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More On Silent Supersonic Planes

Posted by timothy on from the more-of-a-phhhhffftt dept.

Reverberant writes "Popular Science describes the latest attempt at developing a supersonic plane designed to minimize sonic booms. The article describes some of the history behind the research, and recent attempts at validating the theory. Also note that researcher Ken Plotkin is a frequent contributer to alt.sci.physics.acoustics."

3 of 297 comments (clear)

  1. A picture of the modified plane... by pldms · · Score: 5, Informative

    ...can be found here.

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  2. Re:We already have surprise by Artifakt · · Score: 5, Informative

    A sonic boom can also be detected at many miles distance by a wired or radio connected listening device, analyzed in a few seconds to get a fairly good idea of what sort of plane emitted it, and that information sent to the potential target, or interceptor forces, at the speed of light or close to it, long before the plane can cross the terrain to get to its target. The Soviet Union was deploying such systems in the early 1960s, and it's a fair bet that even some "third world" countries have their own variants on them today.

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  3. Re:EVERYONE has heard a sonic boom by swatoa · · Score: 5, Informative

    Here's an F-14 creating a sonic boom overhead in some type of airshow.

    http://users.wpi.edu/~jbendor/F-14%20Sonic%20Boom. mpg