How Fast Can Boom Go? Company has Other Barriers to Clear Before Breaking Sound Barrier

Feb. 6—GUILFORD COUNTY — Area economic developers realized a dream when startup aircraft manufacturer Boom Supersonic announced last month that it will fabricate its cutting-edge jets at Piedmont Triad International Airport.

Now the question becomes whether the Colorado-based company can overcome the checkered past of supersonic flight and take the dream from the drawing board to the skies — and how quickly.

Executives with Boom Supersonic joined Gov. Roy Cooper and a host of state and regional dignitaries at an airport ceremony Jan. 26 to formally announce the ambitious project. The company pledges to create 1,760 jobs at the outset and invest $500 million.

It is not just a question of how quickly the company can build its manufacturing facility, hire a range of workers and train them, establish a supply chain and keep regulators abreast of developments.

The only previous commercial supersonic airliner, the Concorde SST, was done in by its prohibitively high operating costs. Boom is counting on developing new technological approaches to supersonic flight to make it commercially viable, said Michael Oudshoorn, dean of the School of Engineering at High Point University. But the task will be challenging.

Along the way, the company also has regulatory hurdles to clear.

The history of another startup aircraft manufacturer that has made PTIA home — Honda Aircraft Co. — shows how involved and time-consuming developing a new plane can be.

In 1997, founder Michimasa Fujino drew the first rough concept for the design of what would be the HondaJet, a small jet targeting the market for business aircraft. A HondaJet completed its first flight test at PTIA in 2003, according to a timeline on the Honda Aircraft Co. website. It was 2010 when the first HondaJet built to conform to Federal Aviation Administration standards took flight.

In December 2015, after more than 3,000 hours of flight testing and more than 2 million pages of documentation, HondaJet received FAA type certification, signifying that the plane had met the agency's criteria for safety, reliability and technology.

So it took 18 years for HondaJet — which didn't involve supersonic engineering — to go from concept to regulatory approval.

Boom, which started eight years ago with the conceptualization of the plane it calls Overture, remains in the initial stages of development of its jet.

In a profile of the company published in December, Wired magazine reported that Boom first powered up its one prototype plane, called XB-1, which is one-third the size Overture is supposed to be, shortly before the interview. Boom's website says that late last year it conducted its first on-the-ground engine tests. The prototype has yet to fly.

But Boom has set a timeline of having its first jets manufactured by 2025, with commercial flights before the end of the decade.

Regardless of the time it takes, if Boom can develop a commercially viable jet, the potential economic benefits for the region are astronomical, said Daniel Hall, interim dean of the HPU School of Business.

In addition to the work force and investment in the factory itself, Boom's operations could create new jobs through spinoff and supplier companies, Hall said. Boom presents a once-in-a-generation opportunity for the Piedmont Triad to position itself as the leader in a new, advanced technology.

"It's the reputation of producing something that's cutting edge, that's high-tech manufacturing," Hall said.

The governor's office estimates that Boom Supersonic could have a $32 billion economic impact over a 20-year period.

Hall said that the potential economic windfall to the region and state will come down to whether the company can shift the aerodynamics of supersonic flight, especially if it can reduce the noise that leads regulators to allow supersonic travel only far out over the ocean.

"It's minimizing the sonic boom into a sonic thump," Hall said.

[email protected] — 336-888-3528 — @HPEpaul

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