Latest news with #BlakeScholl
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Scholl Says AI Automation Can Bring Down Labor Cost
Boom Supersonic Founder & CEO Blake Scholl speaks at the Reagan National Economic Forum in California on labor costs and AI automation. He says that the US has a cost disadvantage in "everything that is attached to labor costs" and that we can't "subsidize and tariff" our way through that disadvantage. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Bloomberg
4 days ago
- Business
- Bloomberg
Scholl Says Use AI Automation Bring to Down Labor Cost
Boom Supersonic Founder & CEO Blake Scholl speaks at the Reagan National Economic Forum in California on labor costs and AI automation. He says that the US has a cost disadvantage in "everything that is attached to labor costs" and that we can't "subsidize and tariff" our way through that disadvantage. (Source: Bloomberg)
Business Journals
28-04-2025
- Business
- Business Journals
Boom Supersonic opens site in Colorado for testing its engines
The company is leasing a site previously used for supersonic development to test its faster-than-sound engines Story Highlights Boom Supersonic opens site near Denver to test its engines. CEO Blake Scholl said site is cheaper than renting government space. Boom finished factory last summer in Greensboro NC where it plans to build supersonic jets. Boom Supersonic has opened a test site near its Colorado headquarters for developing the engine for the jetliners it plans to build in Greensboro, the company announced Friday. The site in the Colorado Air and Space Port east of Denver will support testing of the 12-foot-long core of the engine, which consists of the compressor, combustor and turbine. Data from core tests will allow Boom to refine engineering and manufacturing design, and the company expects to expand the site next year for full-scale testing of the entire prototype of the engine, named Symphony. expand Blake Scholl, founder and CEO, Boom Supersonic Lloyd Whittington A British space company that developed propulsion systems had been a tenant of the Colorado Air and Space Port. Boom founder and CEO Blake School said in a press release announcing the test site that the company now has an independent test facility for a supersonic engine for less than it would cost to rent a government facility. Boom has its headquarters in Centennial in the Denver metro area. Boom intends to design Symphony to allow its Overture jet to fly at altitudes that can take advantage of certain atmospheric conditions and winds that refract sound-boom waves away from the ground. That could allow flights over land without the sonic boom that can limit supersonic routes, opening up far more uses than the transcontinental, over-ocean flights Boom has largely touted up to now. expand Rendering of Boom Supersonic's Overture cruising at sunset. Boom Supersonic Boom announced its Greensboro plan in January 2022, forecasting hiring 1,700 jobs, though Scholl has since said it expects 2,400 eventually as it scales up. Its event marking completion of the factory building last June drew the governor and other state leaders. It has 130 orders and pre-orders from United Airlines, American Airlines, and Japan Airlines, representing the first five years of production in Greensboro.
The Guardian
12-04-2025
- Business
- The Guardian
‘As an environmental scientist, I'm horrified': Should supersonic passenger travel be making a comeback?
When I call Blake Scholl from New York, he says it's a shame we couldn't have met at his office in Colorado. If only there were a supersonic jet that could cruise at 1.7 times the speed of sound, and get me there two hours quicker than the typical JFK-to-Denver route. There soon might be. Scholl is the CEO of Boom Supersonic, a company betting that ordinary civilians want to shoot across the sky at 1,100 miles (1,700 kilometres) per hour. After the pandemic brought a slump to the skies, air travel has returned to its former levels, and in-person business events are back on track. As a faster option for these travellers, Boom is developing its breakneck jets to be operational by 2029 – nearly a quarter century after Concorde landed its last plane. Aside from keeping the slender, pointed design, Boom distances itself from Concorde, which Scholl calls 'a false start' to a supersonic age. In Boom's revived version, its 64-seater airliners could whizz across the Atlantic in three-and-a-half hours, at least twice as fast as commercial carriers, and check off hundreds of new routes such as Madrid to Miami, or Tokyo to Seattle. They would lean into software and algorithms to tweak speed and altitude based on real-time conditions. Boom is already 'a darling of the bros at Silicon Valley,' says Brian Foley, a US-based aviation industry analyst and former aerospace engineer, pointing to investors including OpenAI's Sam Altman. But sceptics will compare Boom to Concorde, and question whether it can overcome the list of issues that led to its predecessor's decline, including price, demand, safety, regulation and the environment – all of which may remain stubborn barriers. To its credit, Boom has appeared to solve one of Concorde's major hurdles: the sonic boom, the ear-splitting thunderclap heard on the ground when an object travels through the air faster than the speed of sound. When an aeroplane moves, molecules ahead have to get out of the way; as it breaks the sound barrier, the craft catches up and drags the molecules along with it. The sudden disruption causes a shock wave, felt as a deafening roar. Concorde couldn't escape the boom as it flew at Mach 2, or twice the speed of sound. 'When they got it wrong, it was smashing greenhouses and scaring little old ladies,' says Guy Gratton, associate professor of aviation and the environment at Cranfield University in Bedfordshire. The sheer sound forced noise regulations in Europe, and in the US an outright ban on supersonic flight in 1973, relegating Concorde to oceanic routes such as London to New York. That isn't enough for Boom, which wants to capture the domestic business market and fly above land at Mach 1.7. So, in quite the physics feat, Boom has eliminated the sonic boom. It has put into practice a longstanding theory of refraction known as 'Mach cutoff', which works via the same law that makes a pencil appear to bend in a glass of water in the classic school lab experiment. As the plane flies, the sound wave refracts towards colder temperatures, curling upwards. It keeps turning upwards until it reaches space. During two supersonic test flights in January and February, with a specially built craft a third of the proposed size, Boom demonstrated the Mach cutoff six times, without an audible boom on each occasion. Boom's planned aircraft, Overture, is still in early development and will be a different beast, especially because Boom is making its own engine. That's rare in an industry where commercial craft invariably use engines from the established giants such as General Electric and Rolls-Royce. 'I'm not convinced the current team assembled has the experience or depth or capability to develop a supersonic engine,' Foley says. If they can do it, their timing is opportune. The first American-built civilian supersonic jet is likely to be welcomed by a protectionist federal administration gung-ho on US manufacture and deregulation. In the Oval Office in February, Donald Trump posed with an Overture model, and Elon Musk pledged to overturn the supersonic ban. The $600m infusion of funding from some of his billionaire peers won't hurt. Boom isn't the only company developing a 'quiet' supersonic aircraft. Nasa is testing its own experimental X-59 jet. And an aircraft from China's state-owned manufacturer Comac is reportedly under way, according to a self-released paper. A patriotic aerospace race could further spur legislation. 'Let's beat 'em,' Scholl posted on X, with a US flag emoji. But success will ultimately depend on consumer demand. The tragic crash in 2000 of an Air France Concorde catalysed its downfall, which was compounded by the downturn in air travel after 9/11. It's unclear whether the public wants supersonic travel – or even knows of its existence. The only surveys that exist are Boom's own (which unsurprisingly claim that 97% of passengers want it); two major aviation research firms told me there's no real data. Demand will be driven by affordability. 'Concorde was for royalty and rock stars,' Scholl says of its $20,000 tickets in today's money. He estimates Boom could start at $5,000 for a transatlantic flight, akin to some business-class fares. But at a time of inflation, it's not cheap. Despite Scholl's vision for our in-person meeting, freelance journalists are not the target market, though he says he predicts economy-level fares 'for the rest of us' by the late 2030s. Foley isn't swayed. 'This isn't a 'scale big' aerospace segment,' he says. 'It's a very niche market.' Major carriers such as American and United have already put in orders for aircraft, but Foley says that's a typical PR move for carriers to show their progressiveness. Eventually, they'll cave to pure cost-per-seat-mile economics. The private jet market may be a better fit, but even with their participation, Foley estimates Boom would probably only sell about 300 aircraft over 10 years. The private jet sector is routinely under fire for its poor environmental record, burning far more fuel per passenger mile. And while aviation in general accounts for 2.5% of all emissions, the industry continues to grow, leading to predictions it will double its carbon output by 2050. Scholl says Overture will be built to be compatible with sustainable aviation fuel, and that choosing between innovative tech and the environment is a 'mistaken trade-off'. The public may have different ideas. Even in the 1960s, Concorde faced eco-pushback around emerging ozone layer concerns, and advocacy from grassroots campaigns such as the Citizens League Against the Sonic Boom helped secure the bans. Today, Gratton says it's 'irresponsible' for a supersonic jet that burns two to three times more fuel to be launched in a full-fledged climate crisis. 'As an aeronautical engineer, I am absolutely thrilled with what Boom are doing,' he says. 'As an environmental scientist, I'm horrified.' 'They are doing very clever work,' Gratton says. 'Whether it's a good idea that they do it – that's the tougher question.'
Yahoo
01-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
US is 'ahead' of China in supersonic jet aircraft, says Boom Supersonic CEO
America currently remains ahead of China when it comes to airplanes that can fly faster than the speed of sound, according to Boom Supersonic CEO Blake Scholl. "I think aviation has always been seen as a symbol of technological superiority," Scholl said Tuesday during a "Mornings with Maria" appearance. "Just like the chip, the airplane was invented in America, and China wants to surpass America as a leader in technology, so of course, they're pursuing supersonic. It is the next step in aviation." The South China Morning Post reported over the weekend that the Chinese state-owned Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (Comac) is working on a supersonic jet called the C949. Boom Supersonic Says Xb-1 Aircraft Flew Over Mach 1 With No Audible Sonic Boom On The Ground Below The aircraft, detailed in blueprints in a recent academic paper, is meant to reach Mach 1.6 and have a barely audible sonic boom when the project comes to fruition, according to the outlet. The jet design is reportedly supposed to have a range 50% longer than the Concorde. Comac has previously said it wants to bring the supersonic C949 to market by 2049, the South China Morning Post reported. Read On The Fox Business App Scholl told host Maria Bartiromo that the "good news" is that right now, the U.S. is "ahead" of China in supersonic jets. "We've got the only operational, non-military supersonic jet in the world," he said. "That's the XB-1 prototype. We've demonstrated we can do it without a sonic boom." Scholl's company, Boom Supersonic, is the Denver-based firm behind the XB-1. Boom Supersonic's XB-1 demonstrator aircraft broke the sound barrier for its first time ever in late January. During that highly-anticipated test flight, the jet went above Mach 1 several times "without generating a sonic boom that reached the ground," the company said. Scholl went on to tell Bartiromo that the "problem is right now" that the U.S. is "in our own way with outloaded regulations." According to the Federal Aviation Administration website, U.S. regulations bar civilian flights from exceeding Mach 1 while traveling over land in America. "From the 1970s, we have a ban on fast flights in the U.S.," he explained. "It's really ridiculous. It should have been a ban on sonic booms, or at least bad sonic booms, but instead, that regulation's been on the books for more than 50 years, and it's prevented U.S. companies from building the next generation of faster jets." Stricter supersonic regulations in the U.S. have implications for the country competing with China, according to the Boom Supersonic CEO. "I think it's really, one, it's soft power, a symbol of technological superiority. It's something that the rest of the world is going to watch," he said. "But it's important to national security and economic security." "Right now, Boeing is the number one U.S. exporter, but they haven't invented a new plane in more than 20 years. At the same time, a quarter of all Air Force airplanes are actually modified commercial airplanes. This is where we get out tankers, our transports, even many of our spy planes are modified commercial planes. So if we don't have next generation commercial transports, that means we don't have next generation military transports. I find that really scary. We can't let that happen." Scholl wants the U.S. to change its regulations related to commercial supersonic flights. "It's a really simple, easy change. Right now, we literally have a regulation that says 'thou shalt not exceed Mach 1' and what it should say is 'thou shalt not make bad noises,'" he said during the "Mornings with Maria" appearance. "If a supersonic flight is possible with no sonic boom on the ground, then obviously it should be allowed." Boom Supersonic has said it aims to "bring supersonic to everyone." Boom Supersonic Xb-1 Breaks Sound Barrier During Test Flight Its XB-1 demonstrator aircraft "provides the foundation" for Overture, a larger jet it is creating for commercial supersonic flight, according to the company. Overture is supposed to have the capacity for 64 to 80 passengers. Boom Supersonic has also said that the jet is supposed to reach speeds twice as fast as current planes over water and 50% quicker over article source: US is 'ahead' of China in supersonic jet aircraft, says Boom Supersonic CEO
