When the iconic ‘70’s Steve Miller Band wrote and released their hit “Jet Airliner,” they sang “big ol’ jet airliner, taking me so far away.” The airliner, in its obtrusive way, is the vehicle capable of moving one from one location to another, unlike anything else.
Perhaps it still is, but with a new accent of technological wonderment. The aerospace industry is responsible for some remarkable advancements in transportation over the past century. At the turn of the last century, railroad and steamer travel were mainstream for long range travel. This was even before the introduction of the automobile to daily life, which became a mainstay in most every household in the United States, if not much of the world.
Air travel soon came to slowly develop, long after the Wright Brothers courageously pursued “flying machines,” after watching how birds fly, and putting their mental muscle to work to innovate, try, and eventually fly. Things have evolved a long, long way since then.
Today, aircrafts travel at remarkable speeds. But they also consume huge amounts of fuel and energy. Engineers have been, and will continue to be, on a hot pursuit to design and build aircraft and modern-day flying machines that defy the expectations of science, technology and engineering.
Today’s supersonic technology in aerospace flight can literally take you away in a literal sense, but it may also take your breath away as it approaches incredible marks of engineering performance, providing a surge of excellence in innovation for all the world to see.
Mach 2.2
The Boom Overture is a Mach 2.2, 55-passenger supersonic transport with a range of 4,500 nautical miles, slated to be on the tarmac by 2025–27. Developed by Boom Technology and built with composite materials, it picks up where the supersonic Concord (an aircraft out and about when Steve Miller Band’s song came out) left off.
Boom Supersonic is the company behind the Overture and self-describes as a firm “redefining what it means to fly by building Overture, history’s fastest commercial airliner.” They plan, and hope, as they say, to “make the world dramatically more accessible.”
Their effort is helped along by some characteristics quite common in the disruptive designs of today: light weighting, 
the use of composite materials, and some cutting-edge technology tools that help to meet aggressive design specs.
Boom uses Dassault Systèmes “Reinvent the Sky” solution to achieve its design goals for such an aircraft, assisting in its journey along the product lifecycle, from concept to certification, with their prototypes based on the 3DEXPERIENCE platform to support product development.
“Overture takes new advances in aerodynamics, materials, and propulsion and uses them to revolutionize long-haul commercial airline travel. We need powerful design tools to deliver our vision of a supersonic future, and that is exactly what Dassault Systèmes provides,” said Joshua Krall, co-founder and VP, technology, Boom Supersonic.
Composite Materials and the Advancement of Technology
Aerospace design on this scale and magnitude requires an alloy of skills, tools, technology, and innovative solutions. Composite materials that are both lightweight and high performing are crucial to the ongoing success of aerospace design.
Graphene exemplifies such materials, as it is an atomic-scale hexagonal lattice made of carbon atoms and may be used in aerospace as well as in other designs with similar goals. Late last year, interested designers collaborated via the Graphene Flagship, which brought together top European researchers and companies to discuss disruptive ways graphene could enhance composites used in the aerospace, automotive, and energy industries. They demonstrated how graphene and related materials (GRMs) could be integrated into fiber-reinforced composites (FRCs) to improve weight and strength.
The effort was one of many initiatives that continue in the transportation industry with its many scientists and engineers continually trying to develop new materials to lower fuel usage and CO2 emissions, whic
h in turn helps to mitigate environmental damage and climate change. Graphene-integrated composites are of notable importance, as they represent lighter materials with great potential for use in vehicle frameworks.
Smarter, faster, and lighter components are at the core of aerospace design, now and into the future. Technology has joined the strategy to design and fabricate better performing airframes and aerospace products.
This is an addendum to the long line of progress the aerospace industry has seen since Orville and Wilbur Wright sweated it out in their bicycle shop in Dayton, Ohio. They probably never thought or knew the technological prowess that would follow their ingenuity and unrelenting pursuit of flight.
