August 1, 2025, ©. Leeham News: Four years ago I did a series about aircraft development together with Henry Tam and Andrew Telesca. Both worked on the Mitsubishi Spacejet program. You can find the series here.
It was about the arduous task of developing and producing a certified aircraft for the FAA Part 23 standard and its EASA equivalent. The idea was to better describe what’s ahead for the many upstarts that wanted to develop 9-seat and 19-seat alternative propulsion aircraft.
Now we do a series about recent ideas on how the long development times for large airliners can be shortened. New projects talk about cutting development calendar time by one-third or more. Is this realistic?
Posted on August 1, 2025 by Bjorn Fehrm
By Scott Hamilton and Bjorn Fehrm
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July 24, 2025, © Leeham News: In Part 3 of our five-part series on examining the potential next generation of aircraft in the coming decades, we take a closer look at Aircraft projects 1 to 4 in our Figure 1.
These are the (1) A220-500, (2) Boeing’s Transonic Truss Brace Wing (TTBW), (3) Boom’s Overture Super Sonic Transport (SST), and (4) the Blended Wing Body (BWB) aircraft suggested by leading proponent Jet Zero.
Posted on July 24, 2025 by Bjorn Fehrm
Dec. 19, 2022, © Leeham News: Nope. Not convinced.
Boom’s CEO Blake Scholl last week announced that he’s put together a group of three companies to work with his firm to design an engine for his Overture supersonic transport.
None of the companies—including Boom—has designed a big jet engine, let alone one for a commercial airliner or an SST.
Yet Scholl said Overture’s first flight will slip only a year, from 2026 to 2027, and entry into service is still set for 2029.
No way will this happen.
Related Article
The three companies are Florida Turbine Technologies, which will design the engines; GE Additive, which will consult on ways to fabricate engine parts through additive manufacturing technology; and StandardAero, which will be Boom’s MRO partner and will consult on making the engines easy to maintain.
Florida Turbine is a subsidiary of Kratos Defense & Security Solutions. It has designed small jet engines for drones and cruise missiles. But not for big jets or SSTs.
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Posted on December 19, 2022 by Scott Hamilton
By Bryan Corliss
Dec. 13, © Leeham News: Boom Supersonic announced this morning that it will team with three partners, including a division of GE, to create engines for use specifically on its proposed Overture passenger transport.
“Developing a supersonic engine specifically for Overture offers by far the best value proposition for our customers,” Boom founder and CEO Blake Scholl said.
The partners are:
The announcement didn’t specify who will fabricate the engines, or where they will be built. It did note that Standard Aero has experience assembling and servicing supersonic engines for the military. Boom has not yet responded to a request for clarification.
Summary
Posted on December 13, 2022 by Bryan Corliss
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By BRYAN CORLISS
Oct. 3, 2022, © Leeham News: Aviation is “a key vulnerable economic sector that is only in the early stage of adaptation to climate change,” according to a new report from EASA, the European Union’s Aviation Safety Agency.
To meet the industry’s environmental challenges – and there are several — more must be done to identify the hazards and risks that extreme weather events caused by climate change can bring to the industry, the report says.
The report also recommends that more needs to be done to plan for the impact of extreme weather on aircraft and airline infrastructure. The industry and regulators also need to “identify and apply ‘win-win’ solutions” to reduce carbon dioxide and other emissions from airliners, and to accelerate the deployment of aircraft and air traffic control technology to improve the efficiency of Europe’s airline fleet.
The good news in the report is that researchers believe aviation could cut emissions by 69% by 2050 by adopting a suite of changes, including increased use of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), improved aircraft technology, better operational practices and by using hydrogen or electric motors to power aircraft where feasible.
Posted on October 3, 2022 by Bryan Corliss
Sept. 20, 2022, © Leeham News: Blake Scholl, the founder and CEO of Boom, the start-up company, continued to paint an optimistic picture about the Overture Supersonic Transport.
He told the US Chamber of Commerce Aerospace Summit last week that the Overture, a Mach 1.7 88-passenger aircraft concept, will revolutionize international air travel.
But Boom has big challenges ahead—not the least of which is that there is no engine manufacturer so far that has stepped up to provide an engine. The Big Three—GE Aviation, Pratt & Whitney, and Rolls-Royce—have either outright rejected participation or other priorities exist.
Posted on September 19, 2022 by Scott Hamilton