NASA moves a step closer to supersonic passenger flights | CNN
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A new study by NASA’s Glenn Research Center has looked at the possibility of supersonic passenger jets. Its “high-speed strategy” is mooting commercial flights that travel at up to Mach 4 – over 3,000 miles per hour – starting with transoceanic routes.

In July, Lockheed Martin completed the build of NASA’s X-59 test aircraft, which is designed to turn sonic booms into mere thumps, in the hope of making overland supersonic flight a possibility. Ground tests and a first test flight are planned for later in the year. NASA aims to have enough data to hand over to US regulators in 2027.

  • Caveman
    3•1 year ago

    From Wikipedia I see that they plan to get it up to 16.8km or 55k feet high. This means that drag will basically not be an issue anymore at the cost of higher take off fuel.

    Very interesting to see how this pans out since it would create direct flights between Sydney and New York.

    My question now is about whether the the elimination of drag will save more fuel than getting the plane this high up into the sky.