Centennial-based Boom Technology chooses Adams County as test site for its supersonic jet engines

Boom Technology, the Colorado company working on building the next generation of supersonic jets, has chosen to develop and test its engines of the future just 30 miles north of its Centennial headquarters — at the Colorado Air and Space Port in Watkins.

Adams County commissioners this week approved a five-year lease with Boom. The company has pledged to invest $3 million to $5 million over the next year to improve and upgrade the site on the space port’s east side where it will do its testing.

Adams County owns the Colorado Air and Space Port, formerly known as Front Range Airport.

“We’re absolute thrilled that Boom has chosen Adams County,” Lynn Baca, who chairs Adams County’s Board of Commissioners, said Thursday. “It’s really Boom’s investment in our community that puts us at the forefront of aerospace and Adams County’s commitment to advancing next-generation transportation technologies.”

Boom made news earlier this year when its XB-1 jet became the first independently developed aircraft to break the sound barrier, tearing through the air tens of thousands of feet above California’s Mojave Desert. The demonstrator aircraft, a prelude to the company’s commercial jet — dubbed the Overture — accelerated to Mach 1.05 within about 11 minutes of taking off, according to the company and a live video of the test flight.

Late January’s test flight was another step toward reviving supersonic commercial travel, which went defunct with the grounding of the Concorde jet more than two decades ago.

Boom CEO Blake Scholl has said publicly that the Overture will debut in 2029, with tickets priced from $4,000 to $5,000 for a 3½-hour flight from New York to London. The company says its plane will have a top speed of 1.7 times the speed of sound, or about 1,300 mph, and carry between 65 and 80 passengers.

The specter of revived supersonic travel across the globe convinced American Airlines in 2022 to commit to buying 20 Overtures from Boom. The year before, United Airlines committed to purchasing 15 of the aircraft, which will built in North Carolina.

A Boom spokesperson on Thursday confirmed the lease with Adams County but said the company didn’t have anything more to say about it immediately. Jeff Kloska, executive director of the Colorado Air and Space Port, also confirmed the arrangement but declined to say more.

According to a presentation shown at the commissioners’ meeting on Tuesday, Boom plans to station 10 to 15 engineers and technicians in Adams County to perfect the Overture’s engine, dubbed Symphony — a turbofan engine with a 35,000-pound thrust.

The new deal with Boom is not unfamiliar territory for the Colorado Air and Space Port. The same space Boom is moving into was previously leased to Reaction Engines, a British aerospace company that was doing similar research and development for the last seven years.

Reaction Engines shut down late last year after running into funding problems. Adams County said it ended the lease with the company last month.

“It’s a big deal,” said Morgan Alu, director of international business development and special projects with the Metro Denver Economic Development Corporation and staff lead of the Colorado Space Coalition. “That capability near a runway is great for the state.”

Alu said being so close to population centers, Boom can “access engineering talent” while still roaring its test engines at high decibels without disturbing anyone near the remote space port.

According to a new report from the Colorado Space Coalition that focuses on an 11-county region along the Front Range, the aerospace industry employs 56,910 people across 2,260 companies, with an average annual wage of $147,840.

“We’re on the cutting edge,” Baca said. “To be on the horizon in that next step in space travel is an exciting adventure to be on.”

Get more Colorado news by signing up for our daily Your Morning Dozen email newsletter.