Boom! Supersonic trip report

[SBGrad]

Boom announced several days in advance that Tuesday the 28th would be The Day to attempt to go past Mach 1 with their XB-1 subscale demonstrator. They had made 10 flights from KMHV in the past, working up to Mach .995.

There was no way i was missing this. Packed the car and off we go to the high desert.

On CA58, right around the exit to Edwards, we saw a (very) low level F-16 honking on the Gs right over the highway. Turned out one of the TBird solos was doing a demonstration ( with smoke!) over Edwards that day. Mrs Grad gave me the play by play since I was driving.

At Mojave, found some legal viewpoints off airport that would work with a crop sensor + 500mm.

We got quite the air show since Boom decided to go with 2 chase planes. The XB-1 (N990XB, Kestrel 11 on the radio) was first off, followed by ATAC's F-1B N604AX, and then T-38 N638TC. Boom gave the XB-1 a special paint scheme for the Mach flight. The XB-1 looked longer and thinner than the chese planes, like a greyhound escorted by a Malinois and a German Shepherd.

The flight was mostly at 35000ft over Edwards and points east, so we didn't see or hear anything out by Mojave. It took very little time to make 2 runs down the supersonic corridor and then back to Mojave for a straight in approach. I barely had time to drive from my take off viewpoint on the north side of RWY 30, down to Old 58 to catch the landing.

The Mirage and Talon made a low approach alongside the XB-1 and then went around to land. It was eye opening seeing the XB-1 with its super skinny landing gear and high angle of approach next to the 2 military-bred jets.

About a 30 hour trip with 7 hours of driving for a 40 minute flight I caught about 5 minutes of. Very worth it for the historic aspect of the flight.

[patrick dirksen]

The Boom XB-1 looks very ugly to me, but I understand your reference to a historic flight! Nice report!