Boom Supersonic has today unveiled a new design for its Overture aircraft, introducing four wing-mounted engines and a distinctive contoured fuselage.

The company also announced a new agreement with Northrop Grumman to develop special mission variants of the aircraft in the defence realm.

Carrying 65–80 passengers at twice the speed of today’s airliners and running on 100 per cent sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), Overture will fly Mach 1.7 over water with a range of 4,250 nautical miles.

Among the new features are four, wing-mounted engines and a contoured fuselage, which means it has a larger diameter toward the front of the aircraft and a smaller diameter toward the rear. Boom has applied this design technique to minimize drag and maximize fuel efficiency at supersonic speeds.

51 full design iterations

The new Overture design, revealed at Farnborough International Airshow, is the culmination of 26 million core-hours of simulated software designs, five wind tunnel tests, and the careful evaluation of 51 full design iterations.

“Aviation has not seen a giant leap in decades. Overture is revolutionary in its design, and it will fundamentally change how we think about distance,” said Boom Founder and CEO Blake Scholl.

“With more than 600 routes across the globe, Overture will make the world dramatically more accessible for tens of millions of passengers.”

With this updated configuration, Boom combines a number of engineering innovations in aerodynamics, noise reduction, and overall performance.

Subscribe to the FINN weekly newsletter