America Creates a 770-Mile Corridor for Testing Supersonic Aircraft Up to Mach 3 (ainonline.com) 75
America's Federal Aviation Agency signed an agreement with the state of Kansas's department of transportation to establish a 770-nautical mile Kansas Supersonic Transportation Corridor for testing aircraft up to Mach 3, reports Aviation International News:
The agreement would provide a critical testing site for the emerging group of supersonic aircraft as civil supersonic flight remains banned over land. Flight testing for models such as Aerion's AS2 and Boom's Overture is expected this decade, while NASA noise trials with the Lockheed Martin X-59 demonstrator are anticipated by 2024. "This year marks 73 years since Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier, and with this supersonic flight corridor Kansas will have a unique role in the next generation of supersonic transportation," said Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kansas) in the announcement of the agreement...
The General Aviation Manufacturers Association (GAMA) lauded the establishment of the corridor, saying it will help in the "re-birth" of civil supersonic travel. "The Kansas Supersonic Transportation Corridor will assist in the assessment of sound mitigating structural and engine designs as well as state of the art atmospheric acoustic modeling that eliminates the sonic boom and shapes the noise signature of an aircraft traveling faster than the speed of sound to a very low volume rumble," said GAMA president and CEO Pete Bunce. "The validation of these technological breakthroughs through the use of sophisticated ground acoustic and telemetry sensors will provide the necessary data to assist global regulators and policymakers in modernizing supersonic flight policies."
NASA plans to use the Lockheed Martin X-59 demonstrator to test low-boom noise effects over various populations. "I'm really excited about quiet supersonic technology and its ability to be transformative for flight and our economy," said NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine.
Aerion, meanwhile, plans to test "Boom Cruise" technology that is designed to keep the sonic boom from reaching the ground with plans to begin flight trials in 2025, while Boom is looking at low boom technologies for its commercial airliner Overture.
The General Aviation Manufacturers Association (GAMA) lauded the establishment of the corridor, saying it will help in the "re-birth" of civil supersonic travel. "The Kansas Supersonic Transportation Corridor will assist in the assessment of sound mitigating structural and engine designs as well as state of the art atmospheric acoustic modeling that eliminates the sonic boom and shapes the noise signature of an aircraft traveling faster than the speed of sound to a very low volume rumble," said GAMA president and CEO Pete Bunce. "The validation of these technological breakthroughs through the use of sophisticated ground acoustic and telemetry sensors will provide the necessary data to assist global regulators and policymakers in modernizing supersonic flight policies."
NASA plans to use the Lockheed Martin X-59 demonstrator to test low-boom noise effects over various populations. "I'm really excited about quiet supersonic technology and its ability to be transformative for flight and our economy," said NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine.
Aerion, meanwhile, plans to test "Boom Cruise" technology that is designed to keep the sonic boom from reaching the ground with plans to begin flight trials in 2025, while Boom is looking at low boom technologies for its commercial airliner Overture.
The occasional boom might be tolerable (Score:1)
Imagine the 24 hour rumble from constant traffic
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That's the sound of freedom!
It's a shame that nobody said "Imagine the 24 hour rumble" when they choose light rail track routes. But then those were easily sited in poor neighborhoods. So, no problem.
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Every major metropolitan area has multiple international airports and is does not matter how rich or poor the surrounding neighborhoods are, it is a continual war over the zoning of the flight paths, its rich vs rich, rich vs poor, poor vs rich, and poor vs poor. Its every neighborhood against every other neighborhood and the fight is continuous. Its a war that cannot be won, only temporary superiority can be had.
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And many of those airports were originally located in empty areas, only to have the people build out toward them.
And, when efforts are made to build airports even further removed from population, the population fights them because they're too far away.
That's kind of why Chicago Midway still exists... It's too convenient to too many people, compared to the alternatives.
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The taxi lobby doesn't like that.
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Re: The occasional boom might be tolerable (Score:2)
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That's kind of why Chicago Midway still exists
I would have said LaGuardia. Shit airport but the rich folks won't let it close. It has no subway service. Because rich people don't ride subways.
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But then those were easily sited in poor neighborhoods.
Easier to enjoy the service that way.. You wouldn't want to need a 20 mile bus ride out to the train, would you?
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You wouldn't want to need a 20 mile bus ride
Limo service. We don't allow buses in my neighborhood.
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Width of Kansas = 356 n miles (Score:3)
The width of Kansas is 356 nautical miles.
So how do you fit a 770 nautical mile corridor into that?
Re:Width of Kansas = 356 n miles (Score:5, Informative)
"The 770-nm corridor, designed as a bi-directional racetrack, runs from slightly west and south of Garden City, Kansas to nearly Pittsburg in the east at altitudes above FL390. It runs right over Wichita.".
Graphic: Image: 770-nm corridor map [kansas.gov]
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Can a mach-3 craft make those turns at speed?
Re:Width of Kansas = 356 n miles (Score:4, Informative)
Can a mach-3 craft make those turns at speed?
They are probably just flying the two long straight runs at Mach 3, slowing for the turns, then accelerating for the next straight run.
The turn radius at 1000 m/s (about Mach 3) with a 2 G force, is 51 km (27.5 nautical miles).
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By that criterion, Interstate-80 from NYC to SF is 6000 miles long since it goes in both directions.
Re: Width of Kansas = 356 n miles (Score:1)
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Space-Time curves back on itself. Tardis tech. That's what happens when you breed spherical cows (at least in the simulations).
Re:Width of Kansas = 356 n miles (Score:5, Informative)
And why is nautical miles even a thing?
A nautical mile is one minute of arc (1/60th of a degree) along the earth's equator.
Nautical miles are very useful for converting distances into changes in latitude and longitude.
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Not only that, but they also use knots for speed, which work nicely with nautical miles for when calculations are needed.
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Shhh .. they charged them for 770 miles. You could at least wait for the check the check to clear.
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Please, don't confuse me with facts when we are talking "gee whiz" and politics.
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We can hear the booms, and we're 115 or so miles to the north of the center of the corridor. They rattle our windows. This will be something to look forward to...
(I hadn't heard a sonic boom since the 1960's...)
Poor Witchita (Score:2)
At least Oklahoma City got an airport out of the deal...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
I remember when very young (Score:3)
I remember when I was very young, we lived about 10 miles from a military airport. Once in a while there would be a notice in the local newspaper stating there would be a sonic boom test and the plane would fly over our town.
On those days, the whole neighborhood would be out with their kids to see if we could see the plane. We would definitely hear the booms.
Fun times with the other kids as we competed to see who would see it first.
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When I was young they didn't publish notices in newspapers of when we could hear the sound of freedom. It would just happen. We kids always thought it was cool. Don't remember any adults complaining either. A few years later there were no more booms.
Round two will fail (Score:4, Interesting)
Unless they can make supersonic travel fairs dirt cheap. It wasn’t noise that killed the Concorde; that mostly flew over ocean. But not enough people were willing to pay a premium for faster travel, even on a long flight.
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It wasn't noise that killed the Concorde; that mostly flew over ocean.
It was noise that forced it to fly only over the ocean, crippling its utilization.
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But for that, there might have been a lucrative market from NY to CA
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No, it was being invented outside of the US that forced it to fly over ocean. US fighter jets fly over residential areas all the time.
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OTOH I saw the Concord on approaches to SeaTac back when it was doing some flights to nowhere, it was beautiful, really was. ALSO: Definitely quieter than F-18's in flight.
So I digress, the issue became the Concord was allowed to fly supersonic over the US, that made is usel
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US Fighter jets fly subsonic over populated areas except for 'emergency' interceptions.
Bullshit. USAF's major depot for F-15's is at Robins AFB in GA. The final phase of the functional test flight (FCF) is a supersonic run...flight path is almost directly over Warner Robins; on a good contrail day, it's almost directly over my house.
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How loud a supersonic boom is it?
It's fairly loud; I've heard them while in a secure comm facility on the base. It rattles windows; some folks in the older houses have had their widows crack and even blow out. Also, it seems that on days with lower atmospheric pressure, it will set off car alarms.
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Why do you think they mostly flew over the ocean in the first place?
(Narrator voice: Concorde entered service with a number of overland routes... That were, one by one, shut down due to noise.)
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Why do you think they mostly flew over the ocean in the first place?
There aren't many overland routes between New York and London, or Los Angeles and Sydney.
The big sales pitch, as I seem to recall anyway (having been alive back then), was it would turn those terribly long intercontinental flights into an enjoyably brief trip.
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What killed Concorde was opportunity costs. When Concorde was grounded, the airlines made more profit transporting those passengers subsonically.
The only way to fix that is to achieve some kind of economy of scale -- maybe. The Concorde consumed about the same amount of fuel as an Airbus A380 while seating 1/5 the passengers. Per passenger mile fuel costs were comparable to private business jets.
But it is conceivable that Concorde could have been more profitable if it could offer routes with overland legs
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The Concorde consumed about the same amount of fuel as an Airbus A380 while seating 1/5 the passengers. Per passenger mile fuel costs were comparable to private business jets.
The Concorde was old. It was contemporary with the Boeing 747-100, a plane long gone by the time the Concodre retired. Perhaps if it had some mid life upgrades along the line of the 747 things may have been different.
On the other hand the Concorde experiment ultimately returned a negative result.
It was to the surprise of most people de
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You know when Concorde was announced, there wer 21 airlines interested in it? All the ones you can think of, they were interested.
They only dropped their orders when they realized how much noise was made - but there are plenty of overland routes that m
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Of course, Concorde was for a pre-9/11 world where you could basically go from the street to boarding in 15 minutes.
You could never do that in europe, except in half third world countries like Greece. You always had security, and atm I would claim it is faster than 30 years ago.
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What part of what I wrote did you find difficult to grasp? Concorde debuted with multiple overland routes, but they all shut down due to noise. That markedly limited the routes it could serve.
And you might have notice the complete lack of Los Angeles to Sydney flights... Lack of range limited Concorde to the North Atlantic, or to overwater flights (primarily France to her South American possessions) with convenient
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These guys claim to cut travel time for Australia-US from 15 to 9 hours [boomsupersonic.com]. That is something that could siphon away a good portion of the first class traffic.
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I think that would run into the same issue. It's faster, but not fast enough. If it were 3 hours, or even 5, sure. But 9 is still the whole day and at that point I'd rather sleep in a comfortable first class seat than be stuck in a cramped supersonic jet.
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It wasn’t noise that killed the Concorde; that mostly flew over ocean.
That’s like saying, “I didn’t make that other car crash when I ran it off the road; the tree they ran into is what made them crash”, which is to say, you’ve missed the cause and effect. Noise complaints were exactly what forced Concorde to shut down their profitable overland routes and stick to stuff like their transatlantic flights, which proved to be unsustainable.
Kansas (Score:1)
"The crops are booming this year!"
Do we really need supersonic flights ? (Score:5, Insightful)
The fuel per passenger mile is 3-4 times that for a subsonic aircraft -- do we want the environmental cost (CO2/energy) just so that a few people can get somewhere a bit more quickly ? I know that today's aircraft are more fuel efficient than in the Concorde era - but supersonic will always need more energy.
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Just fly slowly [blogspot.com].
Re: Do we really need supersonic flights ? (Score:1)
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And?
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Do we really need to fly? If you need to go to Europe (for example) you can take a ship. We could revive the ocean liner business. And an added benefit of that could be the adoption of clean energy propulsion options [wikipedia.org] not possible for air travel.
But then try to use the "just don't fly" argument on people trying to board with their emotional support pigs and brace yourself for the outcry.
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Could you be a little more precise about that "need" verb? Do you "need" to shake hands with the people you're stealing from, as well as get their digital authorisations on the bank transfers? Do you need to imitate a lobster on a French beach, instead of a Louisiana beach? Do you need to see the back of the guy in front of you's head between you and the winning line, rather than seeing the game on TV with your buddies at the downtown sports bar?
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For Concorde. Not for those new planes. They claim it actually use less fuel than an A 380 per passenger and mile.
So after a coupl'a seconds... (Score:2)
You're not in Kansas anymore!
Real testing? (Score:1)
With the amount of computing power available today (super computers, distributed, etc.) is this something that really requires real world testing? I understand that there is no substitute for the real thing but consider this - there may be multiple companies using this on a regular basis eventually. The impact to the environment as a whole (humans are not the only ones that will be affected by this) could be more than just an occasional nuisance.
I understand the need I certainly wouldn't want to get on a pl
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"With the amount of computing power available today (super computers, distributed, etc.) is this something that really requires real world testing?"
Yes.
"I understand that there is no substitute for the real thing"
Now you know why is this something that really requires real world testing.
"large corporations being such as they are, will abuse this if it is in any way cheaper than doing so otherwise (air tunnel test, computer simulation, etc.)."
Be relieved. It is not. Large corporations will do all their sim
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Because the other large corporations which buy significant amounts of aircraft will not consider buying an aircraft which has only been flown in a simulator before the Board of Directors fly on the "we've just signed a deal" publicity junket.
640 mph should be enough for all (Score:2)
Cheap transportation is an essential requirement for the domination of Chinese in manufacturing. Governments have started seeing Chinese goods as a national security threat. The pandemic will give them a handy reason to increase the cost of transportation making Chinese products non competitive without running into WTO rules.
Difficult to see a future where sup
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Post pandemic world might put very heavy toll on such fast planes. They might also place restriction on the speed of movement of goods and people.
This started speculative and turned into wildly speculative very fast.
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Hint : the $5 package you got airmailed from Shenzhou is not as important as the 30 tonne shipping container of washing machines that was container #236 of 1267 coming off the ship at the railhead.
Finally, a very good idea (Score:2)
for getting the fuck out of Kansas as quickly as possible
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Not really a problem. If you live in Kansas, you already live with thunderstorms. High altitude sonic booms are minor by comparison.
At first... (Score:2)
Just watch out for... (Score:1)
Yeah, not so fun. (Score:2)
I only experienced sustained sonic booms once.
When I was a kid I lived about 3 miles inland from the ocean. One summer there was a two day period when it was pretty much sonic booms throughout the day. They were extraordinarily loud, like weird thunderclaps going on throughout the sunny day. I never did see any aircraft.
I assumed the military was doing some training of some kind, or maybe some base got some new aircraft and decided to check it all out.
Even though I was a kid, I vividly remember the booms
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They were extraordinarily loud, like weird thunderclaps going on throughout the sunny day.
Probably training. Or some sort of emergency like unknown aircraft violating some airspace and the air force scrambles jets. Was it 9/11/01 by any chance?
We used to get high altitude supersonic flyovers all them time, being under an XB-70 flight path. They sound sort of like a neighbor slamming their front door. No really a big deal, but then there are some people who are triggered by very little things. Crazy old people screaming at every kid that drives by with fart cans.
Creates? (Score:2)
I dont think that word means what you think it means, A signed document and a handshake for the press doesn't create anything
No Sense of Priorities (Score:3)