While the country was utterly enthralled by the public breakup of Donald Trump and Elon Musk playing out on social media, the President signed an executive order last Friday lifting the ban on commercial overland supersonic flights. The ban was imposed in 1973 to protect the public from window-shattering, ear-splitting sonic booms and the domestic aircraft manufacturers from Concorde. Coincidentally, a new American-built supersonic airliner is on the horizon with orders already placed by United Airlines and American Airlines.
The order lifting the ban gives the Federal Aviation Administration 180 days to establish an interim noise-based certification. The agency has an 18-month timeline to set up a permanent standard for “acceptable noise thresholds for takeoff, landing, and en-route supersonic operation.” The end of the process would be the FAA issuing its final rules on the matter within the next 24 months. The executive order states:
“By updating obsolete standards and embracing the technologies of today and tomorrow, we will empower our engineers, entrepreneurs, and visionaries to deliver the next generation of air travel, which will be faster, quieter, safer, and more efficient than ever before.”
If two years sounds too fast for a regulatory shift on this scale, you’re probably right. When the FAA attempted to reassure the public with a rigged test in 1964, it failed spectacularly. The U.S. Air Force bombarded Oklahoma City with 1,253 sonic booms over six months, and the backlash from the city’s residents cut the program short. However, it took nine more years to ban overland supersonic flights.
I hope Boomless Cruise works because we could be boomed if it doesn’t
Boom Supersonic promises its Overture airliner will soar over the country using “Boomless Cruise,” a feature that relies on Mach cutoff to refract sound waves off the atmosphere so sonic booms don’t reach the ground. The startup proved the phenomenon on its XB-1, a one-third-scale demonstrator. While “Boomless Cruise” would wet the mouth of any airline executive, Boom has yet to even build an Overture to prove that it could work with a full-scale plane. The first Overture is expected to leave the factory in 2027, when the FAA’s final rule will be issued.
While Boom is building its first airliner, it has amassed several vocal supporters on Capitol Hill because of the billions of dollars on the line. Before Trump’s executive order, Senator Ted Budd introduced a bill last month to lift the ban. In a statement about the legislation, he mentioned a “race for supersonic dominance between the U.S. and China.” That race is fabricated, and China can barely produce subsonic commercial planes. Unsurprisingly, Budd represents North Carolina, where Boom built the Overture Superfactory.
I hope “Boomless Cruise” works at scale and is truly transformative because I don’t want to live through the worst-case scenario. The public could be pelted with sonic booms for a return on investment on a failed airliner.
