Photo: Lockheed Martin
It's been a long time coming, but NASA and its main partner in the X-59 Quiet SuperSonic Technology (QueSST) project, Lockheed Martin, are now closer than ever to really kickstarting a series of tests that will probably forever change our world.
QueSST was first announced in 2016, when the preliminary design started. It is meant to prove once and for all that the current level of technological development allows us to build supersonic civilian airplanes that fly over land without breaking windows and generally making people uncomfortable.
Supersonic flight over land, especially by commercial aircraft, is presently banned by the FAA. It's a rule that dates back to the 1950s, the golden era of the jet engine, when scores of civilians filed complaints about the noise generated by military aircraft.
The rule meant that not even the world's only supersonic civilian plane, the Concorde, was allowed to move faster than the speed of sound over land. Its spiritual successor, currently being researched as the X-59, just might, though.
Key to that is a series of technologies being researched by NASA and Lockheed's Skunk Works and meant to reduce the sound the plane makes when going supersonic.
NASA's scale demonstrator for the task is powered by a General Electric F414-GE-100 afterburning turbofan engine capable of delivering 22,000 pounds of thrust. It's the same engine used in the Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet or the Saab JAS 39E/F Gripen, meaning it is not what will help the X-59 reduce the noise it makes.
The overall design of the plane is responsible for that instead. The aircraft was made in such a way as to separate the air's shocks and expansions instead of allowing the waves of air to slam into one another. And that should reduce the noise level to as little as 60 dB. Compare that with the Concorde's 90 dB, and the progress is obvious.
NASA is scheduled to start testing the QueSST later this year, and the agency seems right on track for that. This week we've learned that in mid-June the demonstrator plane was moved on the flight line, getting ready to begin a series of ground tests.
These are meant to give engineers an idea of how safe the plane is for actual flight, something that's expected to take place at the end of the year.
Once the airworthiness of the X-59 is proven, the space agency will start flying the plane over populated areas, at supersonic speed, in a bid to gather "data on human responses to the sound generated during supersonic flight." The findings will be shared with the U.S. and international regulators in an attempt to convince them to lift the ban, at least for planes that use such advanced technologies.
Supersonic flight over land, especially by commercial aircraft, is presently banned by the FAA. It's a rule that dates back to the 1950s, the golden era of the jet engine, when scores of civilians filed complaints about the noise generated by military aircraft.
The rule meant that not even the world's only supersonic civilian plane, the Concorde, was allowed to move faster than the speed of sound over land. Its spiritual successor, currently being researched as the X-59, just might, though.
Key to that is a series of technologies being researched by NASA and Lockheed's Skunk Works and meant to reduce the sound the plane makes when going supersonic.
NASA's scale demonstrator for the task is powered by a General Electric F414-GE-100 afterburning turbofan engine capable of delivering 22,000 pounds of thrust. It's the same engine used in the Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet or the Saab JAS 39E/F Gripen, meaning it is not what will help the X-59 reduce the noise it makes.
The overall design of the plane is responsible for that instead. The aircraft was made in such a way as to separate the air's shocks and expansions instead of allowing the waves of air to slam into one another. And that should reduce the noise level to as little as 60 dB. Compare that with the Concorde's 90 dB, and the progress is obvious.
NASA is scheduled to start testing the QueSST later this year, and the agency seems right on track for that. This week we've learned that in mid-June the demonstrator plane was moved on the flight line, getting ready to begin a series of ground tests.
These are meant to give engineers an idea of how safe the plane is for actual flight, something that's expected to take place at the end of the year.
Once the airworthiness of the X-59 is proven, the space agency will start flying the plane over populated areas, at supersonic speed, in a bid to gather "data on human responses to the sound generated during supersonic flight." The findings will be shared with the U.S. and international regulators in an attempt to convince them to lift the ban, at least for planes that use such advanced technologies.
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