Boom Supersonic announced their engine Symphony,with Kratos, GE, and Standard Aero rounding out the team. Designing an engine is a significant undertaking, certifying and manufacturing are additional challenges with a clean sheet engine design. Currently, It takes the major OEMs 6/7 years to design and certify an engine with all their experience,facilities, and supply chain expertise already intact. We will briefly go over the challenges Boom may encounter while attempting to meet their goal of carrying passengers by 2029.
Design and Certification:
Currently, the team that has been publicly acknowledged, does not have experience designing and certifying an engine via the type certification process. There is immense difficulty in inlet, turbomachinery, combustor, and exhaust design especially when considering the plane will be supersonic and is planned to operate on Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF). Kratos will lead the charge for the design and to their credit there is engineering staff who have experience designing supersonic engines such as the F-119 and F-135, which will be very beneficial.
Certification is a complex task and requires specialized personnel who understands Part 33 regulations and how to show compliance. To meet their timeline, Boom will need multiple test cells, component stands, and other rigs to fully understand the engine performance, all which come with unique problems. Boom should begin looking into DERs and utilize ODAs to help keep the process on track.
Manufacturing:
When Boom announced the engine, it was not stated where the manufacturing would take place. The established engine primes, as every other company, continue to have supply chain issues partly due to Covid fallout and lack of skilled workers. Will Boom and the sub-suppliers be able to properly recruit and train enough employees in addition to securing the necessary raw materials to support the developmental and production engines?
Cost:
The capital needed for the above items is immense. For a reference, it is estimated that Pratt & Whitney spent over $10 Billion and 20 years developing their Next Generation Product Family (NGPF) also known as the geared turbofan. Pratt is a part of Raytheon Technologies (formerly United Technologies) and a corporation of that size is able to support an investment of that size. With Boom also designing the airframe, the question is where will the additional capital come from to fund the engine? Will the investors continue to pour funds into the Type Certificate programs (Part 25 and Part 33) to the tune of billions without seeing a quick return on their investment? In our opinion, this may be their largest problem.
Summary:
Design, Certification, Manufacturing, and Cost will be main areas of concern for Boom, It will be great to see how the engine progresses through the years and we hope they are able to get the needed investments to make the programs a success. If anyone needs any assistance with PMAs, STCs, Test Cell Correlations, or any other Propulsion DER work, do not hesitate to contact us.
Comments