Aviation Outsider Builds Supersonic Jet for Transatlantic Flight
Twenty years after the retirement of the Concorde, Boom Technology is developing a passenger plane it’s promising will fly at much faster speeds in a more comfortable setting than today’s carriers.
Blake Scholl just kept turning up. For months he would rent a plane in Silicon Valley, fly himself to California’s Mojave Air and Space Port, and get a table at the Voyager restaurant, a well-known hangout for modern-day aviation mavens.
Scholl would sit for hours, listening to conversations and introducing himself to pilots and engineers from aeronautics pioneers such as Virgin Galactic Holdings Inc. and Scaled Composites LLC. Visit by visit, Scholl, an aerospace outsider, began to figure out the kinds of people and skills needed to bring a revolutionary new aircraft to life. “I’ve not seen such a practical approach before or since,” says Elliot Seguin, a test pilot who knows Scholl.