Leave London after lunch. Land in New York before the morning is over. Not because of time zones doing you a favor — because the plane you're on is flying at Mach 1.7. Twice the speed of sound. Fast enough that the planet starts to feel measurably smaller.
That's what Boom Supersonic is building. And three major airlines have already written checks.
Didn't we already do this?
Yes. The Concorde. It flew from 1976 to 2003, crossed the Atlantic in 3.5 hours, and was so loud and expensive that governments banned it from flying over land. Round-trip New York to London in its final year: $12,000. That’s like 2,100 airport beers in today's dollars.
It was a miracle of engineering built exclusively for people who were rich and faint of hearing.
Then Concorde retired in 2003 and for over 20 years, commercial aviation just… slooooowed down. Whatever happened to pedal to the metal? All gas no brakes? Living life a quarter mile at a time? Vin Diesel taught me speed was family. What the heck, aviation community?
Then Blake Scholl thought to himself, "surely we can do better than this" and started Boom Supersonic in his Denver living room in 2014. And don't call him Shirley.
What Boom is actually building
The Overture carries 64 to 80 passengers at Mach 1.7 — about twice the speed of today's airliners — with projected round-trip fares around $5,000 New York to London. Not $21,000 for a Concorde seat. Business class money for twice the speed. That’s like a buy- 2-get-3-free special at Harris Teeter.
Their scaled-down demonstrator, the XB-1, broke the sound barrier in January 2025 — in the same Mojave Desert airspace where Chuck Yeager did it in 1947.
The full-size Overture is next. If XB-1 proved the physics work, Overture is the part where they bring the full enchilada to the world.
Supersonic. Just say it.
Supersonic. It even sounds fast. Feels fast just leaving your mouth. Oasis wrote a whole song about it — I need to be myself, I can’t be no one else, I’m feeling supersonic, give me gin and tonic — and honestly, that's exactly the vibe of what Boom is attempting. You could be up there at 60,000 feet, Mach 1.7, gin and tonic in hand, feeling extremely supersonic, while the people on the plane below you are on their third movie, waiting for the snack cart to come around again.
Which brings us to the sonic boom problem — and how Boom mostly solved it. Concorde rattled windows every time it went supersonic. Governments banned it from flying over land entirely. Boom's answer is called Boomless Cruise. Break the sound barrier at the right altitude and the shockwave refracts upward into the atmosphere and never reaches the ground. During XB-1's first supersonic flight, microphones on the ground confirmed nobody heard a thing. No boom boom pow. Thank you, Black Eyed Peas. Ok we're getting really niche with these references.
Source: Pennsylvania State University Acoustical Model of Mach cutoff Flight
There's something else that happens at 60,000 feet that nobody talks about. At normal cruising altitude, planes follow highways in the sky — corridors, queues, everyone in line. At 60,000 feet nobody else is up there. ATC clears you point to point, straight line, no detours. “Clear to go direct” as my grandfather would get north of 40,000 feet. The Overture doesn't just fly faster — it flies shorter.
And in June 2025, after 52 years, the FAA's ban on supersonic flight over US land was officially lifted. The runway just got a whole lot longer.
Who's ordering
American Airlines — 20 aircraft, non-refundable deposit, options for 40 more. United Airlines — 15 aircraft, options for 35 more. Japan Airlines — 20 pre-orders. Total order book: 130 aircraft, representing the entire first five years of production. The US Air Force gave them $60 million. Northrop Grumman signed on for defense variants.
This is not a pitch deck. The world's largest airlines are putting their money where their mouth is.
Why this matters
Concorde was a government project — a joint UK-France endeavor because no private company would touch it. A startup in Denver doing this with venture capital and airline pre-orders is genuinely new.
Boom’s new facility in Greensboro, North Carolina, is designed to produce up to 66 aircraft a year. Economists estimate it'll grow North Carolina's economy by $32.3 billion over 20 years and add more than 2,400 jobs. So yes, both the future and North Carolina's economy are expected to be supersonic.
If the Overture works, geography starts to behave differently. The Pacific shrinks. A 14-hour flight becomes six hours. Last time the world got this much smaller it was the jet engine. Before that, the steamship. Boom is making a case it's about to happen again — at 60,000 feet, somewhere over the ocean, at Mach 1.7, without making a sound.
The part where we keep it real
The Overture hasn't flown yet. Full-size aircraft expected off the ground in 2027 or 2028. Type certification 2029. Passengers 2030 at the earliest — and aerospace timelines have a well-documented relationship with optimism.
Rolls-Royce dropped out as engine partner in 2022, forcing Boom to build its own engine from scratch. That's the kind of thing that keeps aerospace engineers up at night. The airlines also haven't converted pre-orders into fully firm purchases yet. That happens when the plane flies. We're not there.
Boom Supersonic, American Airlines, United, Japan Airlines, the FAA, and everyone else who bet on this thing…
Want to work out here? 🌾
Is your future supersonic? Boom is hiring in Centennial, Colorado and building their Superfactory in Greensboro, North Carolina. Engineers, test pilots, and people comfortable doing Mach 1.7 before their morning coffee. This is your flight.
Open roles → boomsupersonic.com/careers
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