NASA Hires Lockheed Martin To Build Quiet Supersonic X-Plane (space.com) 98
New submitter john of sparta shares a report from Space.com: NASA has taken a huge leap forward in its quest to create an aircraft that can travel faster than the speed of sound without causing the ear-splitting sonic boom. The space agency announced today (April 2) that it has awarded the aerospace company Lockheed Martin a $247.5 million contract to design and build a new X-plane, known as the Low-Boom Flight Demonstrator (LBFD), which may soar silently over the U.S. by 2022. Lockheed Martin's LBFD won't be built for transporting people. Before any supersonic planes will be allowed to fly over land, NASA and Lockheed Martin must prove that it's possible to break the sound barrier without the sonic boom.
Jaiwon Shin, associate administrator of NASA's Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate, said that the LBFD will fly over select U.S. cities starting in mid-2022 and NASA will "ask the people living and working in those communities to tell us what they heard, if anything." The LBFD aircraft will be 94 feet (29 meters) long, or about the size of a small business jet. It will fly at a cruising altitude of about 55,000 feet (17,000 meters) and reach a speed of 1.4 times the speed of sound (about 1,000 mph, or 1,600 km/h). This will "create a sound about as loud as a car door closing," NASA officials said in the news conference.
Jaiwon Shin, associate administrator of NASA's Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate, said that the LBFD will fly over select U.S. cities starting in mid-2022 and NASA will "ask the people living and working in those communities to tell us what they heard, if anything." The LBFD aircraft will be 94 feet (29 meters) long, or about the size of a small business jet. It will fly at a cruising altitude of about 55,000 feet (17,000 meters) and reach a speed of 1.4 times the speed of sound (about 1,000 mph, or 1,600 km/h). This will "create a sound about as loud as a car door closing," NASA officials said in the news conference.
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Re: But... WHY?? (Score:5, Informative)
It's just a prototype to see if they can reduce the sonic boom. No point in designing an aircraft that carries people (particularly given its cruising altitude of 17 000 metres) and then having the test fail.
Also, FTA:
NASA will then send the "scientifically collected human response" data to the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) "so they can use the data to change the current rule that completely bans civil supersonic flights over land," Shin said.
"When the rule is changed, the door will open to an aviation industry ready to enter [a] new supersonic market in our country and around the world," Shin said. "This X-plane is a critical step closer to that exciting future."
Re: But... WHY?? (Score:4, Interesting)
Japan's space agency JAXA has been working on similar tech in the last decade too.
Reducing the sonic boom is just one idea for bringing back supersonic transport aircraft. Others include designing one that operates better at lower speeds, so that it can get out over the ocean before going supersonic without wasting too much time and fuel.
PORK for the PORK god! (Score:2)
Yeah, let's have NASA channel PROK to the usual suspects.
While the real free market is working on the problem.[1 [boomsupersonic.com]][2 [spikeaerospace.com]][3 [aerionsupersonic.com]]
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Really, what's the military application for a supersonic plane that has a minimal sonic boom? By the time you notice the boom, there will have been other ways to notice the aircraft. Stealth goes only so far. The military isn't going to worry about supersonic fighters over cities when they're at war.
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We're all so friendly on the internet.
:/ )
I think that's a verse just waiting for a song (by Monty Python or Weird Al
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Flying coast to coast in under six hours you fucknut. Thatâ(TM)s easily worth a one time investment of $250M or even $500M.
Currently it takes 6 hours minimum to fly from New York to Los Angeles at mach 0.8. If this plane can get business travelers there in 3 theyâ(TM)ll be lining up to pay double or more.
If demand was actually that high, It would be easier and cheaper to get the FAA to change the rules allowing existing designs to create a sonic boom over land while traveling over a certain altitude, and simply bring a new Concorde back (which travels at over 1,300MPH). Breaking the sound barrier should not be viewed as some kind of social impossibility given the amount of sonic booms people have endured for decades living near an Air Force base or a Space Shuttle landing site. A fighter jet squadron is n
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And humans have to sleep
Yes, supersonic flights would turn the "Mile High Club" into a "Quickie Club".
UNESCO would be appalled at the loss of this "World Heritage" of the "Mile High Club".
Re: But... WHY?? (Score:5, Interesting)
As someone who routinely flew across half the continent... no.
get the FAA to change the rules allowing existing designs to create a sonic boom over land while traveling over a certain altitude
It's not just an FAA problem. The booms are still problematic, even at altitude. They require a lot of planning, as they will disrupt other aircraft in flight. They're also still a nuisance at the ground, even if they aren't loud enough to shatter windows or cause damage.
simply bring a new Concorde back
Ah, yes... let's bring back a doomed aircraft and hope it magically works better this time.
The Concorde was a brilliant piece of engineering, but ultimately impractical. Its design, optimized for supersonic flight, meant it wasn't very stable at the lower landing speed, and had to pitch much higher during landing to maintain stability. That's why the nose tips down: so the pilots can see where they're going while the plane is still pointed up. Add to that the inefficiencies and difficulty in accommodating the unique needs of the plane, and it's no surprise it was mothballed.
given the amount of sonic booms people have endured for decades living near an Air Force base or a Space Shuttle landing site. A fighter jet squadron is not quiet by any means.
...both of which pale in comparison to the frequency of booms from possible commercial traffic.
As it happens, I've spent a good amount of time near fighter jets. They certainly aren't quiet, being up in the hundred-decibel range from a reasonable distance, but they typically don't produce sonic booms while anywhere near the ground. Even then, the bases where they perform such maneuvers are usually in sparsely populated areas, where the majority of people exposed to the noise are the military personnel, who quite frankly aren't given the ability to complain.
Similarly, the western Space Shuttle landing sites were also in sparsely-populated areas. While the eastern landing site at Kennedy Space Center is certainly more populated than Edwards AFB, it's still far less dense (especially where the booms were loudest) than most of what you'll find in the path of commercial air travel.
The reality is tickets will likely cost 10 - 20x more
At first, this is probably true. Yet, first-class seats are still filled routinely, and I know of at least one company that would love any ability to move people and equipment across the country, and have them arrive in time to be installed the same day.
and attract about as many people as those who fly privately, which is not that large a market.
The funny thing is that usually markets will appear. Significantly cutting travel time anywhere in the continental U.S. means it's possible (though expensive) to get something off a loading dock in Boston at 7AM, and get it to a loading dock in L.A. by 4PM, while there's still someone there to unload it. Currently, that impossibility means there's no chance of the shipment arriving while the dock is staffed, so it waits until the next morning. That means a one-day effort is now two days, and if that stretches over a weekend, it becomes four days to do a ten-minute installation on a part*.
And humans have to sleep, so flying coast to coast is quite socially acceptable when done overnight without causing a considerable loss to precious business time.
Humans also have to sleep fairly comfortably, or they suffer consequences like not being able to walk the next day. There are also a lot of folks who understand that "business time", "sleep time", and "personal time" are all separate things that should not be mixed freely. There are also companies who will only pay for time spent traveling during normal business hours, so flying overnight is an inconvenience to the employee with absolutely no compensation*.
* These stories are unfortunately true, from a previous job where I did installation and troubleshooting of very expensive equipment, usually located on the other side of the country from our office.
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Significantly cutting travel time anywhere in the continental U.S. means it's possible (though expensive) to get something off a loading dock in Boston at 7AM, and get it to a loading dock in L.A. by 4PM, while there's still someone there to unload it.
Minor grouse: This is quite easily done because 7AM ET is 4AM PT. So if you want it there by 4PM PT, while there's still someone there to unload it, you have 12 hours to get it there.
OTOH, if you have it in LA an 7AM and want to get it to Boston by 4PM, that gets tricky without supersonic travel.
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On the one hand, yes, I totally missed the time zone difference. On the other, I also cut out the hours of processing and handling time to get a shipment from the loading dock to the airport, and vice versa at the other end. I suppose that's what I get for going through the process in my head, so here it is written down:
Roughly estimating, the shipment is in a truck or "processing" from 7AM-9AM. From 9-10 AM it's being handled at the airport and loaded on the plane.It's in flight from 10AM to 5PM ET, landin
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Commercial flights? Maybe not.. But I can se big business in flying VIP customers at Mach 1.4. Flying VIP customers around on demand and quickly might be economically viable.
Also, the application to military aircraft might be worth it too.
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Complicating factors:
*If you can fly higher, you have less air resistance to fight. To fly higher, you have to fly faster.
*There are two ways for airplanes to fly faster....add power, or reduce resistance. We know how to go faster with currently available power, but it doesn't pay due to regulations. So, the design might as well be changed to add cargo capacity, instead, and that is what companies currently do.
*A design that is not pouring energy into making useless noise is possibly going to be more eff
Re: But... WHY?? (Score:2)
I didn't think that friction increased with speed (though I'm basing that on science lessons 20+ years ago). Drag, on the other hand definitely increases to the square of the speed.
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Commercial flights? Maybe not.. But I can se big business in flying VIP customers at Mach 1.4. Flying VIP customers around on demand and quickly might be economically viable.
Also, the application to military aircraft might be worth it too.
Maybe. Boeing bet on the 787 because of fuel costs, and that seems to have been the correct decision
It was the right choice for commercial flights where fuel efficiency per passenger mile is king. I'm talking about charter services, where the customers are few, but well able and willing to pay to get there faster. The cross country time savings just *might* make it worth the extra costs given they are willing to pay now for chartered service in private jets. The question is if there are enough customers willing to pay enough to keep the aircraft flying...
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DoD spends 2 _Billion_ per day. So 250 _Million_ is, like, 2 hours of their budget.
I'm not going to check the numbers; I'm just going to nitpick the math. 250M is 1/8 of 2B. 1/8 of a day is 3 hours, not 2.
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Ever since the Concorde, passenger planes cruising supersonic over populated areas without the damage has been a dream.
Re: Quiet Supersonic?? (Score:2)
Sonic does not mean sound. Sound means sound. Sonic means relating to sound. In the case of sonic speed, it denotes the speed of sound in a given medium. In that context, subsonic, sonic, supersonic, transonic, and hypersonic should all technically be followed by the word "speed" but everyone just drops it because we all know what we are referring to.
Some great work by NASA! (Score:2)
In case you aren't a NASA nerd like all us cool kids, the brilliant minds at NASA got together and solved that nasty sonic "BOOM!" problem. The new sonic "meeEEOOOooow!" has gone over much better with test audiences and frightened many a feline off of keyboards. ;)
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Replying to self: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quiet_Supersonic_Technology [wikipedia.org] says to expect 60dBA, and says it's "1000 times quieter" (-30dB) than current supersonic aircraft.
Earsplitting? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Earsplitting? (Score:4, Interesting)
US Navy has these giant ships that carry aeroplanes anywhere in the world
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Topgun was NOT a movie about the Air Force.
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Crazy as it is, U.S. Navy combined with the US Marine Corps is the second-largest air force in the world. The US Navy has a variety of aircraft:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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Well, the Concorde certainly was banned from flying at supersonic speeds over land, even at 45,000 ft or whatever it's operating altitude was., and that was in the 70's/80's when planes were a lot noisier, so while it may not have been earsplitting it must have been pretty annoying.
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From all accounts I've heard, the annoyed party was the FAA and the annoying part was that Boeing didn't build it.
Re: Earsplitting? (Score:2)
It's still pretty loud though. Concorde would accelerate back to supersonic speeds once passed the Irish West coast (heading West). We could hear it from our farm (about 120km away) if conditions were right.
Whole at uni, I also regularly got to hear Concorde taking off from Heathrow when sailing in Staines. It was supremely noisy from a couple of miles away, even after reheat was removed during climbout.
Re:Earsplitting? (Score:4, Insightful)
The rules that prevent supersonic flights over land are probably more stringent than they need to be. The US did a test flying supersonic fighters over Oklahoma city eight times a day for six months. Most of the residents said it was fine, but a minority complained. There was also the side benefit that the law would cripple Concorde.
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The rules that prevent supersonic flights over land are probably more stringent than they need to be.
...
There was also the side benefit that the law would cripple Concorde.
So, the laws were exactly as stringent as Boeing needed them to be. Which is fair enough since they were paying for them.
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Most of the residents said it was fine, but a minority complained.
What happened is that the FAA offered to pay for damages caused by the tests. But when people started turning in bogus claims (mainly from thunderstorm damage), they got pissed and complained to the press and their local politicians.
Anyone who lives in the midwest and can tolerate occasional thunderstorms has nothing to say about sonic booms. Thunder will crack windows.
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I was backpacking in the Adirondack mountains long ago near an army base and was awakened by a sonic boom at 5 am. It sounded like a shotgun going off inside my tent. So I think one's perception of the loudness of a sonic boom depends on how far away it is.
As to why I heard a sonic boom inland in the United States, I guess that the army must have had a special exception for planned exercises over the sparsely-inhabited Adirondack Park. This was during the Cold War when air defense readiness was super import
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A sonic boom near an ARMY base??
That's moderately incredible, what with the Key West Accords forbidding the Army from having fixed wing aircraft, much less supersonic aircraft.
You sure you weren't just near an artillery range and hearing HE rounds exploding?
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I imagine it depends on how close you are to the boom. The military has rules for overland supersonic flights to minimize nuisance. This restricts supersonic flight to certain corridors at certain minimum altitudes.
The Concorde flew at 55,000 to 60,000 feet, and still wasn't allowed to fly supersonic over land. At that height it wouldn't be splitting any eardrums on the ground, but it still could be heard and still would be considered a nuisance. That's one of the reasons Concorde wasn't economical; i
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Back when I was a kid, jets would fly in and out of the local Naval air station and occasionally go supersonic after takeoff.
"Occasionally" is different from "continually." I used to live near a Naval Air Station as well and I would get rocked out of bed by some jet jockey at 3AM. But this might happen maybe 3 times a year. Imagine those "window rattling" sonic booms coming by every five minutes or so, versus "occasionally," and you start to see the concern.
NIMBY (Score:3)
That's still 50 dB higher than the level that will be tolerated in most NIMBY neigborhoods
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NIMBY neigborhoods
The same neighborhoods that have speed bumps installed. Which garbage trucks hit going full tilt at 6:00 AM.
Money well spent (Score:1)
I guess this is what Lockheed Martin really needed, we can all agree with that. The private sector couldn't have come up with an excuse to build another supersonic airliner after Concode, but NASA thinks it knows better and will spend 200+ millions of taxpayer money on this BS program. Lockheed Martin's executives and lobbyists are pouring some expensive Champagne right now.
What about the intended BOOM? (Score:2)
There is a precedent (Score:2)
X-Plane? (Score:1)
Play X-Men Theme.......
Is cockpit windscreen not facing forward? (Score:2)
Need for supersonic? (Score:2)
There has been discussions about supersonic transports, compelling reason to have them? Back in the days when everyone dreamed of SSTs routinely flying about (along with the flying cars and moon bases) but it never happened. Is there a real need to go faster than Mach 1? What is total time going to airport, checking in, flight time, getting baggage, then traveling from airport to intended location? How much will it reduce from flight time of subsonic transports? Is it really necessary? Is there compelling b
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Sometimes there is "fast enough". Warship top speeds peaked around WWII, although there's been a lot of attention paid to sustained speeds and speed in adverse weather conditions.
NASA is also hiring Boeing (Score:2)
...to build the not-quite supersonic airplane.