NASA's experimental supersonic jet edges toward first flight | Digital Trends
NASA's experimental supersonic jet edges toward first flight | Digital Trends
After six years of development, NASA is hoping to launch the first test flight of its quieter supersonic aircraft this year.
The ground noise is expected to be around 60 dB(A), about 1/1000 as loud as current supersonic aircraft. This is achieved by using a long, narrow airframe and canards to keep the shock waves from coalescing.[4] It should create a 75 Perceived Level decibel (PLdB) thump on ground, as loud as closing a car door, compared with 105-110 PLdB for the Concorde.[5] Wikipedia
Cool. A car door closing is far more acceptable than thinking you're being bombed. But yeah, the nose on it is really long. Considering that this experimental craft can only carry a pilot, any kind of passenger craft using the same technique would have to be absolutely enormous.
I don't know. It's long and skinny so I image if it was scaled up you could fit one or two columns of seats in there no problem.
Mandatory reminder that burning 10x the fuel to cut a few hours off a flight is insane in our present climate predicament.