[ad_1]
NASA is scheduled to begin supersonic testing this month for its next generation airliner, dubbed the "son of concord" by aviation fans.
The aircraft, officially known as QueSST (Silent Supersonic Transport X-59), will trigger "quiet" sonic booms when it launches for test flights on November 5th.
The first flight of the X-59, which could one day fly from London to New York in just three hours without triggering a loud buzzing sound, is scheduled for 2021.
The aircraft could become the first supersonic commercial aircraft to carry passengers since the famous Anglo-French Concorde jet was shut down 15 years ago.
In advance, the agency will use a modified fighter jet to check the "acoustic signature" of the engines to be used in the airliner, by sending it in a series of dives.
He recruited 500 people on the ground to then respond to noise surveys generated by the F / A-18 Hornet, to ensure the flight is calm while flying over Texas.
Before the plane takes off, NASA is trying to find out if members of the public are turned off by the noise generated by the X-59 when it breaks through the wall of sound.
The tests scheduled for November will allow an F-18 fighter to perform maneuvers while diving off the coast of Galveston, Texas, an island town close to Houston.
The aircraft will descend rapidly from nearly 15,000 meters (15,000 meters), become briefly supersonic and trigger the sound likely to come from the X-59 aircraft.
The noise, which NASA calls a "thump", should look more like a slamming car door, unlike buoys produced by existing supersonic aircraft.
The agency will measure sounds using ground-based sensors while collecting public feedback through a series of surveys.
Sasha Ellis, NASA spokesperson for the X-59 mission, told Newsweek: "We are focusing solely on the challenges of silent supersonic flights over the earth, reducing sonic sound to a deafening blow. "
Alexandra Loubeau, head of the NASA team for research on community reaction to the Sonic explosion in Langley, said in July: "We will never know exactly what everyone has heard.
"We do not have a noise monitor on their shoulder in their house.
"But we would at least have an estimate of the range of noise levels they actually heard."
The X-59, which NASA is developing with the aeronautical branch of Lockheed Martin, is expected to make its first flight in 2022.
Initially named NASA's low-level flight demonstrator, the agency announced in June that the plane would now call X-59 QueSST.
The US Air Force has made this name change in part to mark the history of the American X plane, which began in 1947 with the world's first supersonic aircraft, the Bell X-1.
"For all those working on this important project, this is great news and we are delighted with this designation," said Jaiwon Shin, associate director of NASA's Aerospace Research Mission Directorate, in a statement released. in June.
The X-59 project aims to eliminate the loud noises that echoed over cities during the Concorde era, while traveling at a speed of 1,100 mph (Mach 1,4 / 1,700 km / h).
Members of the public have often described as "destabilizing" the loud bangs that sounded every time a Concorde crossed the sound barrier, which ultimately limited the aircraft to overflights of the Atlantic when it began carrying passengers in 1976.
The X-59 is designed to stop the shock waves triggered by the movement of air particles when an aircraft crosses the sound barrier, causing the sonic boom revealing supersonic aircraft.
NASA hopes to reduce the sound of the sonic boom to a thud, similar to thunder roaring in the distance or closing a neighbor.
"With the X-59, you will still have several shockwaves because of the aircraft's wings that create lift and volume of the aircraft," said Ed Haering, aerospace engineer of the Nasa at the Armstrong Nasa Aerospace Research Center (California).
"But the shape of the plane is carefully designed so that these shock waves do not combine.
"Instead of getting a loud boom, you will get at least two deaf-and-deaf deaf sounds, if you hear them at all."
NASA's November tests will produce similar shock waves using an F-18 fighter to perform precise maneuvers in the air.
The aircraft, piloted by Nasa researcher Jim Less, will dive from 15,000 m and briefly supersonic before stabilizing at 9,000 m.
The shock waves generated by the maneuver will concentrate directly under the plane in the form of a pair of very strong and concentrated sonic booms.
A few miles from the dive sites, the noise goes off quickly as they spread and weaken.
"The result in this area: a pair of silent sonic booms – really light shots – that people on the ground, including NASA researchers and resident volunteers, could hardly notice, if they hear anything, "writes the agency in a statement.
The QueSST is the latest addition to the X series of aircraft and experimental rockets, used to test and evaluate new technologies and aerodynamic concepts.
Their designation X indicates their search mission status in the US aircraft designation system.
All of this goes back to Chuck Yeager's sound-breaking machine, the X-1, a rocket-propelled motor-powered aircraft designed and built in 1945, which reached a speed of nearly 1,600 km. h in 1948.
NASA's vision for the X-59 was approved in the latest US draft budget released by the Office of Management and Budget in Washington in February.
The space agency received $ 19.9 billion (£ 14.3 billion) for the following year, an additional $ 500 million (£ 360 million) over the previous year.
It is unclear what proportion of this was allocated to the supersonic aircraft project.
The WHSCC will serve as a testbed for technologies likely to end up in commercial aircraft.
NASA hopes that the first flight tests will take place in 2022, with public reaction tests on the last aircraft scheduled for the following year.
Source link
