Thread 64473429

>Key Points and Summary – NASA and Lockheed’s X-59 just flew, proving “quiet supersonic” can replace the sonic boom with a “gentle thump.”

>Designed to cruise at Mach 1.4 and 55,000 feet, the X-59 will gather community noise data to help set new overland rules—opening the door to two-hour DC–LA flights

https://nationalsecurityjournal.org/the-mach-1-4-x-59-could-create-military-nightmares-for-russia-and-china/

For aerospace needs this has long been a project of interest because it means supersonics travel can be viable. Military applications are all kinds of useful though. So who here enjoying the sweet smell of Skunkworks?

>>64473429 (OP)
This has been a really, really cool project to follow. Another article on the flight:
>https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/10/nasa-test-flight-seeks-to-help-bring-commercial-supersonic-travel-back/
The reduced boom supersonic obviously gets most of the attention, but tne other thing of note which I think is pretty important and potentially /k/ down the road: I think this is one of the first serious jets using a true (albeit not full) virtual cockpit in flight. There are actual cameras and screens the pilot uses in place of the traditional windshield. If that gets approved for more general usage it'd add a pretty interesting new set of design freedom, particularly for military aircraft, because having good visibility AND dealing with heat/cold AND having it all be stealthy AND buliding it with everything else in the jet is not trivial.

If instead you can put the cockpit wherever you want on the aircraft and pipe in video (potentially with sensor fusion as well, might as well have FLIR and a ton of other stuff in a very easy for the pilot fashion while you're at it) for a full sphere of super high res 240hz refresh screens it'll be interesting to see what designers might do.

We will steal even supersonic civil transportation from the French... what will LE TROISIEME REPUBLIQUE even have left?

I ask with with absolute 0% irony

tactical advantage?

is it more efficient or something?

>>64473752
Quiet supersonics means you can boom over population centers legally because it won't nuke every window below you. Pretty useful.

>>64473752
>Can use supersonic transposers over land-> more transonic demand -> cheaper deployment and maintenance -> faster global deployment of personnel and materiel
Not bulk, but high value stuff can be shipped around faster.

>>64473767
> useful

militarily?

>>64473752
It's a clickbait article (check the page, I already blacklisted it).
The old SST evolved into the basic tech applied to the ATF program (YF-23, F-22 and the engines, ATFE), both in engines as materials. During the 1990s there's a short revival of the SST after the initial success of the ATF program.

>>64473773
transporters, not transposers

>>64473773
interesting

>>64473752
I don't think there is one, but the strategic advantage is that if supersonic jets are on the civilian market economies of scale will make their components cheaper. Quadcopter drones would cost far more if they weren't produced in huge numbers for civilian purposes.

>>64473429 (OP)
The X-59 is neat, but it's never going to lead anywhere. Flying supersonic is just too expensive to be worth it economically. The shape an SST requires makes them have low passenger counts and very little payload. Add in the fuel costs, which will be astronomical, and it doesn't matter how quiet the boom is, wide bodies will choke it out of the market.

The real aviation payoff would have been in the X-66, but that was killed because burning less fuel is for liberals or something.

>>64473775
Quiet supersonic missiles seem cool

>>64473752
The benefit is maybe if civillian super sonic aviation takes off, the private market will dump a bunch of money into super sonic engines and construction. That R&D can also be used in military aviation.

>>64473767
> Pretty useful.
Not really.

>>64473841
> super sonic aviation takes off
It won’t.
And if it does, it ain’t gonna be Boom.

>>64473775
Potentially.

>>64473906
> And if it does, it ain’t gonna be Boom.
Who else realistically outside of Lockheed?

>>64473429 (OP)
>gentle thump
Hey! Hey you! Yes, you! The faggots behind this idea!
You don't go above the enemy with a thump, you go with a boom, they hear you, and they fear you!
A gentle-fucking-thump can go a long way if your airbase is next to a retirement home or a particularly vicious HOA, but not anywhere else.

>>64473715
>All fun and games until your windscreen decides to bluescreen

>>64473996
Just open the window, bro!

>>64473970
Lockheed isn't even doing anything in the commercial super sonic market. Hell, they aren't doing literally anything at all in the commercial market. They're involved with the X-59 program because they want to research supersonic aerodynamics for their military programs and participation keeps their engineers on the bleeding edge.
>>64473906
>it won't
I know, I made the X-66 post.

>>64473822
JetZero’s blended wing body design has a lot of potential, and they’re getting pretty significant government investment and targeting a demonstrator flight in 2027. I’m a lot more hopeful about what they’re doing than this or what Boom is up to

>>64473983
You don't just bother the local NIMBYs who don't like noise with a sonic boom. They can break windows and cause hearing damage too. There's a reason Concordes went out of their way to fly over desolate regions and the ocean. With this concept the door is opened to supersonic logistics without breaking every window in the country inside a week to do it.

The booms you use to make the enemy fear you come with fire, dust, and shrapnel. They have a habit of killing some of the enemy instead of just causing fear though. A supersonic show of force flight will work with or without a sonic boom.

>>64473715
>you can put the cockpit wherever you want
This is probably the biggest advantage of a COFFIN-like system. I never see anyone talk about it. Imagine having the cockpit right smack in the middle of the center of lift/gravity.

>>64474189
>or what Boom is up to
The only thing Boom is up to is finding legal ways to embezzle the investments they've taken in by venture capitalists.

>jetzero
The blended wing is super interesting. I want to see how they design the pressure hull though. I would also like to see what Boeing and Airbus have been working on. Boeing's BWB program went pretty quiet after the X-48, and Airbus showed off that hydrogen powered render, but I doubt that they're leaving that space empty for Jetzero to own.

>>64474228
>With this concept the door is opened to supersonic logistics
Cargo is the absolute last thing anyone is going to be flying supersonic. As is, air cargo only works by using old as fuck planes from the airline industry. No air cargo outfit in the world is going to shell out for a new supersonic plane just to move packages. That's to say nothing of the fact that fuel costs would make it stupid expensive and annihilate any profits. Even if supersonic flight was silent, it still wouldn't be profitable.

>>64473429 (OP)
>Military applications are all kinds of useful though.
Such as? By the time a military jet is within sonic boom range, it will have been detected miles before that across multiple spectrums. Audio signatures of aircraft is literally the lowest priority besides MPAs, but they are subsonic anyways. You are better spending that effort get fractions of fractions of fractions lower RCS than any benefit provided by QSS construction.

>>64474262
Think of the giant fucking radar antenna you could mount in the front of the plane if you didn't have to give the pilot a good view up front.

>>64473996
why cant it be fiber optic? A fully analog (?) "camera" system. There is a reason this isnt done and im too dumb to know what it is.

>>64474302
USAF isn't trying to move cargo at the narrowest profit margins possible, and if supersonic passenger planes become somewhat common, it means they can take advantage of economy of scale to buy planes at a much lower price point that makes them much more viable. Imagine being the loadmaster who gets to kick out a pallet of Rapid Dragon cruise missiles at mach 1.2

>>64474302
What on earth possessed you to think I meant civilian commercial logistics on /k/?

>>64474312
On top of that the ENTIRE COCKPIT is now a HUD, you can have all direction EOTS, and so much more.

>>64474327
>USAF isn't trying to move cargo at the narrowest profit margins possible
Yes the fuck they are lmao. The entire US military is incredibly reliant on AMC. Running that logistics train efficiently is an intense area of focus in the USAF and DoD.
>thinking anyone is going to even thing about opening the cargo bay at mach 1.2
>thinking that anyone is going to waste cargo plane trips instead of just sending a B-52 in a missile truck configuration
The shape that SSTs are required to have by aerodynamics means that they're going to be shitty at hauling cargo. Every USAF cargo program has been looking at more cargo for less money. The few hours difference of being able to move a few infantry companies isn't worth it when you compare the price of moving a few battalions a few hours slower at much lower cost. Yeah, they'd probably buy a few for VIP and rapid reaction teams, but SSTs aren't replacing C-17s in our lifetimes.
>>64474302
Airbus's demonstrator is the Maveric.
>>64474321
Are you talking about just straight up using fiber optics as light pipes? Something like this: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/sUOQI5webbI? That would be retarded. You'd need a single fiber for each "pixel" on the screen. That would take up so much weight and space that it wouldn't make any sense.

>>64474352
apologies for the reddit post, but this is what made me think of it. Reevu I think the company was/is called.
https://www.reddit.com/r/motorcycles/comments/b78lzw/a_helmet_with_hud_that_allows_you_to_see_whats/

>>64474327
The fact that they don’t have a supersonic transport for anything other than bombs and missiles shows that either A) they ARE concerned with efficiency, or B) they aren’t concerned with efficiency but have decided that there’s no point in having something that can move troops or cargo supersonic.

HINT: it’s both.

>>64474302
The big problems with blended wing bodies (and the reason why airliners are universally tube-and-wing are 1) existing airport infrastructure is based around the assumption of designs similar to what already exist, 2) a blended wing design would be extremely hard if not impossible to meet emergency exit requirements, and 3) engines above the wings are a pain in the dick maintenance-wise.

>>64474321
>>64474352
It exists. Like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcJDNHDKouU

>>64474352
>replacing
Everyone on /k/ needs to immediately remove this fucking word from their vocabulary when talking about speculative stuff. No fucking shit it's not going to replace traditional cargo planes anytime soon. However operating alongside them is something you should expect. Every damn time some new bit of tech comes up retards immediately screech about replacement.

>>64474398
It's the sonic booms jackass. That is legitimately the problem. Again, you can't have supersonic logistics if you have to break every window in the country to use it. Logistics aircraft fly over FRIENDLY territory. They mostly fly over your home country and your allies. NOBODY is going to be cool with the constant cracks, bangs, and booms. They'd be inescapable and people already lose their minds over regular military air traffic. If you can use it without the booms it goes from fantastically worthless to being an actually viable concept. Even if you start relatively low capacity and questionable fuel efficiency faster logistics support and personnel transportation is a big deal.

>>64474327
>>64474398
If the military didn't care about speed at all, they'd ship everything and never bother with aircraft. What we actually see is a spectrum from cheap to fast, and extending that spectrum to cover even more territory is obviously an advantage. On the other hand, good planning can reduce the need for expedited transportation, and in order to actually take advantage of a supersonic transport they'd have to have enough of them to guarantee that one is almost always available at the place where the important time-critical cargo is, and able to go where the important time-critical cargo needs to go. If they only build one or two they might be better off with the C-130 on base and fueled up than waiting for a supersonic transporter, and if they build dozens, then there's not just the cost of building and maintaining the aircraft, there's the opportunity cost of having transport aircraft taking up time and space and money without actually transporting anything because most stuff isn't time critical.

>>64474418
There's two major reasons why they don't need supersonic troop/cargo transport:
1) Expense. It's just too expensive to run that kind of service without
2) Black technology. If they want immediate movement of troops or cargo there are top secret options for it, faster than sound, which they don't tell us plebs about.

But mostly the first one. It's just too expensive.

>>64473983
Sonic booms from F-18 doing M1.5 at 3000ft altitude are at the level of unsuppressed rifle shot. They are health hazard.

>>64473429 (OP)
It isn't quiet, it just deflects it upwards and creates a softer boom by spreading it over a longer period of time. It's still fuck off loud, just not break windows loud.

>>64473983
Sonic booms from F-18 doing M1.5 at 30000ft altitude are at the level of unsuppressed rifle shot. They are health hazard.

>>64473429 (OP)
>For aerospace needs this has long been a project of interest because it means supersonics travel can be viable.
What does that has to do with weapons and military? /n/iggers are in /n/ to discuss this kind of shit.
>Military applications are all kinds of useful though.
Nope. If it is audible, it isn't stealthy at all in age of networked sensors. AI can hear your quiet thump and process your location precisely enough to send in interceptor or point powerful enough radar to fire missiles on your ass.
>>64473822
>The X-59 is neat, but it's never going to lead anywhere. Flying supersonic is just too expensive to be worth it economically.
Most delusional thing about the blog post faggot of OP ranted about was using supersonic airlifter move tanks and other armor. Imagine how efficient supersonic C-5 or C-17 replacement would be.
>>64474189
>JetZero’s blended wing body design has a lot of potential
They are literally aiming for more fuel efficient middle of market airliner, 250 passengers, something to compete with A321XLR and to replace remaining 757's. Something way smaller than airlifter needed to haul vehicles. That might have military applications as tanker or AWACS, some time in next 30 years. I wonder why Boeing or Airbus hasn't sued USAF over funding 'em. Its illegal for US military to pour research money into programs with no immediate military applications, DARPA was banned doing that in 60's.
>what Boom is up to
Developing their own engine with only engine manufacturer that is willing to consult them has lots of experience building tiny jets for target drones.
>>64474302
>The only thing Boom is up to is finding legal ways to embezzle the investments they've taken in by venture capitalists.
Yep.

>>64474727
>Nope. If it is audible, it isn't stealthy at all in age of networked sensors. AI can hear your quiet thump and process your location precisely enough to send in interceptor or point powerful enough radar to fire missiles on your ass.
If this was true, then this would be a huge development because it would greatly reduce the range at which aircraft could be detected. But unfortunately it's bullshit, so there's no reason to develop quiet supersonic aircraft since we can just make loud supersonic aircraft.

>>64473752
Can't see it be useful for anything other than making stealth-bombers faster and making stealth fighters harder to acoustically detect if they pass between the reduced AD bubbles. Something like stopping someone from being able to acoustically detect that a fighter flew past you 50 km to the west a few minutes ago so you can scramble fighters if your radars were unable to detect them.

>>64474727
>why boeing or airbus haven't sued
Because it's a dual use technology. More efficient airliners directly feeds into more efficient air cargo planes for the military. Look at the pic of the Boeing X-48 in >>64474302. Notice that right next to the NASA logo is the logo for the US Air Force Research Laboratory.
>but their planned plane is a good fit for military cargo
No shit. The idea is to develop a commercially viable product with the least risk and then build bigger after getting their feet under them.

>>64473752
For big war.

If you have bombers coming to bomb the shit out of a city, you can have your interceptors on a direct supersonic course over the soon to be bombed city to stop said bombers without said interceptors causing supersonic damage.

Of course that assumes bombers are still a thing and everyone isn't just using ICBMs or some shit. Basically I think any military use for this may have been passed by forty years ago.

>>64475086
> you can have your interceptors on a direct supersonic course over the soon to be bombed city to stop said bombers without said interceptors causing supersonic damage.
If your city is getting bombed, you probably don’t give a single iota of a shit about a couple assholes on the ground having their windows broken.
Which is why it’s pretty regular to have fighters bust the sound barrier when they need to intercept some retard in a Cessna 182 that busted the TFR over DC or something.

>>64473775
Logistics

>>64475136
You'd care if it was the opening scramble. For a protracted conflict, obviously not.

>>64475186
No the fuck you wouldn’t.

>>64475215
Yes I would.

>>64473996
Just degauss the plane to prevent electomagnetic interference
Just Faraday bag the fly by wire control system
Just do the same for the cockpit
Just don't get hit

>>64473996
>>All fun and games until your windscreen decides to bluescreen
Complete retards always say shit like this.
>implying any modern high performance fighter is flyable at all without computers
lol lmao etc. If all your computers die the aircraft is plummeting out of the sky. That's why you use formal mathematical verification and extreme testing and triple hardware redundancy and all the normal stuff we do to keep computer systems in critical applications like aircraft or satellites running.

>>64473429 (OP)
The problem with the Concorde wasn't the boom it was fuel consumption. The boom thing is just a made up move from Mutfags to stop the Frogs and Brits from dominating the market. Frogs don't trust Muts because this type of bitch moves are a common occurrence when you are an American ally.
>t. german knower

>>64476734
What market? The things barely broken even on their highest volume possible route. Tickets were $2,000 for a one way in the 1980s and became $6,000 for a one way by the time it was killed off in the 2000s. For that money you'd get a coach seat in a loud as fuck cabin that still took all day to travel. Since it was an airliner, you also had to do all the airport bullshit. The target demographic was too small to make any sense. Formless money, they could pay for a first class on a 747 and just nap away the flight or charter a private business jet that answers to their beck and call. It literally makes no sense to fly the Concorde units you live in London/Paris and have expensive, urgent business in NYC (or vice versa).

Also, wiritng off sonic booms as a cheap trick is a retarded statement by someone who has obviously never heard one. They are loud as fuck. It's like a loud thunder crack. https://youtube.com/shorts/q_GSLJ7FPBs. Add in the fact that the.thing had to take off with full afterburners, so it was stupid fuckingnloud near the ground in the city too.

>>64476734
>The problem with the Concorde wasn't the boom it was fuel consumption
Absolute fucking kraut retard. Both were absolutely problems. A big sonic boom is not merely disruptive but actively destructive on the ground, like jesus fuck dude literally just TWO MONTHS AGO the Thunderbirds were practicing and broke a bunch of people's windows:
>https://www.fox32chicago.com/news/blast-from-air-water-show-practice-shatters-windows-lake-view-east
The public hates shit like that. Which means the Concorde couldn't fly over land, which massively restricted its commercial opportunities since a lot of the most profitable long routes where the speed would also make the most difference couldn't be done. That then further reduced production and operations which further increased prices. Not that it had the range for NYY<>Tokyo or the like anyway thanks to inefficiency, and it being a pig and maintenance queen also didn't help the really high prices. All of this also drove the cabin having to be pretty cramped.

To have a commercial use-case requires being competitive in the price/speed/value triangle. The Concorde was cool but it just wasn't competitive with the tech it had. Obviously these days there are non-tech factors as well but being able to do any route would be a huge help.

>>64476796
I agree with most of your points, but
>Since it was an airliner, you also had to do all the airport bullshit
In fairness, airport bullshit is actually really modern. When the Concorde started you just drove to the airport and walked right to the plane and that was it. Even in the 90s, before 9/11 and the absolute fucking flood of horseshit that got poured on us by Bush and congress surrendering to the terrorists as fast as they could, it was still pretty relaxed.

In the current state of affairs though yeah it's a big challenge for commercial aviation (private and charted might work), because a lot of the speed advantage goes away if you have to spend hours at airports anyway. It'd need to advance enough to hit the right combo of decent cabin experience for the cost and speed. My guess is it only makes sense at either a small enough scale to be something the super rich might buy private or a big enough scale to be truly point to point anywhere on earth, like a 10k mile range or something, so that you really make up huge amounts of time, AND still be not unbearable cabin AND have at least one seat class that's <$2k.

>>64476734
Fuel consumption issues were due to being forced to fly subsonic to the ocean before speeding up to cruise speed. Delta wings are godawful efficiency wise in subsonic flight. Sonic booms are fucking loud, every time here in pastaland jets get scrambled to intercept unresponsive aircrafts it reaches national news level immediately.

>>64476817
Security is not all of the airport bullshit. You still have to drive there at whatever time works for their flight, check in, check bags, go sit at the gate, wait to board, and possibly get delayed at any step along the way. For business jets, you literally drive right up to the hard stand at whatever time works for you, walk on the plane, and then the doors close and you take off. Post 9/11 security games only added onto the bullshit, they didn't make them.
https://youtu.be/8Rgl8_2d9Tc

>>64476839
Not him.
> Delta wings are godawful efficiency wise in subsonic flight
It's highly dependent on altitude, the cruise altitude for a delta is lower, the problem are the engines.
And supersonic flight is far worse with any wing shape. The SST concept was created during the 1950s when HPR turbofans weren't common and it was competitive against slow and not so aerodynamic planes using turbojet engines (that are less efficient than a properly designed supersonic cruise turbojet) or very low BPR turbofans.
As long as a SST has to carry its own fuel it will never compete against a SubST.

>>64476889
>You still have to drive there at whatever time works for their flight
For a top class transcontinental flight though this is rarely significant, particularly for the majority customers for this kind of travel.
>check in
Online nowadays, I check in day or two before flight even happens from my phone.
>check bags
People who care about speed don't check bags at all, they travel carry-on only. That said all the times I've flown in the last few years this only took a few minutes.
>go sit at the gate
You mean go to the lounge? I only go to the gate when boarding is beginning, and they tell me when on the phone. But arriving hours ahead of time again is only even a thing because of all the bullshit. It wasn't in the old days.
>wait to board, and possibly get delayed at any step along the way
You're just making a bigger deal of this than it needs to be. Even today I can be from the curb to my gate within about 15-25 minutes, easily and reliably every time. It's definitely not as cool as "pull up to the plane" which I've only gotten to experience twice but it's not so bad that it'd dominate shaving 2-9 hours from a flight.

>>64474727
>AI can hear your quiet thump and process your location precisely enough to send in interceptor or point powerful enough radar to fire missiles on your ass.
That's not AI it's generic computer pattern recognition and simple triangulation from more than one sensor, and it's only going to know your location if you're near the frontline and only once the plane turns back away, at which time its probably already escaping on decent vector speeds where you can't catch it because it's firing BLOS.

Dropping overall boom intensity from supersonic aircraft makes the aircraft able to fly supersonic closer to the frontlines and then leave with it's noise being spread out on more frequencies and over time, making it harder to detect at shorter ranges than other aircraft.
Ofc that's an advantage.

>>64476927
Took like 35mins for security last time I flew with no luggage no nothing, 30m back.
Queues are real sometimes.
Longest ever was Luton at 1h40m on perhaps an exceptionally busy day apparently.

>>64476963
>Took like 35mins for security last time I flew with no luggage no nothing, 30m back.
I assume that even if supersonic transport becomes way way WAY cheaper than Concorde's ($12000 in 1995 would be ~$26000 in today's money) it'd still be first/business class ticket price territory (like $2000-4000), and in turn would get all the priority lanes everywhere has now. I haven't flown business/first in a long time and not had a dedicated check-in lane, dedicated security etc (though the current shutdown has apparently screwed that up in the US, but I just drive across the border to Canada which so far remains only a few minutes with a NEXUS card). The fuel consumption can definitely drop a shitload vs what the Concorde managed particularly if they can go supersonic right away instead of only out over ocean, but like >>64476915 says it's never going to LESS fuel then conventional transport, it just takes more to go real fast. It's always going to take more cooling and so on. So I can't see it actually getting down to "everyman $200 ticket" pricing, it'd be competing at the high end just not (ideally) the stratospheric "you can have your own room on the plane" insane end. At the high end level I think airliners have proven that they have learned to navigate the modern legal shit enough to move people along pretty quick. It's just the bullshit that your time is now also up for bidding.

>>64476927
I honestly believe SSTO transport rockets doing sub-orbital hops will be a thing before SSTs.

>>64477352
You're silly then, SSTO doesn't work and there is no path to it working either. The rocket equation is just too brutal on that one. Starship can make the economics work but obviously that's TSTO, and on the top of noise holy shit is that motherfucker loud (and big sonic boom with reentry too of course). The only way a civilian transport rocket would work is with a lot of other infrastructure, you need super high speed train system to quickly take you from a city to a floating launch pad or somewhere equally far from anything. Even with Starship though, and assuming they really get towards their absolute theoretical floor cost, we're talking like $18-30 per raw kilogram of payload. Transporting humans is going to require a bunch of extra kilograms per human in terms of environmental control, consumables and safety equipment and extra margin, probably at least 150kg each beyond what the person themselves weighs and their luggage. Average american male weighs 200 lbs so about 90kg, then maybe a 15kg luggage budget (not much for luxury travel), so like $8000/tickets, before all the soft costs (employees, insurance etc), and without taking into account all the other infra. And that's optimistic, could easily be triple.

It's a fun concept and who knows what decades from now will bring but there's no getting around physics, and to do much better in terms of thrust and ISP and economics you have to get into torch drive territory that probably no government will want operating on Earth.