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NASA Hires Lockheed Martin To Build Quiet Supersonic X-Plane (space.com)
New submitter john of sparta shares a report from Space.com: NASA has taken a huge leap forward in its quest to create an aircraft that can travel faster than the speed of sound without causing the ear-splitting sonic boom. The space agency announced today (April 2) that it has awarded the aerospace company Lockheed Martin a $247.5 million contract to design and build a new X-plane, known as the Low-Boom Flight Demonstrator (LBFD), which may soar silently over the U.S. by 2022. Lockheed Martin's LBFD won't be built for transporting people. Before any supersonic planes will be allowed to fly over land, NASA and Lockheed Martin must prove that it's possible to break the sound barrier without the sonic boom.
Jaiwon Shin, associate administrator of NASA's Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate, said that the LBFD will fly over select U.S. cities starting in mid-2022 and NASA will "ask the people living and working in those communities to tell us what they heard, if anything." The LBFD aircraft will be 94 feet (29 meters) long, or about the size of a small business jet. It will fly at a cruising altitude of about 55,000 feet (17,000 meters) and reach a speed of 1.4 times the speed of sound (about 1,000 mph, or 1,600 km/h). This will "create a sound about as loud as a car door closing," NASA officials said in the news conference.
Jaiwon Shin, associate administrator of NASA's Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate, said that the LBFD will fly over select U.S. cities starting in mid-2022 and NASA will "ask the people living and working in those communities to tell us what they heard, if anything." The LBFD aircraft will be 94 feet (29 meters) long, or about the size of a small business jet. It will fly at a cruising altitude of about 55,000 feet (17,000 meters) and reach a speed of 1.4 times the speed of sound (about 1,000 mph, or 1,600 km/h). This will "create a sound about as loud as a car door closing," NASA officials said in the news conference.
Flying coast to coast in under six hours you fucknut. Thatâ(TM)s easily worth a one time investment of $250M or even $500M.
Currently it takes 6 hours minimum to fly from New York to Los Angeles at mach 0.8. If this plane can get business travelers there in 3 theyâ(TM)ll be lining up to pay double or more.
What would be the point of this, stealth bombing??
Sure. Why not? That is sort of DoD's job. If they can figure out a way to do it faster/better/cheaper, then that is good.
What a waste of 250 _Million_.
You need to get some perspective. DoD spends 2 _Billion_ per day. So 250 _Million_ is, like, 2 hours of their budget.
Summary says it "won't be built for transporting people", also was a personal attack really necessary "you fucknut" ?
It's just a prototype to see if they can reduce the sonic boom. No point in designing an aircraft that carries people (particularly given its cruising altitude of 17 000 metres) and then having the test fail.
Also, FTA:
NASA will then send the "scientifically collected human response" data to the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) "so they can use the data to change the current rule that completely bans civil supersonic flights over land," Shin said.
"When the rule is changed, the door will open to an aviation industry ready to enter [a] new supersonic market in our country and around the world," Shin said. "This X-plane is a critical step closer to that exciting future."
The demonstrator wont transport passengers. The technology from the X plane will then be used for future vehicles that could well carry passengers.
Perhaps you need to go back to elementary school for some comprehension revision.
Flying coast to coast in under six hours you fucknut. Thatâ(TM)s easily worth a one time investment of $250M or even $500M.
Currently it takes 6 hours minimum to fly from New York to Los Angeles at mach 0.8. If this plane can get business travelers there in 3 theyâ(TM)ll be lining up to pay double or more.
If demand was actually that high, It would be easier and cheaper to get the FAA to change the rules allowing existing designs to create a sonic boom over land while traveling over a certain altitude, and simply bring a new Concorde back (which travels at over 1,300MPH). Breaking the sound barrier should not be viewed as some kind of social impossibility given the amount of sonic booms people have endured for decades living near an Air Force base or a Space Shuttle landing site. A fighter jet squadron is not quiet by any means.
The reality is tickets will likely cost 10 - 20x more, and attract about as many people as those who fly privately, which is not that large a market. And humans have to sleep, so flying coast to coast is quite socially acceptable when done overnight without causing a considerable loss to precious business time.
In case you aren't a NASA nerd like all us cool kids, the brilliant minds at NASA got together and solved that nasty sonic "BOOM!" problem. The new sonic "meeEEOOOooow!" has gone over much better with test audiences and frightened many a feline off of keyboards. ;)
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
Flying coast to coast in under six hours you fucknut. Thatâ(TM)s easily worth a one time investment of $250M or even $500M.
Currently it takes 6 hours minimum to fly from New York to Los Angeles at mach 0.8. If this plane can get business travelers there in 3 theyâ(TM)ll be lining up to pay double or more.
Given that the posted speed is Mach 1.4 - in other words, not double your Mach 0.8 - the time won't be 3 hours.
Heck, given the time for climb, descent, and approach, going Mach 1.4 across the US probably reduces that 6 hours to maybe under 4 hours, maybe not.
Now, toss in the hour or so at each end, and the 8-hour door-to-door trip is all the way down to 6 hours.
BFD. No one's going to pay a premium for that.
Or maybe you missed the fact that even on a longer route with a lot of high-paying business customers who put a premium on time, the Concorde lost money and wasn't replaced?
Who's the fucknut now?
Grow a brain, you obnoxious little shit.
Please define "about as loud as a car door closing."
Car door closing isn't one of the standard items on the dB SPL chart (e.g. library, normal conversation, jackhammer, rock concert, 747 at takeoff).
How far away are you measuring? Inside the car? A block away? Inside your house?
Please just tell us how many dB you expect.
Back when I was a kid, jets would fly in and out of the local Naval air station and occasionally go supersonic after takeoff. I don't recall the sonic booms as being "earsplitting". "Window rattling"? Sure but even the level of that depends on their altitude when the shock wave passed by on the ground. They would have had to have been at low altitude for it to be "earsplitting".
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
Wasn't this done 20 years ago?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaped_Sonic_Boom_Demonstration
That's still 50 dB higher than the level that will be tolerated in most NIMBY neigborhoods
Reduction to a third - didn't atually get rid of the boom.
Ever since the Concorde, passenger planes cruising supersonic over populated areas without the damage has been a dream.
I guess this is what Lockheed Martin really needed, we can all agree with that. The private sector couldn't have come up with an excuse to build another supersonic airliner after Concode, but NASA thinks it knows better and will spend 200+ millions of taxpayer money on this BS program. Lockheed Martin's executives and lobbyists are pouring some expensive Champagne right now.
We know what the final aim is of all these X-Planes.
There are many UFO observations beyond sound speed where the bang was not eared -> it is feasible.
Japan's space agency JAXA has been working on similar tech in the last decade too.
Reducing the sonic boom is just one idea for bringing back supersonic transport aircraft. Others include designing one that operates better at lower speeds, so that it can get out over the ocean before going supersonic without wasting too much time and fuel.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
no they are making sure they have a Military capable plane first - there is no guarantee the final tech will be portable beteween designs , I doubt you can scale a stealth bomber up into a large scale passenger carrying craft and still remain steathly.
It's because Americans have to learn their math from Betsy DeVos.
Stop making people strip search to board would save just as much time then?
NASA will "ask the people living and working in those communities to tell us what they heard, if anything."
People used to complain about SR-71 flights over CONUS on days those were scheduled... even when the flight had been cancelled for some reason and never took off.
Commercial flights? Maybe not.. But I can se big business in flying VIP customers at Mach 1.4. Flying VIP customers around on demand and quickly might be economically viable.
Also, the application to military aircraft might be worth it too.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Asshole.
Commercial flights? Maybe not.. But I can se big business in flying VIP customers at Mach 1.4. Flying VIP customers around on demand and quickly might be economically viable.
Also, the application to military aircraft might be worth it too.
Maybe. Boeing bet on the 787 because of fuel costs, and that seems to have been the correct decision, well that and the Airbus offering didn't match the actual market that emerged.
I vaguely recall from college that fuel economy starts dropping off at a rate proportional to the square of the velocity. (The idea is that driving faster will consume a lot more fuel for the same trip.) Now no doubt that is far too simplistic for this, but I can't help but wonder if getting from A to B at half the time won't take twice the fuel or some other large increase. If that is the case, then I'm doubting this will ever be viable commercially.
That being said, if it was that simple, then everyone would take trains, and they don't.
Hypersonic transport is so amazingly inefficient that it's pretty reasonable only for delivery of nuclear warheads. There's a small window around mach 1.2-1.3 where some interesting efficiencies can be gained, and it might or might not be possible to use the shockwave without creating an objectionable boom. This is an expensive question, but it has nothing to do with "hypersonic" scams fleecing investors.
And humans have to sleep
Yes, supersonic flights would turn the "Mile High Club" into a "Quickie Club".
UNESCO would be appalled at the loss of this "World Heritage" of the "Mile High Club".
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
As someone who routinely flew across half the continent... no.
get the FAA to change the rules allowing existing designs to create a sonic boom over land while traveling over a certain altitude
It's not just an FAA problem. The booms are still problematic, even at altitude. They require a lot of planning, as they will disrupt other aircraft in flight. They're also still a nuisance at the ground, even if they aren't loud enough to shatter windows or cause damage.
simply bring a new Concorde back
Ah, yes... let's bring back a doomed aircraft and hope it magically works better this time.
The Concorde was a brilliant piece of engineering, but ultimately impractical. Its design, optimized for supersonic flight, meant it wasn't very stable at the lower landing speed, and had to pitch much higher during landing to maintain stability. That's why the nose tips down: so the pilots can see where they're going while the plane is still pointed up. Add to that the inefficiencies and difficulty in accommodating the unique needs of the plane, and it's no surprise it was mothballed.
given the amount of sonic booms people have endured for decades living near an Air Force base or a Space Shuttle landing site. A fighter jet squadron is not quiet by any means.
...both of which pale in comparison to the frequency of booms from possible commercial traffic.
As it happens, I've spent a good amount of time near fighter jets. They certainly aren't quiet, being up in the hundred-decibel range from a reasonable distance, but they typically don't produce sonic booms while anywhere near the ground. Even then, the bases where they perform such maneuvers are usually in sparsely populated areas, where the majority of people exposed to the noise are the military personnel, who quite frankly aren't given the ability to complain.
Similarly, the western Space Shuttle landing sites were also in sparsely-populated areas. While the eastern landing site at Kennedy Space Center is certainly more populated than Edwards AFB, it's still far less dense (especially where the booms were loudest) than most of what you'll find in the path of commercial air travel.
The reality is tickets will likely cost 10 - 20x more
At first, this is probably true. Yet, first-class seats are still filled routinely, and I know of at least one company that would love any ability to move people and equipment across the country, and have them arrive in time to be installed the same day.
and attract about as many people as those who fly privately, which is not that large a market.
The funny thing is that usually markets will appear. Significantly cutting travel time anywhere in the continental U.S. means it's possible (though expensive) to get something off a loading dock in Boston at 7AM, and get it to a loading dock in L.A. by 4PM, while there's still someone there to unload it. Currently, that impossibility means there's no chance of the shipment arriving while the dock is staffed, so it waits until the next morning. That means a one-day effort is now two days, and if that stretches over a weekend, it becomes four days to do a ten-minute installation on a part*.
And humans have to sleep, so flying coast to coast is quite socially acceptable when done overnight without causing a considerable loss to precious business time.
Humans also have to sleep fairly comfortably, or they suffer consequences like not being able to walk the next day. There are also a lot of folks who understand that "business time", "sleep time", and "personal time" are all separate things that should not be mixed freely. There are also companies who will only pay for time spent traveling during normal business hours, so flying overnight is an inconvenience to the employee with absolutely no compensation*.
* These stories are unfortunately true, from a previous job where I did installation and troubleshooting of very expensive equipment, usually located on the other side of the country from our office.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
That only achieved a 1/3 reduction, to reduce to the sound of a car door is significantly better performance.
Play X-Men Theme.......
You know there's a serious cultural problem on a site when youtube comments are less toxic.
I miss the old slashdot.
Complicating factors:
*If you can fly higher, you have less air resistance to fight. To fly higher, you have to fly faster.
*There are two ways for airplanes to fly faster....add power, or reduce resistance. We know how to go faster with currently available power, but it doesn't pay due to regulations. So, the design might as well be changed to add cargo capacity, instead, and that is what companies currently do.
*A design that is not pouring energy into making useless noise is possibly going to be more efficient (possibly). You might end up with the additional speed on the same energy output (possibly).
*Flying my airplane which only gets 100kts, it is more efficient for me to slow down and take my time when I have a tailwind. With a headwind, it is more efficient for me to push ahead hard and get though it as quick as possible, because the wind is pushing me backwards more the longer I'm up there.
Like you said, it's complicated. But, technology that can make the current limitations seem arbitrary is not unwelcome.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
I vaguely recall from college that fuel economy starts dropping off at a rate proportional to the square of the velocity.
Driving 100 miles doing 60 MPH does NOT use 4 times as much fuel as driving 100 miles at 30 MPH.
DoD spends 2 _Billion_ per day. So 250 _Million_ is, like, 2 hours of their budget.
I'm not going to check the numbers; I'm just going to nitpick the math. 250M is 1/8 of 2B. 1/8 of a day is 3 hours, not 2.
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
Until then this looks like pork, I'm no areospacetian but it seems to me if it where possible to design an aircraft body capable of very low noise transition to supersonic it would have been designed already the problem does not seem that tricky, so I have to assume that the necessary shape means it is a)impossible to control b) can carry no payload of significance or c) this is all an excuse for a payoff.
Significantly cutting travel time anywhere in the continental U.S. means it's possible (though expensive) to get something off a loading dock in Boston at 7AM, and get it to a loading dock in L.A. by 4PM, while there's still someone there to unload it.
Minor grouse: This is quite easily done because 7AM ET is 4AM PT. So if you want it there by 4PM PT, while there's still someone there to unload it, you have 12 hours to get it there.
OTOH, if you have it in LA an 7AM and want to get it to Boston by 4PM, that gets tricky without supersonic travel.
I'm not a physicist, but it's factual that an object moving twice as fast has 4 times the energy, and it takes that energy to get it up to speed.
The missing factor is that that energy doesn't disappear unless you hit the brakes or another object. Otherwise it just pushes more air out of the way. The energy losses are from friction with the road and air, which increase at speed but are not squared.
Sonic does not mean sound. Sound means sound. Sonic means relating to sound. In the case of sonic speed, it denotes the speed of sound in a given medium. In that context, subsonic, sonic, supersonic, transonic, and hypersonic should all technically be followed by the word "speed" but everyone just drops it because we all know what we are referring to.
Lockheed?!
Yeah, let's have NASA channel PROK to the usual suspects.
While the real free market is working on the problem.[1][2][3]
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
From the pic in the article it seems like the cockpit windshield is facing up and the pilot can't see forward.
The Russians have won. They have made the world a cesspool of distrust, greed, fear and hate.
We're all so friendly on the internet.
:/ )
I think that's a verse just waiting for a song (by Monty Python or Weird Al
The Russians have won. They have made the world a cesspool of distrust, greed, fear and hate.
There has been discussions about supersonic transports, compelling reason to have them? Back in the days when everyone dreamed of SSTs routinely flying about (along with the flying cars and moon bases) but it never happened. Is there a real need to go faster than Mach 1? What is total time going to airport, checking in, flight time, getting baggage, then traveling from airport to intended location? How much will it reduce from flight time of subsonic transports? Is it really necessary? Is there compelling business reasons? Business travelers are not incognito has they (or should have) internet connection via satellite (and if they have wifi on the airplane). Of course one reason is to reduce a 12 or 18 hour travel time to half of that (man, being in coach on long flights becomes an endurance contest).
Nothing wrong with building an X-plane, intent is to get real world performance data and experience with new aeronautical capabilities (also have real flight hardware to show off instead of artwork). Then let manufacturers decide if they want to build SSTs. Also consider if we don't think of building/selling quiet SSTs, someone else may corner the market. There have been several recent X-planes, all remote controlled, this will be a human rated vehicle and probably have other new stuff for test evaluation.
The old joke about airplanes don't go any faster nowadays even now in 21th century, "640 mph autta be enuf..."
mfwright@batnet.com
I didn't think that friction increased with speed (though I'm basing that on science lessons 20+ years ago). Drag, on the other hand definitely increases to the square of the speed.
Commercial flights? Maybe not.. But I can se big business in flying VIP customers at Mach 1.4. Flying VIP customers around on demand and quickly might be economically viable.
Also, the application to military aircraft might be worth it too.
Maybe. Boeing bet on the 787 because of fuel costs, and that seems to have been the correct decision
It was the right choice for commercial flights where fuel efficiency per passenger mile is king. I'm talking about charter services, where the customers are few, but well able and willing to pay to get there faster. The cross country time savings just *might* make it worth the extra costs given they are willing to pay now for chartered service in private jets. The question is if there are enough customers willing to pay enough to keep the aircraft flying...
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
On the one hand, yes, I totally missed the time zone difference. On the other, I also cut out the hours of processing and handling time to get a shipment from the loading dock to the airport, and vice versa at the other end. I suppose that's what I get for going through the process in my head, so here it is written down:
Roughly estimating, the shipment is in a truck or "processing" from 7AM-9AM. From 9-10 AM it's being handled at the airport and loaded on the plane.It's in flight from 10AM to 5PM ET, landing at 2PM PT. It'll be out of the plane by 3PM, and out of the airport by 4PM. Then it's in a truck again, and arrives on the loading dock by 6PM, just in time to be useless overnight.
It seems cutting down two hours would be enough to support coast-to-coast same-day B2B shipping in major areas, at least going east to west.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
This is interesting. Basically, L-Mart was given a cost+ contract to do exactly what BOOM is doing.
This is where NASA should do it themselves or hold an open competition for multiple companies.
...to build the not-quite supersonic airplane.
What is the sound of a person missing the joke for $500, Alex?
Concorde was essentially a prototype and an improved version of the design with a new wing drastically reduced angle of attack and speed while landing and taking off.
Concorde V1.5 also used far less expensive alloy, had multiple times the fuel load and didn't need afterburners.
All that with the technology of the day. We can surely at least match that by now.
er you know the Airbus equivalent of the 787 is the A.350, not as I suspect you mean the A.380
Really, what's the military application for a supersonic plane that has a minimal sonic boom? By the time you notice the boom, there will have been other ways to notice the aircraft. Stealth goes only so far. The military isn't going to worry about supersonic fighters over cities when they're at war.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Nah, it is becouse all the german paperclip engineers are died off ...