New Tests Could Lead to Travel That's Faster Than the Speed of Sound

Thanks to the rapid advancements in technology, Boom, the supersonic airplane start-up, was able to fast track development of their mega-fast flying machine.

 

For the past two years, the company has been working on their aerodynamic design. That work has officially been validated after the first successful completion of wind tunnel testing. Aside from being a step closer to supersonic travel, this achievement is significant in that the test was made much cheaper and easier thanks to advanced computer simulation. Boom CEO and co-founder Blake Scholl stated, "...[T]oday, you can do aerodynamic development in simulation, where each iteration takes 30 minutes and costs almost nothing, and so you can do it with a tiny team. And then when you think you’ve got it right, you go to the wind tunnel and you verify rather than develop there.”

Other organizations, such as Virgin, are also working on making supersonic travel available to consumers. An original goal of Virgin was to bring fast air travel costs down to those of a business class ticket. However, with the help of more inexpensive development, Boom wishes to take that objective one step further and make their planes accessible to anyone who's able to afford current air travel.