Supersonic for the people

If they hire the right people it could be possible. Say they get some brilliant engineers, technicians etc from Rolls Royce, Boeing and Airbus etc. It could be possible they could build a brilliant engine that will do it.

I hope they succeed. It's long overdue a Commercial SST plane in the skies.

The Boom prototype and even more so the early concepts are all very, very reminiscent of the Douglas X-3 Stiletto research aircraft of the early 1950's.

The high mounted intaktes, fuselage design and on the early concepts at least, the tail design all strikingly similar. The wing planform in the Boom design being Delta is a big difference versus the X-3's Starfighter style lifting blades.

It's to my mind, a very interesting illustration of the truth that in aerodynamics, the right answers are often the same even when separated by 70yrs of progress in engine tech.

@Lorddrakul

Well, I'd imagine they are going to learn a lot from the XB-1 prototype, as it's powered by a GE engine that was designed for an afterburner, but not sustained supersonic flight. It was used in things like the F-5 and the T-38 variant.

Intake ramps are the key to managing airflow into the engine, the prototype might get them more real world data than is practicable in the wind tunnel.

They might be able to create a spec for an engine that is clearer is currently the case, de-risking it for a manufacturer to come in at a later date.

Fingers crossed!

One of the big differences between the Concorde prototypes and production models was the intake ramps and a great deal of time and effort went into them. The tailpipes / reversers were redesigned also.

The intake ramps were the first system on an airliner to be controlled by a digital computer.

This was essential to achieve efficient supercruise. Any clown can do Mach 2 with the burners on, and then glide into the mid-Atlantic out of fuel 😁

That wasn't completely the fault of the airframe in fairness. Westinghouse and their planned j46 engine was a disaster and the X3 ended up using the J34 instead which led to about a 30% reduction in available power and lot of transonic issues that couldn't be overcome at the lower available thrust.