From the Wright Bros first flight to the dawn of the jet age, humanity always strived to fly faster and higher, and every major generation of airplane exceeded the performance of those that came before it.
The jet age didn’t just mean faster flights—it meant human connection across distance.
Righting a historic wrong and unlocking the supersonic age
The Anglo-French Concorde was supposed to usher in the supersonic age—but it was stillborn. Stratospheric operating costs and issues with sonic boom restricted supersonic flight to the well-heeled and only on a handful of routes. Supersonic flight was banned in the US in 1973. A tragic accident in 2001 cemented Concorde’s failure, and the so-called supersonic age passed without really starting. Five decades passed without a new civil supersonic airplane taking to the skies.
When Boom was founded in 2014, there remained two principal obstacles to supersonic travel: economics and sonic boom. The XB-1 was conceived to demonstrate three key things:
A small, privately funded team could build a supersonic jet with a small budget outside of a major OEM
Performance gains with modern tech could enable a more efficient & affordable supersonic airliner
Sonic boom could be overcome, enabling supersonic flight on dramatically more routes
XB-1 achieved its goals—proving the issues holding back Concorde have been overcome.
While it was never designed to carry passengers, XB-1’s “actual use” included providing the proof that resulted in legalizing supersonic flight. On June 6th, 2025, President Trump signed an Executive Order overturning the prohibition on supersonic flight in the US—just 115 days after XB-1’s boomless flight . This unlocks a new supersonic age—including Boom’s Overture airliner and proposed business aircraft from other makers.
The efficiency to unlock economical supersonic flight
XB-1 demonstrated multiple innovations for supersonic efficiency, enabling longer range and lower fares.
Augmented Reality Vision System: Whereas Concorde famously had a “droop nose” for runway visibility, XB-1 used a first-of-its-kind digital vision system for takeoff and landing. This approach reduced supersonic drag by 5% and eliminated ~2% of empty weight compared to a mechanical moving nose.
Improved software-defined aerodynamics and area-ruled fuselage: Whereas Concorde had a constant cross section fuselage, XB-1 has a carbon-composite “area ruled” (coke-bottled) fuselage that reduced transonic and supersonic drag. XB-1 is the first civil supersonic aircraft with these features.
XB-1 met or exceeded all of its predicted performance targets—including lift to drag ratio, propulsive efficiency, and empty weight—validating its tools and models and thereby Boom’s performance predictions for Overture.
A small committed team can achieve mighty things
Traditionally, supersonic aircraft have been built only by major corporations with billions in public funding. XB-1 demonstrated that a small team with limited private funding can achieve supersonic flight.
XB-1 was built by a team of just 50 committed men and women—including engineers, technicians, and pilots—and a budget of $190M. Both represent ~order of magnitude improvements in program performance. The team of ~50 committed men and women includes the engineers, technicians and pilots. After XB-1’s final flight, the team that built XB-1 signed their work.
XB-1 represents nearly an order of magnitude cost improvement over traditional development programs.
Silencing the boom—a practical and reliable solution for quiet supersonic
Concerns about sonic boom limited Concorde to supersonic flight over water only—and the blanket prohibition on supersonic flight in the US since 1973. Other proposed supersonic aircraft (such as X-59) have boom attenuation through exotic aircraft shaping, at the expense of structural and aerodynamic efficiency—and therefore at the expense of affordability to the flying public.
XB-1 demonstrated Mach cutoff, a solution to sonic boom that works reliably at speeds up to Mach 1.3, without compromise to efficiency. XB-1 demonstrated this on six supersonic runs at speeds up to Mach 1.18.
“Boomless Cruise” leverages the natural refractive power of the atmosphere to direct the sonic boom away from the ground. Meaning, the aircraft still produces a sonic boom, but it is inaudible on the ground. In brief, the speed of sound varies with temperature, and therefore is lower at altitude where it is cold and higher at ground where it is warm. Therefore, all sound waves naturally bend upward as they propagate through the atmosphere. Boomless Cruise uses weather data and a computer model to predict the maximum “quiet” speed for any given day’s weather.
Mach Cutoff was not invented by Boom—the physics have been known for decades but never demonstrated reliably in practice. Using ground-based microphone arrays, the XB-1 team confirmed that the sonic boom refracted and dissipated without reaching the ground. Concorde lacked the weather data, computing power, and transonic efficiency to make boomless cruise practical.
XB-1 demonstrated all the components for practical boomless supersonic flight: reliable digital models to calculate max quiet speeds and the transonic/high-altitude performance to fly the required flight profiles.
Speed without compromise: a safety-first supersonic airplane & culture
While there was never an accident directly related to supersonic flight, features of Concorde’s design contributed to its one fatal accident: Concorde’s high runway operating speeds (over 200kt) meant an encounter with runway debris proved catastrophic. This was exacerbated by poor engine out / gear extended climb performance.
XB-1 demonstrated solutions to both these safety problems: with a design that balances low-speed and high-speed performance, XB-1 has significantly lower energy on the runway than Concorde, with rotation speed of 155kts and approach speeds of 175kts. Additionally, XB-1 achieved a strong margin of safety climb performance with an engine out and landing gear extended.
Importantly, XB-1 is the first small supersonic aircraft not to have an ejection seat. Paradoxically, this led to a significantly safer airplane. Ejections—particularly at supersonic speeds—frequently lead to serous injury or death and are not a safety solution for passengers. As a result, Boom committed to building XB-1 with a high safety bar and no ejection seat. This opened the path to myriad technical and program decisions increasing safety, such as redundant air data and extensive wind tunnel and ground testing.
The XB-1 program was conducted with zero mishaps and zero OSHA reportable incidents.
These accomplishments are underpinned by a safety-first program philosophy and culture. Near-misses were treated as if they were real incidents and learnings fed into improved operating procedures. XB-1 operated with a defined risk-acceptance bar and a culture where risks were tested openly against this bar and accepted or mitigated as appropriate. The notion of conscious risk-acceptance created a culture where risks could be discussed and debated openly. Boom maintained a backup anonymous safety reporting system—but it was rarely used once the safety culture was well-established.
The program was rehearsal-rich and test-rich, with hundreds of simulator hours—many with a full control room—27 full-aircraft ground tests, and 15 high-speed taxi tests in the final flight configuration. Each event was treated with the same preparation as a flight, with dedicated briefs and telemetry rehearsals that trained the team to recognize hazards in real time, including over 20,000 hours of data review and nearly 80 briefing sessions. This diligent campaign exemplified a safety-first culture where innovation and discipline were mutually reinforcing.
XB-1’s legacy: the airplane that unlocked the supersonic age
In 2025, XB-1 became the first civil supersonic jet manufactured in America and the first in history to be developed independently of government. It was the first civil supersonic aircraft to take to the skies in over half a century. Most important, XB-1 led directly to the legalization of supersonic flight in the US.
XB-1 has earned its place in history as the airplane that unlocked a supersonic age.
But more than that, XB-1 has played an important symbolic and inspirational role in the rebirth of American leadership in aviation. When Boom was founded in 2014, there were scant aviation startups—and none that were working on new airliner technology. XB-1 is a testament to the American entrepreneurial spirit and has already inspired many to launch ambitious new development programs, including multiple new airliner startups.
