The company’s first test flight is coming soon in Mojave. I don’t get this, though: “Aviation startup Boom Technology’s XB-1 demonstrator jet has moved from a hangar in Centennial, Colorado, to the Mojave Air and Space Port in California.”
How did it “move”? I can’t imagine how it could have been transported on the ground, unless it was in pieces. That implies that it must have self ferried, so it’s already has its first flight. I guess this will be the first supersonic flight.
[Afternoon update]
Sorry, I put in the link.
First flight is in 2027, so my guess is time machine.
That’s first flight of the operational aircraft. This one is experimental.
Rand do you have a link for that quote? What’s the source? If it came from an article somewhere I’d like to read it.
I just added the missing link.
The demonstrator is not very big; I’m sure it could be moved on a truck, perhaps with wings off.
It’s 71 feet long.
How large is a Falcon 9 first stage? They’re transported by truck. Or they could’ve transported it in a Super Guppy.
Wings, nose cone, maybe tail off. Or they got a permit for a long load.
Early Global Hawks were built in San Diego, did system checkouts and engine runs in San Diego, then the wing and tails were removed from the fuselage and two long loads were trucked to Edwards – fuselage and tails on one truck, the wing in a 125-ft-long custom transport box on another. Transports were done at night to reduce special Caltrans procedures, but it still took about six hours.
X-47B was built in Palmdale, low-speed taxi testing was done in PMD, then it was partly broken down, trucked to EAFB, reassembled, then did high-speed taxi and early flight testing. When it came time to move testing to Pax River, it was either trucked or sent by rail to Pax.
So I think it most likely the Boom demonstrator was trucked to Mojave, although it’s possible it went by rail. No chance it flew there; you’d want 100+ hours of flight test before doing something like that.
One of the more extreme examples of transporting aircraft via roads took place in the early 1960s. Lockheed boxed up A-12s (predecessor to the SR-71) and transported them via truck from the factory in Palmdale, CA to Groom Lake., NV
https://roadrunnersinternationale.com/transporting_the_a-12.html
This:
https://boomsupersonic.com/flyby/boom-supersonic-advances-flight-preparations-for-xb-1
says that they moved to Mohave earlier in the year, so, apparently the move is old news. Since the experimental certificate is more recent, it had to travel by truck. Much larger things move every day.
Like windmill blades. I’ve seen hundred + foot windmill blades (that were thrown, and damaged beyond repair) hauled by huge trucks. The blades got to their original installation sites the same way.
Here’s one of many, many examples: http://www.rshantz.com/Odds/General/20170110Blade03N.jpg
Vestas 4 MW wind turbines have blades up to 254 feet in length.
There’s nothing difficulty about shipping something like the Boom XB-1 over the road. What would be almost impossibly difficult is getting FAA permission to fly it from Colorado to California. Once again, the ability of some humans to say “no” takes precedence over reality.
Rail flat cars are upwards of 100’ long, and there is a railyard in Mojave, though I think it is used mostly for setting up trains for the Tehachapi grade.