Lessons from Blake Scholl

Lessons from Blake Scholl

Blake Scholl founded Boom Supersonic after a software career and years of fascination with faster flight. Boom flew its XB-1 experimental demonstrator supersonically in 2025 and is still developing Overture, a proposed passenger airliner. His lessons span airline economics, learning across disciplines, iteration in safety-critical hardware, and the human reasons for shortening long journeys. — Possible Podcast.

Part 1: Reviving Supersonic Travel

1. Concorde’s commercial lesson: Scholl treats Concorde as a technical achievement that did not become an airline-economical mass-market product; his Overture design starts with the fare and load-factor problem. — Stratechery Interview.
2. A faster, more accessible world: Boom’s aim is to shorten long-distance trips and make more places reachable more often. Overture is still a development program, so this remains a mission rather than an achieved passenger benefit. — Congressional Testimony.
3. Design to an airline fare: Scholl says Overture was designed backward from an intended business-class-like fare and airline load-factor economics, rather than assuming a technically possible jet would automatically find buyers. — Stratechery Interview.
4. Design for sustainable-fuel compatibility: Scholl’s 2021 testimony set an Overture design goal of operating on up to 100% sustainable aviation fuel. Compatibility and net-zero aspirations do not establish fuel availability or measured fleet emissions. — Congressional Testimony.
5. Start with a question worth investigating: After seeing Concorde in a museum, Scholl followed supersonic-aviation news and eventually investigated why no one was building the faster aircraft he wanted to fly. — Possible Podcast.
6. Model the market and the airplane together: Scholl built one early model of routes and demand and another of aircraft physics, using the interaction between market size and design choices to test whether a supersonic airliner might work. — YC Hard Tech Interview.
7. Begin where routes and rules allow: Boom initially focused Overture on transoceanic routes because the U.S. overland sonic-boom restrictions made those routes the practical first market. Later policy changes and Boomless Cruise ideas mean this was a starting constraint, not a permanent law of the product. — Conversations with Tyler.
8. Choose a purpose-built engine when the economics warrant it: After evaluating adapted engines, Boom chose to develop Symphony for Overture because Scholl judged supersonic cruise duty and expected maintenance economics to favor a dedicated design. XB-1 used different, off-the-shelf engines. — Stratechery Interview.
9. Trade cabin space against aerodynamic range: Scholl describes a proposed Overture cabin concept that required fuselage reshaping and initially reduced modeled range; joint aircraft-and-engine design simulations found a way to recover that modeled range. The cabin and performance are not yet demonstrated in passenger service. — Move Fast and Don’t Break Things.
10. Aim beyond premium-only supersonic travel: Scholl presents business-class-like fares as the starting point and hopes later aircraft and economies of scale can broaden access. He does not claim that Overture has achieved economy-class pricing. — Should This Exist? Interview.

Part 2: The Stagnation of Transportation

1. Challenge a retreat in travel speed: Scholl saw the long period after Concorde’s retirement as a reason to revisit, rather than accept, the idea that commercial air travel could not become faster. The old sentence was written by podcast host Mike Rowe and is not a verified Scholl quotation. — YC Founder Stories.
2. Count speed alongside other gains: Scholl acknowledges major aviation gains in safety and fuel efficiency while arguing that travel time received too little attention as a design goal. — Stratechery Interview.
3. Founders and incumbents optimize differently: Scholl argues that established aircraft makers have strong incentives to improve existing programs, while a new entrant can attempt a clean-sheet leap—though that does not remove the engineering and certification risk. — Stratechery Interview.
4. Reimagine the trip, not just the airspeed: Scholl argues that faster flights could turn some overnight North Atlantic itineraries into daytime trips and save calendar time. Those schedules remain conditional on an operating, certified Overture. — Conversations with Tyler.
5. Use clean-sheet design selectively: Boom pursued a new aircraft while reusing existing materials and components where they reduced development risk; Scholl says an off-the-shelf part or modest adaptation was the first choice when it met the need. — Stratechery Interview.
6. Treat time as a barrier to meeting: Scholl’s testimony argues that shortening long journeys could enable more frequent face-to-face contact and business exchange; that is an anticipated social benefit, not a measured global-economic loss caused by today’s flights. — Congressional Testimony.

Part 3: First-Principles Engineering

1. Learn enough to test the idea: Scholl studied aerospace textbooks, took an aircraft-design class, relearned calculus and physics, and built a simple market-and-aircraft model before committing to the company. — YC Hard Tech Interview.
2. Interrogate the assumed constraint: As an outsider to aerospace, Scholl examined the underlying physics and economics rather than treating every industry convention as fixed; he used expert challenges to test his assumptions. — YC Hard Tech Interview.
3. Let supersonic physics shape the aircraft: Boom’s aerodynamics team explains that supersonic shock waves create wave drag, so the wing, fuselage and propulsion system must be shaped together to limit it. — Boom Aerodynamics Guide.
4. Choose materials for the flight regime: On the XB-1 demonstrator, Scholl described carbon-composite structures as a way to retain strength and shape under high-speed temperature and pressure loads. That result cannot simply be transferred to an unflown Overture. — Boom XB-1 Design Tour.
5. Engineer the engine for supersonic duty: Scholl says adapted subsonic engines posed reliability and maintenance-cost challenges because supersonic cruise requires sustained high-power operation; that helped justify a purpose-built Overture engine. — Stratechery Interview.
6. Combine computation with physical tests: Boom reports extensive computational design work and wind-tunnel testing for Overture; its engineers emphasize that both methods have limits and must be compared rather than treating a simulation as proof. — Boom Aerodynamics Guide.
7. Treat aircraft constraints as coupled: Boom’s aerodynamics guide shows that thrust, drag, weight, lift, fuel use and range interact: improving one variable can worsen another. Scholl modeled market and aircraft choices together rather than solving each subsystem independently. — Boom Aerodynamics Guide.
8. Account for heat in high-speed design: XB-1’s design team planned its composite airframe for the higher exterior temperatures of supersonic flight while also meeting aerodynamic and low-speed requirements; thermal management was one constraint, not a replacement for lift. — Boom XB-1 Design Tour.
9. Design safety into flight controls: Scholl described Overture’s planned flight-control architecture with three primary computers and a fourth reversionary mode. This is a design claim, not proof of certification or that any combination of failures guarantees a safe landing. — Stratechery Interview.
10. Designers and engineers should think together: Scholl argues that interiors improve when designers understand engineering constraints and engineers care about design, with a high bar for the combined result. — Conversations with Tyler.

Part 4: Building Hardware Like Software

1. Lower the cost of each hardware iteration: Scholl says fast hardware development depends on making design changes and tests cheaper, so teams can evaluate more ideas rather than defend a single expensive first attempt. — Move Fast and Don’t Break Things.
2. Embed software engineers in hardware teams: At Boom, Scholl says software engineers work inside hardware disciplines, learn their constraints and build tools that make engineering analyses repeatable. — Move Fast and Don’t Break Things.
3. Turn spreadsheet handoffs into reusable software: Scholl criticizes slow, manual handoffs between isolated engineering spreadsheets and says Boom built software to rerun coupled analyses as designs change. — Move Fast and Don’t Break Things.
4. Build a demonstrator to learn safely: Scholl says XB-1 was built to discover what the team needed to learn about designing, building and flying a human-piloted supersonic jet before attempting the larger Overture program. — Possible Podcast.
5. Use simulation to guide physical testing: Boom’s engineers combine fast simulations, higher-fidelity CFD, wind-tunnel measurements and flight testing, comparing model predictions with physical evidence before relying on them. — Boom Aerodynamics Guide.
6. Make engineering disciplines learn from each other: Scholl expects software engineers to learn hardware domains and hardware engineers to contribute code, so that analysis tools reflect the real design constraints. — Move Fast and Don’t Break Things.
7. Apply software testing practices to hardware workflows: Scholl says Boom uses automated unit tests and continuous integration in its engineering software, while parametrically simulating whole-aircraft designs. These tools support design iteration; they do not make components match “perfectly” by themselves. — Move Fast and Don’t Break Things.
8. Shorten supplier loops when practical: Scholl recounts a turbine-blade quote of roughly six months and $1 million for one engine’s set, and argues that co-locating production steps can cut delays and allow more physical iterations. — Conversations with Tyler.
9. Simulate a whole mission, not an imaginary completed airliner: Scholl describes mkBoom as a parametric model that runs an aircraft design through simulated takeoff, cruise and landing, with higher-fidelity analyses later. That does not establish thousands of adverse-condition flight hours or a certified digital twin. — Move Fast and Don’t Break Things.

Part 5: Startup Execution and Speed

1. Move faster by changing the process: Scholl says XB-1’s completed test program taught Boom to reduce the cost of engineering iterations, using smaller teams and reusable tools without treating safety-critical hardware like disposable software. — Move Fast and Don’t Break Things.
2. Seek market commitments before the aircraft exists: Scholl says early capital was Boom’s largest risk, and that YC pushed the team to speak with airlines, producing an initial letter of intent and a Virgin announcement before Demo Day. Those commitments were not delivered aircraft. — YC Founder Stories.
3. Finance for a long development cycle: Scholl describes building an airliner as a pre-revenue, capital-intensive undertaking lasting many years; commercial economics and investor support must survive a development cycle far longer than a typical software launch. — Possible Podcast.
4. Pair new builders with experienced advice: After Boom’s young XB-1 team had to redesign its landing gear, Scholl says the company began requiring engineers to consult someone who had built a similar component before, even if that expert was only an adviser. — Possible Podcast.
5. Use a real deadline to focus the deal: Scholl credits persistence and a believable Demo Day deadline with helping the early Virgin discussion, while emphasizing that the team asked for a customer commitment rather than money. — YC Founder Stories.
6. Show substantive, legible progress: For long-lead hardware, Scholl advises identifying a near-term milestone that is technically meaningful and understandable to outsiders; Boom brought models and an actual engine to YC Demo Day. — YC Founder Stories.
7. Build within constraints without stalling: Scholl says Boom learned to shorten expensive turbine-blade supplier loops by bringing selected manufacturing steps close to the engineers, making more experiments feasible. — Conversations with Tyler.

Part 6: Overcoming Institutional Risk

1. Plan certification as an iterative process: Scholl urges his team to work with regulators on more efficient ways to prove aircraft changes, rather than treating certification as a one-time event at the end of development. — Conversations with Tyler.
2. Use experienced suppliers where they fit: Scholl describes Overture partnerships for its fuselage, wing and tail with established aerospace manufacturers, while Boom retains responsibility for integrating the aircraft. — Stratechery Interview.
3. Fit the aircraft into practical travel: Scholl considers not only cruise speed but the full airport-to-destination experience; a faster plane loses some value if boarding, baggage or transfers remain slow. — Conversations with Tyler.
4. Set noise goals before service: Boom’s Overture design called for meeting ICAO Chapter 14 and FAA Stage 5 airport-community noise standards, with quieter takeoff technologies. These were design targets, not completed certification results. — Boom Overture Design Update.
5. Stop a test when its objective is met: Scholl says Boom ended XB-1 flying after the demonstrator met its learning objectives because extra experimental flights would add safety risk and consume resources needed for Overture. — Possible Podcast.
6. Make certification cheaper to revisit: Scholl wants the team to plan for repeated certification work as designs change and describes human-reviewed tools that can reduce the paperwork cost of iteration. The regulator, not an equation, determines approval. — Conversations with Tyler.

Part 7: Designing for the Passenger

1. Remember the human meaning of flight: Scholl describes takeoff as a moving vantage point on what people have built, and connects that wonder to his desire to contribute to aviation. — Should This Exist? Interview.
2. Let passenger experience shape the specification: Scholl says Boom’s designers found a cabin concept they believed passengers would prefer and challenged the engineering team to preserve it despite an initially modeled range penalty. The exact seating details are still undisclosed. — Move Fast and Don’t Break Things.
3. Give travelers useful time back: Scholl argues that planned supersonic routes could replace some overnight Atlantic trips with daytime itineraries and reduce the calendar time required for longer journeys. — Conversations with Tyler.
4. Give each planned seat a view and aisle: Boom’s published cabin concept provided a personal window and direct aisle access for each passenger, eliminating middle seats from that proposed layout. The concept is not a flown Overture interior. — Boom Overture Cabin Concept.
5. Use faster schedules to reduce travel fatigue: Scholl imagines faster Pacific travel that could eliminate some extra hotel nights and, in his example, lessen the jet-lag burden of a short business trip. This is a proposed itinerary, not a demonstrated medical effect. — Conversations with Tyler.
6. Make short flights useful: Scholl describes the possibility of daytime transatlantic flights with Wi-Fi rather than a poorly timed red-eye; Boom’s current Overture design also proposes onboard connectivity. — Conversations with Tyler.
7. Ask whether the interior was designed with care: Long before Boom, Scholl says he wondered what an airplane interior would be like if someone cared about it as deeply as Steve Jobs or Jony Ive; he now argues for co-designing cabin and airplane. — Conversations with Tyler.
8. Keep the high-altitude view: Scholl expects Overture’s proposed high-altitude cruise to give passengers an unusual view from its windows. Claims that the ride is already smoother or free of weather are not established. — Conversations with Tyler.

Part 8: The Long-Term Vision for Humanity

1. Convert energy into progress: At the opening of his Tyler conversation, Scholl says, “Let’s convert some jet fuel into human progress”—a compact expression of his hope for faster travel, not a measured environmental or economic outcome. — Conversations with Tyler.
2. Change domains by naming what you do not know: Scholl kept a “confusion list” in Boom’s first year, studied the items that mattered and used teaching ability as an early hiring test. He treats domain switching as a spur to first-principles learning. — Conversations with Tyler.
3. Treat sustainability as a design commitment: Scholl stated an ambition for Overture to accommodate 100% sustainable aviation fuel and eventually achieve net-zero carbon operation. Those intentions require actual fuel sourcing and lifecycle measurement before they can be called outcomes. — Scholl’s United Letter.
4. Make distant family visits easier: Scholl’s desire for faster flight is personal: he says his children rarely saw their Hong Kong–based grandfather because a 14-hour flight was a substantial barrier. He hopes shorter trips will make time with distant loved ones easier. — Scholl’s United Letter.
5. Let a hard project widen ambition: Scholl hopes that attempting an audacious aerospace problem will encourage others to address other large, capital-intensive problems that ordinary short software cycles cannot solve. — Should This Exist? Interview.
6. Leave the familiar field for the necessary mission: After a software career, Scholl chose a company whose purpose would still feel worth pursuing when the work became difficult; supersonic flight met that test for him. — Possible Podcast.