Potential Return of Supersonic Commercial Flights
The potential for a return of supersonic transport jets has been a recent news topic. I wanted to throw out my historical two cents.
Supersonic flight produces a shockwave that, if it reaches the ground, results in a sonic boom. As a kid growing up in small-town Iowa, sonic booms were pretty regular. I thought they were very cool.
Those 1960s booms came from B-58 Hustler bombers flying high-altitude training missions. The Strategic Air Command flew the B-58s for just the 1960s decade.
In the 1970s, the federal government banned civilian supersonic flight over land.
When I flew F-16s, we could fly supersonic anywhere as long as it happened above 30,000 ft. Obviously, in restricted airspace supersonic fight was OK at any altitude. The F-16 generated a very small supersonic shockwave; from above 30,000 feet, the shockwave would not reach the ground, thus no sonic boom.
The renewal of interest in supersonic transport comes from NASA’s research to develop supersonic aircraft that produce less disruptive sonic booms. The goal is to turn the sonic disruptions that make it to the ground into “thumps” instead of “booms.”
Modern aerodynamics should allow NASA, and eventually commercial aircraft developers, to meet that goal. As you can see from the pictures, the B-58 used the pure brute force of four after-burning turbojet engines to push through the sound barrier. Lots of required energy to go supersonic results in a large shock wave.
The F-16 is small and very aerodynamic. A clean F-16 could often go supersonic without even using the afterburner. The much better aerodynamics of the F-16 results in a significantly reduced supersonic shockwave that dissipates before it reaches the ground.
Supersonic airliners will obviously need to be much larger than an F-16 and will produce bigger shockwaves. It will be interesting to see if commercial supersonic flight can again become a reality.
Thank you for reading my post! Please help me grow my audience by sharing Land, Fly or Die.
Good explanation, I was just wondering about that yesterday. When we lived in the UK, the morning Concorde from LHR came right over us in Windsor. Obviously not supersonic, at that point, but a great sight to see. We flew it once back to London from Tennerife. The crews loved those aircraft. They would tell us that there was no one else in that altitute who wasn't in a flight suit. It was an unforgettable experience!
Hi Doug. I wouldn't know. I left Patrick at the end of 1983. My buddy Bob Hesselbein (Beaner) would have still been there and he might have.