Air Force moves forward with study to make next Air Force One supersonic
Startup Exosonic, which has been conducting experiments and studies to design a supersonic passenger aircraft that does not produce the noxious boom. Currently the US and most other countries prohibit non-military supersonic flight over land because the boom created by the airplane’s shockwave is a nuisance at best on the ground and at worst knocks pictures off the walls and rattles the windows.
The headline for the linked article below is “Exosonic developing low-boom supersonic jet possibly to serve as ‘Air Force One’”, but what they’ve received is $1 million. In the world of aerospace research, that’ll barely keep the lights on for a few months.
Exosonic says it is “building a quiet, Mach 1.8, 70-seat supersonic passenger aircraft that can fly supersonically overland and over water with a muted sonic boom.” The company is also developing the aircraft as a supersonic commercial airliner, which it hopes to bring to market in the mid-2030s.
The company says its jet would be able to fly at supersonic speeds without the window-shattering noise of a sonic boom by using technology similar to NASA’s X-59 Quiet Supersonic Research Aircraft. Such technology is supposed to reduce sonic booms heard on the ground to a dampened thump, if the noise is heard at all.
This technology does have the potential to revolutionize air travel in the way the Concorde was supposed to. Combined with more powerful jet engines that allow supercruise (attaining supersonic speed without afterburners, such as the F-22 uses), it could become economically and socially feasible to make the flight from NY to LA in less than three hours.
Source; Flight Global & Military.com
Category: Air Force, Science and Technology
Only 70 seats? A 737 hauls more than that, and almost certainly costs a whole lot less to operate. How do they expect to make that commercially viable?
Its not for us.
It is for rich people and politicians.
Good point. Nancy Pelosi probably already pre-ordered her own (with taxpayer money, of course).
The Concorde carried only 100 passengers in an all-first-class configuration. This is likely to be set up similarly.
(You could argue that the Concorde wasn’t commercially viable. Maybe it would’ve been, if it hadn’t been subjected to the limits that this aircraft is being designed to work around. Specifically, the Concorde was only allowed to go supersonic over water, so it was for all practical purposes restricted to the New York-to-London/Paris routes.)
Its only money?
In the year 2030 some odd? Welp, I know I won’t ever see it. Not in this “plane” of existence anyway. Maybe it won’t poke a hole in the fluffy cloud Imma taking my afternoon nap on.
Wonder how the Greenies with their new deal are gonna react? Who’s gonna build the battery big enough to make the damn thing fly that fast?
Get rid of the sonic boom?? All’s they have to do is get a hold of the peeps at area 51 and ask them to ask their alien counter parts how to do it.
That million bucks is about 25 man-months of Engineering work.
Back about 2 years ago Boeing got a $3.9Billion to build and deliver 2 new Air Force 1 aircraft.
In the spring they got a contract for $84Million for the tech manuals.
It sounds like the next AF-1 is in the works.
So why are we spending a cool million for this other company to generate paper?
Who’s district/pet constituent is this taxpayer largesse for?
VC-25B? Or are they calling it something else?
I haven’t heard yet.
Confirmed the legacy two aircraft built on 747-200 are VC-25A and the replacements built on 747-8 are VC-25B
I hope Trump is the first President to use it….
If they could lower the boom, it would be a great boom for the traveling industry.