X-59 and NASA
Several prototype planes that aim to bring back commercial supersonic travel have made great strides in recent years – but it remains to be seen how well the return of these flights will be welcomed by customers.
Os commercial supersonic aircraft could be back as early as 2025, for the first time since Concorde was retired in 2003.
Several companies are working on developing these technologies and even NASA is investing millions.
But before they can be used, there is a lot to improve. As , these planes create shock waves when they exceed the speed of sound, which is about 1,224 kilometers per hour. The result of this speed is a sonic boom so loud it can scare humans and other animals and even break windows and set off car alarms.
While flying at 15,000 meters, Concorde created a boom that struck an area 100 kilometers wide. For this reason, many countries prohibit the use of supersonic commercial aircraft.
NASA is developing a prototype plane it calls the X-59 as part of its Quiet Supersonic Technology (Quesst) project.
The plane is being built by Lockheed Martin and the objective is to investigate ways of minimize sonic booms.
NASA plans to fly over major US cities in 2025 at 1,510 kilometers per hour.
Lockheed Martin
NASA’s X-59
Efforts are also being made to design aircraft that can reach almost twice the speed of sound.
The American company Boom Supersonic is focused on a prototype she calls XB-1. It first flew in March 2024 and has been increasing test flights since then. The plan is for it to overcome the sound barrier in the coming months.
O XB-1 DA Boom Supersonic
The XB-1 test flights will serve as the basis for the design of the company’s Overture passenger plane, which it says will be able to carry 80 passengers. The company claims that the first plane will roll off the production line in 2025, but will only carry passengers in 2029.
At the forefront of test flights is also Dawn Aerospacewho launched his ship Aurora in November. The company claims this is the first time a civilian plane has flown at supersonic speeds since Concorde.
What can fail?
In addition to the problem already mentioned sonic boomit is not known whether there will be a market for this type of flights, due to the big glued carbon.
Furthermore, the excess noise would mean that future supersonic planes would have to leave a country’s coast before breaking the sound barrier and would be excluded from routes that only pass over land.
Ben Evansfrom Swansea University in the United Kingdom, tells New Scientist that he remembers hearing as a child the sonic boom of the Concorde as it passed through the Bristol Channel (a coastal inlet in southwest England), after being allowed to speed up. beyond the speed of sound. Despite the efforts made, similar problems will be faced by future supersonic spacecraft-
“I’m not convinced there’s a market for this. People’s biggest concerns will be the sustainability and comfort“, considered Evans.
Evans believes that many of the companies developing supersonic and hypersonic planes ostensibly for commercial transport know that the most likely source of revenue comes from military applicationswhere budgets and carbon footprints are considered less important than total performance.
