Boom Supersonic Cuts Drill Guide Costs 92% With Stratasys FDM

Boom Supersonic is leaning on Stratasys FDM 3D printing to shave weeks off its tooling lead times and cut the cost of individual drill guides by 92% compared to traditional machining.

What They Were Making

Drill guides are the unsung heroes of aircraft assembly. These fixtures make sure holes go exactly where engineers intended, every time. For a company trying to hit tight deadlines on the Overture supersonic airliner, waiting a week or more for a machined guide was not an option.

According to Stratasys, Boom Supersonic now prints these guides directly on an F900 industrial FDM printer. The switch from machining to additive manufacturing delivered a single-part cost saving of 92%. Lead times dropped from roughly one week to same-day production in many cases.

Why FDM Works Here

FDM is not the first technology people think of for precision tooling, but Boom's use case is a textbook example of why it fits. The guides do not need the ultra-fine surface finish of a final aircraft part. They need dimensional accuracy, repeatability, and speed. FDM delivers all three at a fraction of the material waste of subtractive methods.

Stratasys notes that the same approach has been used across aerospace for years, but Boom's public numbers make the case concrete. A 92% cost reduction on a single fixture adds up fast when you multiply it across hundreds of assemblies.

The Bigger Picture

This is the kind of story that rarely makes headlines, but it is where 3D printing actually pays for itself in manufacturing. The dramatic savings come from replacing a slow, wasteful process with one that builds the part directly from a digital file. No tooling, no setups, no waiting for a machine shop queue.

Boom Supersonic's Overture program remains on track for first flight in the next few years. If the company is already relying on FDM for production tooling at this stage, it signals a level of internal confidence in the program that goes beyond the marketing milestones.

Sources

• TCT Magazine - Boom Supersonic Application Spotlight
• Stratasys - Boom Supersonic Case Study