About 10,670 meters over the Mojave Desert, northwest of Los Angeles, Boom Supersonic's XB-1 became the first privately funded airplane to break the sound barrier during a test flight on Tuesday (Jan 28), marking a new step in the firm's bid to revive supersonic air travel.
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NewsTranscript
00:00The return of supersonic air travel just might have come a step closer.
00:06There we are. XB-1 is supersonic, faster than the speed of sound.
00:11US start-up Boom Supersonic sent its XB-1 jet through the sound barrier on Tuesday.
00:17It says the test flight over the Mojave Desert marked the first time any privately funded plane has hit the landmark speed.
00:25Legendary pilot Chuck Yeager was the first human to exceed the sound barrier back in 1947.
00:31Such speeds have since become routine for many military aircraft.
00:36But supersonic travel hasn't been on offer to airline passengers for some two decades.
00:41That is, since the Anglo-French Concorde was retired in 2003.
00:46Its success was limited by high operating costs that made tickets very expensive.
00:52Now Boom has plans to develop a successor.
00:56Dubbed Overture, it's meant to carry up to 80 passengers across the Atlantic in about 3.5 hours.
01:02That's roughly half the time taken by a regular jet.
01:06Company CEO Blake Scholl says regulations are now the main stumbling block.
01:11Today we have one of the silliest rules in the world, which is you can't fly supersonic over land no matter how quiet the airplane is.
01:19And so we're picking up where Concorde left off.
01:22Initially we'll fly right under the speed of sound over land, which is still 20% faster than a Boeing or Airbus,
01:28and over the water we'll open up the throttles and go twice as fast.
01:32Boom hopes those regulations will change and says Overture will be much more economical to operate than Concorde.
01:39The firm has completed construction on a factory for the new plane in Greensboro, North Carolina.
01:45It says it has 130 orders and expressions of interest from American Airlines, United Airlines and Japan Airlines.
01:52But years of research and development still lie ahead before any passenger boards a supersonic flight.