The POT has achieved an important milestone in its program questwhat are you looking for enable commercial supersonic flight over land. This type of flight is not allowed in most airspaces due to the inconvenience, possible health effects and material damage associated with the sonic boom that occurs when overcoming the sound barrier, but Quesst, acronym in English for Supersonic Silent Technologyaims to reduce it significantly with the experimental plane X-59. NASA has announced that the X-59 It surpassed the sound barrier for the first time last Fridaymore than six months after taking off for the first time.
The flight began and ended at the air base of Edwardsin California. The X-59, with the NASA test pilot Jim ‘Clue’ Less at the controls, took off at 11:08 local California time and landed 81 minutes later.
Less took the plane to a maximum altitude of 13,228 meters and a top speed of 1,147 km/h. That is approximately equivalent to Mach 1.1that is, 1.1 times the speed of sound, as explained by NASA officials in a statement. The speed of sound varies with temperature, since sound waves travel faster in warm air. At sea level, where the air is relatively warm, Mach 1 is equivalent to about 1,225 km/h.
Michael Kratsiosadvisor to the president for science and technology and director of the Office of Scientific and Technological Policy of the United States, has stated in the space agency’s statement that ‘the first supersonic flight of the X-59 is proof of America’s enduring leadership in aerospace science, engineering and innovation’.
However, the X-59 team is not going to rest on its laurels. In the coming days, it plans to make its first flight in ‘mission conditions’in which it will reach a maximum speed of Mach 1.4 and an altitude of about 16,764 meters.
‘This speed and altitude are the base conditions for the X-59 when it later flies over several communities in the United States, which will allow NASA to collect data on how people perceive its soft sonic punch‘, notes NASA.
‘NASA will share this data with regulators in the United States and other countries to help establish new data-driven noise standards,’ with the aim of enabling a viable market for supersonic commercial flights over land in the future‘, they add.
Supersonic flight over land was banned by the Federal Aviation Administration American in 1973 to protect people and property from strong sonic booms. There have only been two supersonic aircraft that made commercial flights.
He Tupolev Tu-144 Soviet, between Moscow and Almatyin Kazakhstanoffered the service very briefly, between November 1, 1977 and June 1, 1978. The best known, the concorde Anglo-French, was active much longer, between 1976 and 2003. According to the airline that operated it, British Airways either Air Francestarted from London either Paris to destinations like New York, Barbados either Rio de Janeiroamong others. supersonic speed, Mach 2 In his case, it reached it over the Atlantic, but it descended at subsonic speed over continental terrain.
The sonic boom produced by breaking the sound barrier does not have a single figure, since it depends on the aircraft, altitude, speed, maneuver and atmospheric conditions. Furthermore, it does not occur only at the moment of passing Mach 1, but, while the plane flies at that speed, It generates shock waves that can reach the ground as a continuous ‘boom’.
It is also not usually measured in decibels, but in PLdBa scale of perceived loudness. In the case of Concorde, some 105 PLdB. The X-59 targets some 75 PLdB and, in the long term, achieve the 70 PLdB. In practice, it would be a brief, dull thud, well below the boom of the Concorde and more like the closing of a car door than a clap of thunder.