Jim Ross/NASA There's a lot of exciting activity around commercial supersonic flights again. NASA is beginning to fly its X-59 prototype, designed to reduce the power of sonic booms so overland flights will be acceptable. Aviation startup Boom Supersonic is developing its own prototype, the XB-1, on the way to creating a sustainable airliner called the Overture. From the regulatory side, the FAA has proposed loosening its ban on overland supersonic flights provided the operator can prove the booms don't exceed a certain threshold. As exciting as that all is, though, the U.S. does find itself once again in a race with, you guessed it, China. And right now, it's not clear who's ahead. A joint venture between Tianmushan Laboratory and Beihang University is getting ready to start flying its own prototype, the TMS-10. Popular Science reported in September that it was in its final assembly stages and preparing for a maiden flight by year's end. The goal is to create an airliner that can hit Mach 2 with 10 to 15 passengers who have money to burn. Its forward wing (or "canard") and T-tail are engineered not so much to reduce sonic booms as prevent them from combining into a single, larger boom. In theory, keeping smaller booms separate will be less dangerous for those on the ground. Meanwhile, China's state-owned airplane manufacturer, Comac, is working on its own supersonic model, the C949. Per FlightGlobal, the aim here is an airliner that can fly at around Mach 1.7, reach 6,800 miles of range (well over that of the Concorde), and carry up to 48 passengers. Comac has given itself quite a bit of lead time here, targeting a 2049 date for commercial operation. In addition, Comac appears to be taking everybody else's ideas and throwing them at the C949. It claims it will use boom refraction, utilizing atmospheric effects to "bounce" the boom away from the ground before reaching it; it also claims it will keep its booms split apart. The former is what Boom Supersonic is developing, and the latter is what the TMS-10 and NASA's X-59 are doing. Oh, it will also have a concave midsection, which should also reduce booms. Just try everything! Ahead and behind Boom Supersonic For America, there's good and bad news here. The good news is, NASA's X-59 and Boom's XB-1 have both already flown. There's plenty of testing and work to be done, but actually being in the air and demonstrating ability are pretty important. On China's side, the TMS-10 is scheduled to fly for the first time later this year; Comac's C949 is little more than lines on a page at this point. So in terms of actual things actually happening, it's advantage U.S. The bad news, for America and the West more broadly, is how weak the private-sector institutional response has been. To put it more bluntly: neither Boeing nor Airbus, the giants of airliner manufacturing, are working on a supersonic project right now. Startups like Boom are great, but they have nowhere near the embedded knowledge, depth of talent, and bank accounts of their established rivals. NASA is testing the X-59 as a kind of open-source research project, but it won't be mass-producing aircraft for commercial operation. By contrast, Comac is state-owned, so it has the full weight of the Chinese government behind it. That's a lot of money and determination. Even if the C949 is just a gleam in Comac's eye right now, mighty Boeing doesn't even have that much. So who would you bet on to win a race, a handful of American startups, or a state-backed manufacturer that already mass produces commercial planes? Less than clear.
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