A skinny little airplane parked in a hangar of the Centennial Airport aims to revolutionize how people fly and reintroduce the world to supersonic flight.

Boom Technology has spent two years designing a supersonic passenger plane with the financial economics the defunct Concorde could never achieve. A full-size mockup of a smaller test plane will be unveiled publicly on Tuesday. If all goes well in flight tests next year, the company will move ahead and build a full-size 45-seat aircraft that can travel 2.2 times faster than the speed of sound at a price on par with business-class tickets: $5,000 round trip for a 3 hour and 15 minute flight from New York to London.

“This isn’t a private jet,” said Boom CEO Blake Scholl, who co-founded the company in 2014 with chief engineer Joe Wilding and chief technology officer Josh Krall. “We want to build something that we can see our friends and family flying on. We’re starting with business-class prices because that’s what we have technology for. But our line of sight is we want to make the fastest ticket the cheapest ticket.”

On Tuesday, guests will see the exact design of “Baby Boom.” About one-third the size of the full-sized plane, this two-passenger plane measures 70 feet long and has all the curves you’d imagine a supersonic jet should have. It has a distinctive long skinny nose and streamlined wings that barely angle away from the fuselage. While this baby will never fly, parts for the real Baby Boom are being manufactured in North Carolina and will find their way to Hangar 14 next year. The real baby is expected to begin flight tests in late 2017. If all goes well, Boom’s passenger supersonic jet could fly its first paying customers in the 2020s.

Supersonic flight has already been done. Remember the Concorde? The spectacular failure that lasted nearly three decades flew travelers across the Atlantic in three hours and 30 minutes for about $20,000 a ticket. But after years of losing money due to low production and high fuel costs, plus the industry downturn post 9/11, the Concorde was mothballedin 2003.

That was then, said Scholl.

Helen H. Richardson, The Denver Post Blake Scholl, left, and Joe Wilding, right, both co-founders of Boom Technology, stand in front of a large model of the new XB-1 Supersonic Demonstrator at their their Hanger at Centennial Airport on Nov. 14, 2016 in Centennial.

Helen H. Richardson, The Denver Post Nathan Sprang works around displays showing artists renderings of the XB-1 Supersonic Demonstrator jet at Boom Technology at Centennial Airport on Nov. 14, 2016 in Centennial.

Helen H. Richardson, The Denver Post This is a large model of the XB-1 Supersonic Demonstrator at Boom Technology at Centennial Airport on Nov. 14, 2016 in Centennial.



Helen H. Richardson, The Denver Post Ben Krall works on displays showing artists renderings of the interior of the XB-1 Supersonic Demonstrator jet at Boom Technology at Centennial Airport on Nov. 14, 2016 in Centennial.

Helen H. Richardson, The Denver Post Ben Krall, left, and his brother Josh check out a large model of the XB-1 Supersonic Demonstrator jet at Boom Technology at Centennial Airport on Nov. 14, 2016 in Centennial.

Helen H. Richardson, The Denver Post A display shows artist renderings of the XB-1 Supersonic Demonstrator jet at Boom Technology at Centennial Airport on Nov. 14, 2016 in Centennial.



Helen H. Richardson, The Denver Post A display shows artist renderings of the XB-1 Supersonic Demonstrator jet at Boom Technology at Centennial Airport on Nov. 14, 2016 in Centennial.

“We’re 60 years into the jet age and we’re literally still in the jet age,” he said. “We’re about to have self-driving cars, but we’re still flying around at 1960 speeds.”

Boom’s technology and economics has convinced a few experts that supersonic travel will become a reality again by the 2020s. The goal of Boom’s aircraft is to hit speeds of Mach 2.2, or 2.2 times faster than the speed of sound (and faster than the Concorde’s Mach 2). That’s 1,451 miles per hour. And at a cost of $5,000 round trip, that’s cheaper than what we found Monday for a last-minute business-class ticket on American Airlines for $16,221, which also offered a $5,893 seat in the main cabin.

“It (Boom) can capture an existing market segment,” said Michael Boyd, president of Boyd Group International, an aviation consulting firm in Evergreen. “Airlines are filling up 40 to 50 seats in business class today. It’s already there. This just chops off the front end of the jumbo jet and puts them on a smaller plane.”

Boyd’s company was hired by Boom to look at the viability of supersonic flights for a wider audience. Boyd concluded yes and estimated that Boom could sell 1,300 aircraft. This projection, Boyd said, is despite the U.S. ban on noisy super sonic booms, or the sound an object makes when it travels faster than the speed of sound. If the U.S. and other countries got rid of the over-the-land sonic-boom ban — Boom’s plane noise is at 85 decibels or slightly louder than a garbage disposal — Boyd said the number of planes sold could be double or more.

“This is going to be a huge change. We’re talking thousands of planes. If American Airlines orders it for its transatlantic service, every other airline will have to have it too,” Boyd said. “… He (Scholl) has been way under the radar. It’s going to be one of those things where as he progresses, big manufacturers like Airbus, Boeing and maybe (Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China) in China will look to partner with him. This will be a fundamental change to intercontinental travel.”

With 50 years of advancements since the Concorde, Boom benefited from engine advances and other technology improvements, including fuel improvements. Scholl also credits the Denver location as helping attract talent from Boeing, SpaceX, Lockheed Martin and NASA. The company has doubled to about 25 people this year and expects to be at 50 when the first test flights start next year.

For example, he said, engineers could now use computer simulation software to test and build the plane. The Concorde would use wind tunnels, which would take six months to build and test before you learned something.

“The state of the art for software simulation of aerodynamics is very good,” Scholl said. “We’ve been able to take six months of wind-tunnel testing down to a half an hour. The Concorde had a dozen wind-tunnel tests. In simulation, we’ve done 1,000.”

Boom has also embraced innovations in three key areas that have improved greatly since the Concorde: aerodynamics, materials and propulsion. A tapered fuselage diminishes drag. The refined wings, which narrow closer to the plane’s nose, adds balance and the angle quiets the sonic boom.

Planes will also be made of carbon-fiber composites, which are lighter than the aluminum used in the Concorde. Carbon fiber can also be modeled into any shape and is better at taking the heat of a supersonic flight (“That’s why our aircraft can fly 10 percent faster than a Concorde,” Scholl said.)

The appeal of a faster flight is obvious to business-class travelers who often subsidize air travel for main-cabin passengers. But there is also savings for premium travelers too: A faster flight means traveling to and back from London for a meeting, saving on hotel costs and avoiding jet lag.

The Concorde focused on luxury and speed, but the actual aircraft was not that comfortable. Dan Reed, a long-time aviation journalist, said that he’s 6-foot-4 and he couldn’t stand up straight in a Concorde.

“Its compromised size was because of physics, which means you can’t carry a lot of paying passengers. But that’s an inherent balance problem. The only way to make money on a long-haul flight is to have a lot of people,” Reed said, pointing to Boeing and Airbus planes that carry 200 to 400 passengers overseas.

Reed pointed to other companies building supersonic jets, including Reno, Nev.-based Aerion Corporation, which wants to build private supersonic jets for $120 million. Lockheed Martin is working with NASA to develop a low-boom aircraft.

He doesn’t doubt that technology has improved to make supersonic travel possible. It’s just the economics that stumps him.

“Boom’s theory is fairly interesting but its assumptions are very aggressive that it can exceed great speed on conventional engines,” he said. “You can make that plane but can you make it economical? You generally will have to charge six, seven times more. Some say $20,000 on an international flight. There’s a very thin margin of people who will pay for that.”

But Seth Kaplan, managing partner of Airline Weekly, said some of the little things Boom is focusing on are keeping the costs down. Boom’s planes will have two one-seat aisles along the windows so every passenger has an aisle seat and a window seat.

“You don’t need the lie-flat business class seat because it’s more like a trip from D.C. to Chicago,” Kaplan said. “That’s kind of an interesting thing about the economics. The fact is that you can have a business class product with higher density because you can pack more seats into an aircraft, compared to lie-flat seats.”

Scholl won’t say how much investment Boom has received. But partners include Virgin Galactic, which has already reserved the first 10 airplanes produced — at $200 million each.

“It’s capitally intensive but the great thing about it is the market is huge. There is no individual who doesn’t want faster flights,” Scholl said. “There’s no airline that doesn’t want this product.”