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What Blake Scholl thinks about aviation

@blake-scholl · 22 positions · 0 changes of mind

Founder and CEO of Boom Supersonic, the Denver company building the Overture supersonic airliner and its Symphony engine.

Blake Scholl did not write this page.

We collected these quotes from things they published elsewhere, and every quote links to where it was said. They have no account here and have not endorsed this site. Quotes are word for word; the short line under each one is our own restatement, not their wording. Their own site. Is this you? Claim it or ask us to remove it. Or tell us what is wrong here.

10 dated positions, 2026, in their own words. Our reading of what Blake Scholl has said — not written or endorsed by them.

  1. Our readingHalf a century after Apollo and Concorde we can neither reach the moon nor fly faster than sound: the future stopped getting faster.

    Their wordsIn 1969, we landed on the moon for the first time and the same year we flew Concord, the faster than the speed of sound airliner. The future was supposed to be faster and better. where we're supposed to look forward to innovation in air and in space. And yet, half a century later, we can't go to the moon and we can't fly faster than the speed of sound.

    ↗Blake Scholl: How 50 People Built a Supersonic Jetyoutube.com 1st of 22 in this recording

    innovation

    Interesting

  3. Our readingAirliner design has not progressed in fifty years — the newest jet is no faster and makes the world no more accessible than the one that opened the jet age.

    Their wordsBut if we fast forward half a century, this is the 787, their latest airliner, which by the way was launched more than 20 years ago. You can't spot the difference. It doesn't fly any faster. It doesn't make the world any more accessible.

    ↗Blake Scholl: How 50 People Built a Supersonic Jetyoutube.com 3rd of 22 in this recording

    design

    Interesting

  5. Our readingWhen air travel doubles in speed the important changes happen on the ground: Hawaii was not a tourist destination until the jet made it reachable.

    Their wordsThose first jetliners truly did double the speed of what had come before them. And was they doubled the speed of air travel, the most important changes were on the ground. Hawaii was simply not a tourist destination before the speed of the jet.

    ↗Blake Scholl: How 50 People Built a Supersonic Jetyoutube.com 4th of 22 in this recording

    Interesting

  7. Our readingThe incumbent manufacturers will never carry aviation into a supersonic age, because they have stopped building new aeroplanes at all.

    Their wordsWell, no. They're not even building new airplanes anymore, let alone innovative new airplanes.

    ↗Blake Scholl: How 50 People Built a Supersonic Jetyoutube.com 5th of 22 in this recording

    Interesting

  9. Our readingThe way to settle an argument about how quiet supersonic flight must be is to remove the boom entirely, so there is nothing left to argue about.

    Their wordsby making the sonic boom disappear entirely, we are able to put aside a question that had long plagued people talking about supersonic flight, which is how quiet is quiet enough? If there's no boom at all, there's nothing to argue about.

    ↗Blake Scholl: How 50 People Built a Supersonic Jetyoutube.com 6th of 22 in this recording

    Interesting

  11. Our readingA team of fifty can build a supersonic jet only by making hardware development look like software development and driving down the cost of iteration.

    Their wordsThe key thing is to make hardware development look more like software development to reduce the cost of iteration both in the world of bits and in the world of atoms.

    ↗Blake Scholl: How 50 People Built a Supersonic Jetyoutube.com 8th of 22 in this recording

    Interesting

  13. Our readingGood software is modular, but a good aeroplane is the opposite — everything affects everything else, which is why hardware iteration has always been slow.

    Their wordsBut great airplanes are incredibly integrated and everything affects everything else. uh the the best airplane design is interplay of propulsion, of aerodynamics, of structures, of all kinds of optimizations, how you fit the systems into it.

    ↗Blake Scholl: How 50 People Built a Supersonic Jetyoutube.com 9th of 22 in this recording

    design

    Interesting

  15. Our readingYou cannot find product-market fit for a supersonic jet by building one and seeing whether anybody likes it; it has to be worked out before anything is built.

    Their wordsYou can't get to product market fit on a supersonic jet by building it and seeing if anybody likes it. You have to analyze very carefully the art of the possible and also what will maximize the market opportunity.

    ↗Blake Scholl: How 50 People Built a Supersonic Jetyoutube.com 11th of 22 in this recording

    product management

    Interesting

  17. Our readingA supersonic engine can be sold on the ground as a power turbine, and that is how you finance an airliner nobody would otherwise fund.

    Their wordsThis is a supersonic engine adapted for ground power generation that can ship without the rest of the airplane, thereby generating the test data, the learnings, the reliability, and also the capital that we need to go big.

    ↗Blake Scholl: How 50 People Built a Supersonic Jetyoutube.com 13th of 22 in this recording

    Interesting

  19. Our readingIn a safety-critical industry the regulator should be recruited onto the team early, so that it is you and the regulator against the problem.

    Their wordsWhy? We engaged early. We made the regulators part of the team and we worked together. We made it boom plus FAA versus the problem, not Boom versus FAA.

    ↗Blake Scholl: How 50 People Built a Supersonic Jetyoutube.com 18th of 22 in this recording

    Interesting