New Experimental Lockheed Supersonic Jet Starts Production (wtop.com)

Lockheed Martin's X-59 Quiet Supersonic Technology aircraft is officially in "the manufacturing phase," bringing the company "one step closer to enabling supersonic travel for passengers around the world." The experimental jet was awarded a contract from NASA earlier this year as it is capable of flying at supersonic speeds without creating loud supersonic booms. Currently, commercial supersonic aircraft are banned from flying over land because of the noise and potential damage the booms may cause. WTOP reports: "The long, slender design of the aircraft is the key to achieving a low sonic boom," said Peter Iosifidis, Low Boom Flight Demonstrator program manager at Lockheed Martin. "As we enter into the manufacturing phase, the aircraft structure begins to take shape, bringing us one step closer to enabling supersonic travel for passengers around the world," he said.

Lockheed expects to conduct its first flight in 2021 and gather community response data on the acceptability of the "quiet sonic boom" the plane creates. NASA will use that information to establish an acceptable commercial supersonic noise standard to overturn current regulations banning supersonic travel over land. The X-59 will cruise at a speed of about 940 mph and an altitude of 55,000 feet. Lockheed says it will create a sound about as loud as a car door closing, instead of a deafening sonic boom.

Comments

Re:NASA

[Nutria]

Furthering the bounds or aeronautics research is what the National Aeronautics and Space Administration does, and has been doing since it was the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, back in 1915.

Or didn't you ever wonder what the "A" in NASA stands for?

Re:Still noisy

[Anonymous Coward]

Sonic booms don't happen anywhere near the runway, so why would that matter? You don't think they approach at supersonic speed, do you? This would be to enable cross-country flights at supersonic speeds. And if indeed the noise is like "a car door closing" then calling it a noise event is a bit exaggerated. Maybe somewhere over North Dakota it would add a tiny bit of noise, but not really more than the call of a horny elk would...

In principle

[jd]

A waverider should generate little sonic boom because of where the shockwave is placed. We also know how to build them and they should be capable of passenger loads comparable to - or better than - the high-end Airbusses.

I assume they're not the design used because they're a bugger to make stable and NASA had some accidents, but that would seem a better way to go.

Re:High emissions

[serviscope_minor]

The Concorde burnt 2 tonnes of fuel just taxiing the runways.

That's not really an indictment of the Concorde's overall efficiency though. It was always a huge fuel hog (by design) on the runway, much more so than in the air. It was always designed as an efficient aircraft.

16L/100km per passenger in the air, or half the efficiency of the average car. I'm sure there will be relative improvements. But supersonic jets are a luxury

The concorde was designed successfully as a high efficiecy aircraft. What everyone forgets is that it was on the drawing board at the same time as the boeing 747.

At that time the path to high efficiency wasn't clear. There are two ways of upping the efficiency of the engines, higher pressure ratios and higher bypass. The concorde went the former route and has a pressure ratio still unmatched by any other commercial jet engines, but it had to fly at Mach 2.2 at high altitude to do that.

The 747 went for high bypass engines with rather worse efficiency in the core but much greater overall efficiency. Not needing to fly high and fast, they had much more flexibility on the airframe and could put a lot more people on, getting further gains.

Turns out the 747 strategy was the clear winner, but that was not obvious before.