US Republican Senator Ted Budd, from North Carolina, has introduced a bill that, if approved, would considerably expand the market for commercial supersonic flight in the US.
The proposed new piece of legislation, registered as ‘S.1759’, but referred to also as ‘SAM (Supersonic Aviation Modernization) Act’, would make it possible to operate civil supersonic flights within US airspace, under certain conditions.
Senator Budd insisted that the regulation should focus on limiting the sound impact of supersonic flight, rather than the actual speed at which aircraft fly.
At present, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) prohibits commercial supersonic flights over land in the US, except in some special circumstances, on the basis of a regulation, ’14 CFR 91.817’, that was established back in 1973.
The potentially disturbing effect of sonic booms on populated areas is the main reason underlying these limitations. However, it is possible that regulators may soften this stance in view of recent innovations in sonic boom mitigation, such as those currently being tested by Boom Supersonic.
In January 2025, Boom Supersonic successfully tested its XB-1 prototype, a small-scale demonstrator that is expected to become the basis for a larger supersonic airliner.
Not surprisingly, Boom Supersonic founder, Blake Scholl, has been a vocal advocate for legislative reform in the field of supersonic flight.
A switch in regulatory focus from speed to sound impact may significantly expand the addressable market of Boom Supersonic. This startup has been working on “boomless” technology that, it claims, will mitigate the sonic boom phenomenon significantly.
The SAM Act has been co-sponsored by three fellow Republican senators from North Carolina, Montana and Utah. Introduction to Congress is the first step in the process towards potentially becoming law.
Before that happens, the bill will have to pass through the appropriate committees and then be debated by the full chamber, which may introduce amendments. If approved by one of the two chambers, it would next have to go through a similar process in the other. The bill would ultimately have to be signed by the US President, who also has some powers of veto.
Perhaps not entirely coincidentally, on the same day that the SAM Act was introduced, another US startup, Atlanta-based Spike Aerospace, issued a public statement confirming that it has resumed work on the development of the ‘S-512 Diplomat’, a supersonic commercial aircraft capable of reaching speeds up to Mach 1.6.
Spike Aerospace has been working on a civilian supersonic aircraft for over a decade, although so far it has kept a much lower public profile than Boom Supersonic. Plus, unlike the latter, it hasn’t yet performed supersonic flight tests.
Just as with Boom Supersonic, though, Spike Aerospace claims its future aircraft will have ‘low-boom’ technology which will give it a much lower sonic profile than traditional supersonic aircraft.
