Clears The Way For Airframe Construction, Company Says

The company hoping to build the next supersonic airliner has completed wind tunnel testing on a potential new supersonic aircraft, verifying two years of aerodynamic design work.

Now, Boom CEO Blake Sholl says that the company is ready to begin work on an airframe that will one day be the foundation for the first flyable proof-of-concept aircraft.

Techcrunch reports that School said that the completion of wind tunnel testing allows the company to move on to building large-scale hardware that can be tested by human pilots.

Sholl said that computer simulations have drastically cut the time and expense of traditional wind tunnel programs. That allows a small start-up such as his to be able to realistically build such a high-tech aircraft.

Sholl's ultimate goal is to make supersonic flight as available to the general public as conventional airline flight is today. He said with the wind tunnel testing completed, the company can move forward with building its XB-1 Supersonic Demonstrator, with flight tests beginning in about a year. The demonstrator will be a 1/3 scale prototype of the eventual 45-seat commercial jet. Virgin Galactic has already signed on and the first customer for the aircraft.

(Image from file)

FMI: http://boomsupersonic.com/xb-1