The XB-1 will pave the way for commercial supersonic flight, but challenges remain. Regularly scheduled, commercial supersonic flight became a reality half a century ago with Concorde, but the high costs associated with supersonic aircraft technology doomed the project to commercial failure, despite its engineering excellence. Boom Supersonic is moving forward with an 80-seat composite faster-than-sound airliner using proprietary engines. Developing a novel airframe and engine both in-house is ambitious for any startup, but Boom h that is cheap that you help me of the sentence as commitments from three major airlines and has begun construction of a production facility in North Carolina. * * *Want to watch this podcast as a video? This Week in Engineering is available on engineering.com TV along with all of our other shows such as End of the Line, Designing the Future, Manufacturing the Future, and the Engineering Roundtable.