Aviation Week reports that the Korea Aerospace Industries (KAI) KF-21 test-flight program “has passed another milestone as the aircraft reached Mach 1 for the first time since taking to the skies in July 2022.” This marks the first time a South Korean-built aircraft has broken the sound barrier.
Full Story (Aviation Week)
Tag: Sound Barrier
NASA’s X-59 Plane to Break the Sound Barrier with No Sonic Boom
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)
FAA to Allow Boom Supersonic to Break Sound Barrier
Flying Magazine reports, “For the first time in its history, the FAA has issued a special flight authorization to allow Boom Supersonic to break the sound barrier. The approval will allow the Colorado startup to fly its XB-1 demonstrator aircraft faster than Mach 1 up to 20 times over the next year in the Black Mountain Supersonic Corridor in Mojave, California.”
Full Story (Flying Magazine)