By Richard Tew/NASA Correspondent for The Post Newspaper
Some 60-years-ago, a joint venture between British and the French aerospace companies led to the development of the first commercial jet to “high supersonic,” the Concorde.
As futuristic and promising as it was, the Concorde was plagued with one serious engineering hurdle: “sonic booms.” Concorde and its high speed and quick travel time it offered were quickly shuttered as a result of restricted routes over many country’s land mass.
A NASA project called “QUEST” hopes to revisit this promising technology and study ways to mitigate the problematic noise associated with it.
Actor Tom Cruises’ 2022 blockbuster “Top Gun Maverick ” brought to life (cinematically anyway) the “Dark Star,” a futuristic model of a Hyper-sonic aircraft created by Lockheed-Martin’s secret “Skunkworks” program. In the movie, the fictional jet hit Mach 10.4 (7,979mph) before disintegrating. Tom managed to eject and survive the fictitious record-smashing speed record.
Dark Star looks like a smaller version of the very real SR-71 Blackbird without the highly-viable external engines the Blackbird was famous for. The Lockheed Martin-built SR-71 captivated the world through its design, performance and secret missions.
According to Wikipedia, the Blackbird is the fastest crewed aircraft with an “air-breathing jet engine.” It hit a record speed of 2,190 mph in 1976. That’s Mach 3.913! Online reports say the Blackbird was retired three times: 1989, 1998 and finally in 1999 by NASA who was using it as a research platform.
Modern commercial airlines fly between 500-600 mph and at cruising altitudes of approximately 35,000 ft. Noise at that altitude is imperceptible. Only a jet’s occasional contrails give away their presence. Jets like Concorde offered speeds which made long distance travel at break-neck speeds possible.
Concorde regularly traverses the Atlantic Ocean carrying some 100 passengers from London to New York in a scant 2 hours and 53 seconds. It takes modern commercial jetliners approximately 7 hours to complete the same trip.
Expense (about $1,000- to $12,000 per trip) and sonic booms hindered the success of jets like Concord. When the speed of sound is exceeded ( about 700mph), shock waves from the jet pass through the air at such high speeds. Those shock waves radiate back to the ground and can damage hearing and even break windows in some instances. These characteristics caused lawmakers to enact laws restricting the Concord’s commercial routes from flying over land. These route restrictions caused a burden to carriers using Concorde. It would ultimately be retired from service in 2003.
According to a NASA release on the X59 aircraft, this research could help usher in the next generation of supersonic commercially-viable aircraft. It comes with a hefty price tag of around $250 million dollars.
“Using this data, new sound-based rules regarding supersonic flight over land can be written and adopted, which would open the doors to new commercial cargo and passenger markets to provide faster-than-sound air travel.”
Given its time-saving technology, jets like Concorde are appealing for both commercial and military applications. The obstacle is the sonic boom associated with such speeds. As a result, NASA and others are testing aircraft with similar speed capabilities to try to overcome this shortcoming.
Through commercial partner Lockheed Martin, NASA is creating and then testing the “X-59” experimental aircraft. Its sleek design, powered by a single jet engine similar to the one found in the F-18 fighter, will take to the skies for testing within a year. During that time, it will be tested for its safety and performance before being used to test subsonic travel.
NASA says the mission is two fold.
“The QUEST mission has two goals: 1) design and build NASA’s X-59 research aircraft with technology that reduces the loudness of a sonic boom to a gentle thump to people on the ground; and 2) fly the X-59 over several U.S. communities to gather data on human responses to the sound generated during supersonic flight and deliver that data set to U.S. and international regulators.”
So the next time you hear a thump without a cloud in sight, it might just be the X59 high above helping make the next generation of rapid air travel possible.
Cutline: Photo by Lockheed Martin.
When he is not writing about NASA, Richard Tew teaches Irish dance to all ages in both Clear Lake and League City. Learn more at www.tewirishdance.wordpress.com.
