A major milestone in aviation has been reached as NASA and a global aerospace manufacturer completed the first flight of the X59 quiet supersonic aircraft. This experimental plane is designed to create a gentle thump instead of the loud sonic booms that led to a ban on commercial supersonic travel in the United States in 1973.
The test flight took place on October 28. The aircraft took off from a private aerospace facility in Palmdale California and landed at NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards California. The flight lasted about one hour, reached a speed of roughly 240 miles per hour and climbed to nearly twelve thousand feet. This initial test did not involve supersonic speeds and focused on checking critical systems.
The X59 is built to reach speeds of Mach 1.4 or about nine hundred twenty five miles per hour. It is designed to fly at fifty five thousand feet. The aircraft is one hundred feet long, thirty feet wide and fourteen feet tall, giving it a shape that has earned it the nickname flying swordfish. Its long nose, which looks narrow from a distance but is shaped like a chisel, plays a key role in reshaping the shockwaves that form during supersonic flight.
Traditional supersonic jets produce powerful sonic booms caused by compressed air merging into a single large shockwave. These booms can rattle windows and startle people, which is why supersonic flights are banned over populated areas in the country. The X59 design spreads these shockwaves into several smaller ones, creating softer thumps similar in sound to a car door closing.
Understanding these shockwaves is supported by a technique called schlieren imaging, which uses light distortion caused by changes in air pressure. This helps researchers check whether real flight behavior matches computer models and wind tunnel tests.
The aircraft will attempt supersonic speeds in future flights. NASA plans to study how communities react to the quieter thumps. If results are positive, it could lead to new rules that allow commercial supersonic flights to return to the skies, this time far quieter than before.
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