Tristan “Geppetto” Brandenburg said after landing, in a video posted by Boom Supersonic. “That’s the best she’s ever flown, was supersonic.”
After getting to altitude, Brandenburg opened up the test plane’s throttles, accelerating to Mach 1.1, or about 1360 km/h – faster than the speed at which sound travels.
The XB-1 is set to break the sound barrier.
In 1947, Chuck Yeager became the first human to break the sound barrier when he pushed the Bell X-1 past Mach 1 during a flight over the Mojave Desert.
Boom Supersonic’s XB-1 is a stepping stone in its plan to develop a commercially viable supersonic airliner, the Overture, capable of carrying 64-80 passengers across the Atlantic in about 3½ hours.
The company has 130 orders and pre-orders from American Airlines, United Airlines and Japan Airlines.
Last year, it completed construction on its Overture Superfactory in Greensboro, North Carolina, where it plans to build 66 Overture aircraft per year.
The X-1 is one-third of the size of the Overture passenger jet that the company plans to use for passenger flights. It hopes to ultimately achieve a cruising speed of Mach 1.7 – twice the speed of the fastest commercial aircraft today.
The Overture passenger jet will be three times bigger than the XB-1 demonstrator.