"The Future Was Supposed to Be Faster": Why Supersonic Flight Matters

Key Insights

• In 1969, we landed on the moon and flew the Concorde—faster-than-sound aircraft. Fifty years later, we've lost the ability to fly supersonic and can't even build military equipment quickly enough to win wars.
• Speed shaped the modern world: the jet airliner doubled travel speed and transformed Hawaii into a tourism destination, helped Nike start through imports, and enabled The Beatles' first world tour.
• Doubling speed again—crossing the Atlantic in 3.5 hours instead of 6.5—could unlock entirely new economic and cultural opportunities.
• Boom's XB-1 became the first independently developed supersonic jet to break the sound barrier, proving that startups can compete in deep tech aerospace.
• By solving the sonic boom problem (via Mach cutoff), Boom cleared the regulatory path to legalize supersonic flight in the U.S.

Why Speed Matters: The Innovation We Lost

Flying used to inspire us. In 1969, humanity reached the moon and flew the Concorde, a faster-than-sound airliner. Today, half a century later, we can't do either. We've not only lost supersonic capability—we've lost the ability to build things at reasonable speed. A Patriot missile interceptor now takes Lockheed over two years to manufacture.

The Boeing 707 brought us into the jet age, but its modern successor, the 787, looks nearly identical and flies no faster. Flying, which should be one of humanity's most inspiring experiences, has become something most people dread. This wasn't always the case.

How Speed Transformed the World

When jet airliners doubled the speed of flight, the real magic happened on the ground. Before fast jets, Hawaii wasn't a tourist destination—it was unreachable. Jet speed made Honolulu accessible in 7-9 hours, transforming it into a mainstream attraction. The same speed enabled Nike's founder Phil Knight to discover Japanese running shoes during a chance trip to Japan. The Beatles' first world tour in the late 1960s would have been impractical just a decade earlier with slower aircraft.

So what happens if we double speed again? What if Sydney becomes as accessible as Honolulu is today, taking 8.5 hours instead of 14.5? The next wave of innovation—the Hawaiis, Nikes, and Beatles of a supersonic age—awaits.

Building the First Private Supersonic Jet

Blake Scholl started thinking about supersonic travel in his mid-20s and set a lifetime goal to break the sound barrier. The obvious path seemed to be a private business jet, but a Concorde-era ban on supersonic flight in the U.S. made that economically unviable. Boeing wasn't building innovative aircraft. Could a startup do it?

In 2015, Jeff Bezos passed on Boom's seed round, writing that only big companies can build airliners. Starting with a cardboard mockup made of plywood and Office Depot seats, Boom began building XB-1, the first privately developed supersonic jet. A year ago in the Mojave Desert, XB-1 became the first independently developed jet to break the sound barrier—more than a decade after the company's founding.

The Sonic Boom Problem: Solved

One of the hardest problems with supersonic flight was the sonic boom. XB-1 broke the sound barrier on six separate occasions across two flights, and each time there was no audible sonic boom on the ground. Boom demonstrated Mach cutoff—a principle where breaking the sound barrier at high altitude and the right speed causes the sonic boom to make a U-turn in the sky and never touch the ground.

This breakthrough removed the central argument against supersonic flight. If there's no boom, there's nothing to regulate. Within 24 hours of breaking the sound barrier, Boom received an invitation to the White House. Within 115 days, an executive order legalized supersonic flight in the U.S. A bill introduced in the House and Senate passed both chambers unanimously.

How a 50-Person Team Built What Took Governments Billions

Boom accomplished multiple firsts with XB-1: the first privately developed supersonic jet, the first civil supersonic jet made in America, the first airplane to land solely on augmented reality, and the first supersonic air-to-air livestream via iPhone and Starlink. All with just 50 committed engineers.

The key was making hardware development look more like software development. Great software is modular—changes in one part don't break others. Great airplanes are the opposite: everything affects everything. Boom solved this by moving engineering from spreadsheets into software. A system called Make Boom lets engineers define an airplane in a configuration file, run a full aircraft simulation, and evaluate performance in minutes—not months.

For engine design, Boom built Blade Runner, allowing a couple of engineers to change blade designs in real-time and see structural and aerodynamic behavior instantly. This reduced what took dozens of engineers months into a process that happens in real-time.

Boom also built its own machine shop, reducing the time from digital design to prototype engine parts to just 24 hours. By vertically integrating manufacturing and test assets, they eliminated dependency on external suppliers and drastically accelerated iteration.

Financing Deep Tech: The Superpower Solution

Building a supersonic airliner requires billions in R&D with unpredictable timelines and costs. Boom solved the financing problem by adapting their supersonic engine for ground power generation, creating Superpower—a natural gas turbine that sells separately from the airplane, generating test data, reliability learnings, and capital to scale production.

Beating China at Manufacturing Innovation

America can't win by competing with China on labor costs or existing manufacturing expertise. Instead, we invent the next generation of manufacturing. Boom is eliminating tooling entirely through all-digital manufacturing processes. For turbine blades, they go from digital design to the most advanced blade in the world in 24 hours with no tooling required—something no legacy aerospace company has.

This is how America wins: through invention, freedom, and innovation—the things we're still best at.

The Role of AI in Physical World Building

AI has dramatically reduced software development costs, making custom engineering tools affordable for startups. AI allows users to become tool builders, rather than relying on separate software companies. However, physical-world AI remains immature—programming CNC machines is still incredibly manual, and industrial automation hasn't yet delivered on its promises.

Building a Team That Believes

In an industry where the last startup to build a commercial airliner was Douglas Aircraft in 1921, Boom found itself hiring in a culture dominated by legacy companies with poor working environments. Scholl valued early-career talent—young, ambitious, smart people who hadn't yet been "destroyed" by big aerospace culture. At senior levels, promoting from within proved far more effective than external hires.

The most important trait to look for isn't skills or knowledge—both can be taught. It's caring. You can't teach someone to care if they don't. Hiring people who genuinely care about the mission separates great companies from mediocre ones.

Lessons on Ambition and Self-Belief

Scholl didn't have self-belief on day one. He had no credentials to build a supersonic airliner. Friends' eyes rolled when he mentioned it. But he realized that founders like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates weren't given permission to achieve great things—they gave it to themselves. The only way to know what you're capable of is to pick something you'd work hard at and give it everything.

The best advice he received: work on something you love. The worst advice: work on what you know. Knowledge changes; passion doesn't. In a world where everyone has personalized AI tutors, anybody with passion and dedication can learn new skills. But what you can't change easily is what you love.

Why Regulatory Engagement Matters

Unlike Uber, which ignored regulators to build a fan base, Boom engaged the FAA from day one. When Scholl started XB-1, he went to regulators, explained the mission, and asked for their help. He offered transparency: "Come anytime, see anything, and give us feedback." The approval process, which typically takes months, happened in 90 minutes. Boom even got the first-ever permit for civil supersonic flight before XB-1 had flown for the first time. The lesson: make it "Boom plus FAA versus the problem," not "Boom versus FAA."

Teaching Yourself Hard Things

Scholl taught himself aerospace engineering by recognizing the difference between passing a test and truly understanding something. He created a "confusion list"—things he didn't fully understand, even if he could answer questions about them. His goal was to remove one item weekly, though the list always grew. This self-awareness of the gap between wavering hands and true clarity matters enormously when learning hard things.

Conclusion

Fifty years ago, the future was supposed to be faster. Blake Scholl and Boom proved that it still can be. By combining software-like iteration with hardware ingenuity, building a passionate team, and engaging regulators as partners, they brought supersonic flight back to America. The lesson applies far beyond aviation: pick a problem you want to solve, build something that matters, and don't wait for permission.

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Original source: Blake Scholl: "The Future Was Supposed to Be Faster"

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