Boom Supersonic's XB-1 test aircraft made a splash with its first supersonic flight two weeks ago but it didn't make a boom and that, after all, was the point. The startup's XB-1 prototype exceeded Mach 1 three times on the Jan.28 flight but those in the flight path wouldn't have been able to tell. "Specialized microphone arrays placed in strategic locations under the flight path confirmed that sonic booms did not reach the ground as XB-1 flew at a top speed of Mach 1.12," company founder Blake Scholl told Fox News.
Sonic boom = the shock wave that travels outward from the aircraft. You hear a “boom”, or two, as the shockwave passes you.
And don’t get me started on “Breaking” the sound barrier.
Yeah, but keep in mind that public ignorance of aviation terms was the inspiration for that scene in “Airplane!” where someone says, “That’s impossible. They’re on instruments.” Just be grateful they aren’t concerned that the “sonic boom” might damage that aircraft. “If it’s so loud down here …”
Could have a future then. The last time I heard a sonic boom (Rafale jet at around 30,000 ft, rushing from one end of France to the other to intercept a Russian in the channel) I nearly jumped out of my skin – it was so loud and sudden. News papers said it was heard over 500 km2. Our roofer said he was on a roof when it happened and he saw tiles jump.
Also used to live in the West Country of the UK, and every night at about 9.00pm would get the double boom from Concorde 80 km away in the middle of the channel. Parents used to let kids stay up till they heard it because it would always wake them.
Yeah if you’ve ever heard one, you never forget. Many years ago I was in Trenton Ontario, there’s an RCAF base there, A USAF demo team was practicing for an upcoming airshow with a pair of F-15s. After practice and on short final one of the F 15 pilots was told to go around. Perhaps out of frustration, he pulled the nose up, went to afterburner and broke Mach 1 going vertical. It blew out windows all over the city. Scared the crap out of me for a minute, but was so cool!
Boom’s web site makes the puzzling claim that there won’t be any more flights of XB-1 despite not reaching even the reduced target of the first Boom airliner concept.
Boom does need to test its Symphony engine somehow, I hope it also is ready for first Overture airliner to need tweaking, not get caught as many aircraft designs have - Boeing 787 for example, first few produced could not be refurbished and sold to airliners. Albeit an unusually badly led project for Boeing compared to B767 and B777.
Good job, Kor. I think by now we pretty much understand what a sonic boom is and widely accept what “breaking the sound barrier” meant. Don’t get me started.
Because, unlike Boom, the X-59 program wants to minimize sonic booms at much faster speeds. Boom is planning to leveraging atmospheric physics to keep the boom from reaching the ground so their speeds will be limited vs the X-59.
NOT true, glider guy. The X-59 mission statement is to investigate how much of a sonic boom overpressure the population the airplane flying over are willing to put up with and nothing more. The plan is to fly the airplane over population centers and then figure out what John Q Public thinks. The X-59 will only be capable of 1.5M vs 1.3M for the Boom machine, I think. Further, the exact amount of the overpressure will be determined by the actual shape of the airplane; each design will be different. THAT is what Boom is doing at Mojave with their scaled down machine. The X-59 has no relevance to the Boom situation OR to expanding the envelope in any way and vice versa.
In the very early 2000’s, I was associated with the SSBD airplane which tested the ability to carefully shape an airplane to somewhat mitigate the overpressure of its sonic boom; that testing was performed at NASA Dryden now Armstrong. That airplane proved it CAN be done. Navy, DARPA, NASA, Northrop Grumman and others paid for that testing; ostensibly, the X-59 isn’t proving a damn thing. It’s years behind schedule and millions of dollars over budget. Time to cancel it … as I already said. The sonic boom testing is complete without the X-59.
Personally, I think there’s a scam going on … something else at Lockheed Martin is being funded by X-59 dollars … I could be wrong. IF I wind up missing … ya’ll will know I hit a nerve with that statement, NASA Armstrong also needs to be put on a budget AND they need to get Program Managers that know what they’re doing. Strong words coming from someone who spent 27 years in the high desert at Edwards AFB.
