Denver-based startup Boom Supersonic said it conducted a second successful test flight in the development of a passenger airline that will be assembled at Piedmont Triad International Airport in Greensboro.
Boom’s demonstrator aircraft, called XB-1, performed three tests at the Mojave Air & Space Port in Mojave, California, earlier Monda, the company said in a blog post. Following its first flight in March, the demonstrator is progressing through its test program, with a target to conduct a supersonic flight by the end of the year. Business North Carolina profiled the company in its August magazine. Click here for the report.
Boom aims to bring back air travel at faster than the speed of sound 21 years after the final flight of the Concorde. The XB-1 provides the foundation for the design and development of Overture, Boom’s supersonic airliner that’s going to be assembled in a new factory along Interstate 73 at the Greensboro airport.
Completed this past June, the roughly 180,000-square-foot building will house an assembly line capable of producing 33 Overture aircraft a year, valued at more than $6 billion. Boom plans to build an additional assembly line on its 65-acre airport campus that will be able to produce 66 airliners a year. Customers including United, American and Japan Airlines will pick up their planes in Greensboro.
When Boom announced its selection of the Greensboro airport 2½ years ago, it projected it would invest more than $500 million and create more than 1,700 jobs in its operations through 2030. It aims for the Overture to be certified to carry passengers by 2029.
