Boom Builds Up Supersonic Airliner Supplier Team

LE BOURGET—High-speed airliner developer Boom Supersonic has bolstered its supplier base by signing agreements with major aerostructure companies in Italy and Spain for production of the wing, fuselage and empennage of the company’s Mach 1.7 Overture aircraft.

On the Spanish side, Aernnova will supply the Overture’s wings and Aciturri will produce the empennage, while Italy's Leonardo will provide the fuselage and wing box. The aero structures companies join other systems suppliers previously announced by Boom including Safran Landing Systems, Eaton, Collins Aerospace and Flight Safety International.

“We're on our journey to get all of our key tier-one suppliers signed up for the overture program, and we're on track to have the vast majority of those done this year,” Boom Founder and CEO Blake Scholl says. “We are working with world-class suppliers that know how to build the most high-performance parts for large composite commercial aircraft.”

Boom declines to specify details of the supplier agreements or whether the companies are considered risk-sharing partners. However, Scholl says they have “skin in the game and, from the supplier’s perspective, significant resources are getting committed. So we're happy with their commitment to the program.”

Parts will arrive by sea at deep-sea ports on the U.S. eastern seaboard near to the company’s Piedmont Triad International Airport production site in Greensboro, North Carolina. Fabrication of the site is now underway, setting the clock ticking on an ambitious timetable which targets roll out of the prototype in 2026. The Denver-based company expects to begin installing tooling in 2024 with assembly of the first aircraft starting later that year.

Dubbed the Overture Superfactory, the 400,000-ft.² facility is sized to build up to 33 aircraft per year, but Scholl says provision has been made for a second production line to double that number as demand grows.

Boom also disclosed new details of the configuration of the purpose-designed Symphony engine—a one-third scale mock-up of which was unveiled at the Paris Air Show. The new centerline engine is under development by an industry team including FTT, GE Additive and StandardAero. The two-spool, 35,000-lb.-thrust medium-bypass turbofan engine will be equipped with a single-stage 72-in.-dia. fan and optimized for prolonged supersonic operation with an air-cooled single-stage high-pressure turbine and three-stage low-pressure turbine.

The Symphony’s compressor will be made up of a three-stage low-pressure section and a six-stage high-pressure section. An advanced supersonic inlet, diffuser and exhaust design—already undergoing initial wind-tunnel testing—is designed to meet Chapter 14 noise levels. The company also revealed some additional detail about the aircraft’s systems including the fuel system, which redistributes loads fore and aft to provide center-of-gravity control during subsonic and supersonic operations.

“In some ways it's a ‘Goldilocks’ engine,” Scholl says. “There's more bypass there, because that's part of how we achieve quiet operation for takeoff and landing which is critical. We want airport communities to be super happy when the Overture comes, not nervous that windows are going to rattle them the way they did with Concorde. And yet from a cruise-efficiency perspective, the minimum cross section area for lower-wave drag and lower weight is important. So the fan particularly in this supersonic condition is designed for high specific flow allows. That allows us to get a lot of mass flow through the fan with a relatively low-profile fan.”

Production of the initial 40 engines will take place at a facility in Jupiter, Florida, with site selection for mass production of the Symphony ongoing. “I want to distinguish between component manufacture and assembly. We're talking about assembly selection, not manufacturing all the individual components. We are expecting to source blades and rotors and accessories from the suppliers that build those for other turbofan engines, and we expect these suppliers to be with us through the life of the program,” Scholl says.

The overall Overture program remains on schedule for entry-into-service by the end of the decade, Scholl says. “We've got an aggressive schedule,” he acknowledges. “But we like aggressive schedules, they challenge us and our suppliers. And you know, as we as we continue to bring suppliers on board as we get all those signed up. If we need to make a schedule change, we'll make a schedule change. But our target is still certification in 2029.”