Feeling Supersonic

CMU alumnus Blake Scholl is changing how the world flies and making sustainable travel a reality

Like many revolutionary companies, Boom Supersonic started in a basement in 2014.

“We affectionally call it HQ1,” says Blake Scholl, Carnegie Mellon University alumnus and Boom’s founder and CEO. “We had 10 people in my basement in Denver, and we eventually upgraded to a hanger.”

A decade later, the company’s more than 150 employees work in HQ4. They’ve also got a flight test center in the Mojave Desert, a ground test center in Denver, Colorado, and a 180,000-square foot super factory opening in a few months in Greensboro, North Carolina.

Blake and Boom are on track to roll out the world’s first sustainable, supersonic airliners that carry United Airlines, American Airlines and Japan Airlines passengers before the end of the decade.

“Supersonic aircraft are back, and they’re back in a big way,” says Blake, who graduated from the School of Computer Science in 2001 with a bachelor’s degree in computer science and a minor in engineering studies.

Supersonic and Sustainable

Concorde, the first supersonic airliner, flew passengers across the Atlantic Ocean in less than four hours starting in 1986. Only 14 Concordes were ever in service, and the final one retired in 2003. Boom’s order book stands at 130 aircraft with American Airlines placing a deposit on up to 20 Overture airliners with an option for 40 more; United Airlines ordering 14 Overtures with an option for 35 more; and Japan Airlines making a preorder for 20 aircraft.

“In 2007, I set a lifetime goal of flying supersonic,’” Blake says. “My career plan was to become an internet billionaire and use that money to start an airplane company. That never happened, so I had to figure out how to start an airplane company with next to no money.”

And he did.

Boom’s first airplane and history’s first independently developed supersonic jet, the XB-1, is making significant progress toward the first flight, which is expected to happen soon. XB-1 is one-third scale of the Overture airliner.

“It gives me goosebumps to say it because it’s such a huge milestone for the company, a milestone in aviation,” Blake says.

Overture will be powered by Symphony, a cost-efficient engine that’s integral to the plane’s success. Symphony is produced with additive manufacturing techniques, provides 35,000 pounds of thrust, and features an air-cooled multi-stage turbine. Symphony is expected to deliver a 25% increase in time on wing and significantly lower engine maintenance costs, reducing overall airplane operating costs for airline customers by 10%.

Overture and Symphony will be optimized to run on 100% sustainable aviation fuel (SAF). An emerging form of alternative fuel, some SAF are produced from waste CO2 and renewable energy to create a net-zero carbon form of jet fuel. It’s seen as the most promising solution for decarbonizing aviation, which is responsible for up to 3% of global carbon dioxide emissions. 

“The really cool thing is you get to net zero carbon running on this fuel, but also the fuel is made of renewable feedstocks like algae, waste oil and forest residue like fallen trees and leaves,” Blake says.

Early Adopter

Blake started at Carnegie Mellon during what should’ve been his senior year of high school and graduated in only three years leaving campus at age 20.

“I applied as a junior in high school, and CMU was my top choice,” Blake says. “I had to write an essay showing that there was nothing left for me to pursue academically at my high school and complete an on-campus interview. They liked me and invited me to be a freshman.”

“Looking back, choosing to come to CMU was one of the top five most important decisions I’ve ever made. I’m so grateful CMU was willing to do it, and it’s so emblematic of what I really love about the CMU culture. There are rules, but they can all be bent and broken with good reason."

Between his second and third years, during an internship with InGAME in the Bay Area, he realized he was only one exit down the highway from a small airport.

He’d loved planes and flying for as long as he can remember. He started flying lessons during his internship and earned his pilot’s license a few years later.

“As a kid, the first time I made the connection between a toy and making an airplane, I just lit up,” he says. “Flying is challenging in this wonderful way. There’s a physical skill and cerebral action to it. It’s right there at that intersection.”

At CMU, courses challenged and transformed him, too.

“Steven Rudich’s 15-251 (Great Ideas in Theoretical Computer Science) changed my life the second semester of my freshman year,” Blake says. “Learning from him how to communicate, how to teach and how to explain was absolutely life-changing. How I'm able to get other people excited about supersonic flight, I feel like I'm channeling everything I learned from him.”

After graduation he spent more than a decade in the tech sphere at Amazon, Groupon and Kima Labs, a startup he co-founded, before deciding it was time for something new.

“I thought I would get two weeks into the research of supersonic, understand why it was a bad idea and move on,” Blake says. “Instead, I spent the next year getting educated on aerospace engineering. I took remedial physics, remedial calculus, an airplane design class. I read every textbook I could find, and I was doing problem sets.”

After learning his calculations and assumptions were conservative, he jumped in.

“It was a very easy decision to go for it because I knew I’d forever regret not trying,” Blake says. “I would be OK trying and failing, but I wouldn’t be OK with not having tried.”

Boom’s Future Flight Plan

Overture will fly at Mach 1.7 — twice the speed of today’s fastest airliners and 1.7 times the speed of sound. It will carry 64 to 80 passengers, have a range of 4,250 nautical miles and connect more than 600 global destinations in half the time.

Passengers will fly from Newark, New Jersey, to Rome in less than 5 hours or Seattle to Tokyo in 4.5 hours.

Inside the plane, the Boom team is “sweating every detail” for a modern, supersonic flight experience that aims to be available and affordable for all.

“The Concorde was famous for being fast but not comfortable,” Blake says. “Windows were the size of an iPhone, and seats felt like economy for $20,000. We want to build something that’s really inspiring for passengers.”

Blake wants Overture flights to feel “like stepping into an oasis.”

“Today’s travel is stressful pretty much the whole time,” Blake says. “As a manufacturer, we can’t control security, getting to your gate or where your baggage goes. But once you’re on the plane, how does it sound? What does it look like? Is there a lot of visual or auditory clutter? Is there space for your bag whether you’re the first or last to board? Are the seats comfortable?”

The company will share more details on their internal design next year, but Blake can reveal one of the most important design decisions that’s already been made.

“There are no middle seats anywhere on the airplane.”