CNET News reports that NASA’s X-59 plane is attempting to break the sound barrier without the usual accompaniment of a sonic boom. At the Armstrong Flight Research Center, just outside of Lancaster, California, the space agency “is working on the X-59 QueSST (short for Quiet SuperSonic Technology) airplane – a demonstrator aircraft designed to fly faster than the speed of sound generating nothing more than a ‘sonic thump.’” Traditional supersonic aircraft “can create a sonic boom in excess of 100 decibels during flight – a problem that led the US Federal Aviation Administration to ban commercial supersonic flight over land in 1973.” But the X-59 “has been shaped to minimize the shock waves that cause a sonic boom midflight, reducing its sound at ground level to 75 decibels.”
Full Story (CNET News)
Tag: no sonic boom
NASA’s New Supersonic Jet Will Have One Thing Missing: A Sonic Boom
Robb Report reports that NASA’s experimental X-59 jet, powered by GE Aerospace, will work to minimize the loud noise that usually accompanies an aircraft breaking the sound barrier – aiming for a sound that is more akin to the thud of a closing car door than the usual explosive sound.
Full Story (Robb Report)