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Towards Silent Supersonic Planes

Posted by timothy on from the wish-they'd-work-more-on-trains dept.

Roland Piquepaille writes "There is no longer a single commercial supersonic airplane since the retirement of the Concorde last year. And even during its years of glory, the Concorde was not a commercial success, mainly because it was not allowed to cruise at supersonic speed over land. Why? Because of the sonic 'boom' which arises when you break the sound barrier. Now, a joint program between NASA, the military and the aerospace industry wants to remove, or at least reduce, this sonic boom, by changing the shape of supersonic planes. It seems to work. After a 'nose job' on a Northrop Grumman F-5E, about a third of the pressure released when breaking the sound barrier has already been suppressed. This overview contains more details. It also includes a photograph of the modified Northrop Grumman F-5Ea aircraft flying off the wing of the F-15B research testbed aircraft. [Note: Previous results were reported here by Slashdot in last September.]"

7 of 332 comments (clear)

  1. Now by mfh · · Score: 5, Funny

    If we could only do something about my neighbour's pounding stereo.

    --
    The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
    1. Re:Now by value_added · · Score: 4, Funny

      Seems to me that if you could change the shapes of the dogs like they changed the shapes of the planes, the sounds emitted would be ... well, different.

      I know for a fact it works on cats.

    2. Re:Now by weiyuent · · Score: 3, Funny

      If we could only do something about my neighbour's pounding stereo.

      *sigh* did you RTFA? Supersonic travel allows you to outrun the sound waves emanating from your neighbours stereo. ;-)

  2. Blah blah blah words words words by JessLeah · · Score: 5, Funny
    Look, this is all well and good, but I'm sick and fucking tired of reading stories like "Scientists working on new method for fusion" and "Flying cars almost ready?" and "Men on Mars sooner than we think". I am a pessimist, and as the psychological literature will show, pessimism is realism. I assume that nothing is going to change in the 'status quo' until it has already changed.

    Geeks like us, and researchers looking to get more grant money, have been babbling about fusion, flying cars, a return to the moon, a trip to Mars, terraforming Mars, anti-gravity devices, transporters, replicators, eternal life, brain transplantation and human cloning for-fucking-ever. YOU KNOW WHAT? I AM FUCKING SICK OF READING ABOUT SPECULATIVE FLIMFLAM. I want to read, for once, a story like:

    Flying cars being sold from reputable Web site for $20,000 RIGHT NOW

    Holy shit: Man lands on Mars!

    Fusion reactor perfected; lauded as "great success". Test reactor already tethered to power grid generating $BIGNUM megawatts; construction on fullscale reactor underway. AND...

    Silent supersonic airliner makes first of new daily Transatlantic flights wearing $MAJOR_AIRLINE colours. Book tickets at $URL.
    Stop wasting my fucking time until something is actually AVAILABLE NOW. God, I'm fucking sick of reading this kind of pie-in-the-sky bullshit! It's all over SlashDot and, to a lesser extent, all over the "mainstream" news media. Fuck this shit, I don't want to hear about how "at some point in the "near" future" we "may" have such-and-such. I want a fucking link to buy one on walmart.com.

    Fucking Christ, are all research organisations just like us geeks-- starting projects but never finishing them?

    Oh, and you over there at moller.com: STOP BABBLING ABOUT YOUR GOD-DAMNED FLYING CARS AND START SELLING THE FUCKING THINGS ALREADY!!! YOU'RE ALREADY 10 YEARS LATE, YOU FUCKWITS! And if the FAA won't let you sell them in the US, SELL THEM ELSEWHERE. RIGHT FUCKING NOW!

    --
    Honey, I shrunk the Cygwin
  3. McDonald Douglas? by shiftless · · Score: 4, Funny

    Would you like fries with that?

  4. Fun SR-71 fact by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    During the SR-71 development, Lockheed agreed to reimburse the cost of repairing windows broken due to the aircraft's sonic booms. To help people prepare for the sonic booms, they'd announce supersonic test flights ahead of time in the local paper. Once, they announced a flight but never actually made it. The complaints still streamed in though, from people wanting free windows replacements.

  5. Plane in the lower left corner by serutan · · Score: 3, Funny

    [Note: If someone can identify the third plane on the lower left corner of the picture, please tell me what it is.]

    I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you.