Boom to unveil first independently-developed supersonic jet XB-1

https://geekologie.com/2020/07/boom-to-unveil-first-independently-devel.php

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Aircraft manufacturer Boom plans on unveiling their XB-1 prototype on October 7th, which would be the first independently-developed supersonic jet. According to Airline Ratings:

The fuselage is complete, the wings tested and installed and the engines are ready to fire up. In April, the manufacturing team installed XB-1’s wing to the forward fuselage in a quick and seamless operation. Boom says that it has made significant progress to the aft fuselage build-up which hosts the XB-1’s three supersonic engines. The XB-1’s titanium aft fuselage can withstand temperatures in excess of 800°F.

Drop tests for XB-1’s nose and main landing gears are also underway, while the pilots are training in the flight simulator.
The prototype is a proof of concept before production of a full scale 50-seat supersonic airliner, to be called the "Overture". The timeline for the planned entry into airline service has now also slipped from the previously envisaged 2023-24 to between 2025 and 2027.

The original Concorde was retired in 2003 and there haven’t been any commercial supsersonic flights since. But really, just how fast do we really need our air travel to be? I guess flying to Taiwan in half the time would be neat, but I’ve watched cartoons and in the future we’re all going to be zipping around in tubes anyway so I’m not sure there’s going to be a huge market for this. Keep going for some more production shots as well as the official Boom XB-1 video.
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via Geekologie – Gadgets, Gizmos, and Awesome https://geekologie.com/

July 10, 2020 at 02:20PM

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