Supersonic flight
Virgin Galactic 48 and SpaceX 49 is beginning to look extremely promising, and, without the presence of air during cruise, these commercial transport proposals will be able to travel far faster than any aircraft in development today, without producing any noise at all. However, this technology is very new, and will, in my view, take many more years to ‘get off the ground’ than a boomless SST will. Only time will tell. So, is there a future for boomless commercial supersonic flight after all? After evaluating some of the incredible theories, technologies and proposals being developed by engineers across the globe, as well as looking clairvoyantly at the amazing innovations that are still waiting to ‘take - off,’ I believe there is. Throughout history, humanity has always sought to go faster, fly higher, travel further, and to pursue things we never previously could have dreamed of; and whilst there is still an incredible amount of testing, creating and researching that must be done to get any one of these boom-mitigation technologies actively produced and utilized on a large scale, the incredible work of aerospace engineers worldwide has given us countless unmissable opportunities to return to a supersonic era of air travel, but this time without the notorious, ear-splitting boom that accompanies it.
Bibliography
Anderson, D; Eberhardt, S. (2010) Understanding Flight (Second Edition). USA. Cariosca, S; Locke, J; Boyd, I; Lewis, M; Hallion, R. (2019) ‘Commercial Development of Civilian Supersonic Aircraft’ Institute for Defence Analyses : 1-3, 9-10, 19-24 Colarusso, L. (2002) ‘DARPA Studies Vehicle Concepts, Technologies to Reduce Sonic Boom’ Inside the Air Force , Vol. 13, No. 19: 7-8 ‘Fineness ratio’ (2020) Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fineness_ratio [Accessed 28/07/2020] Goldsmith, M. (2018) Waves: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford. Gonzalez, C. (2015) Supersonic Flight: Overcoming the Sonic Boom. Available at: https://cdn.baseplatform.io/files/base/ebm/machinedesign/document/2019/03/machined esign_3246_supersonicflightovercomingthesonicboom.pdf [Accessed 20/07/2020] Grose, T. (2016) ‘Prepare for Takeoff’ ASEE Prism , Vol. 25, No. 5: 30-33 Lawless, J. (2003) Final Concorde Flight Lands at Heathrow. Available at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp- dyn/articles/A11477-2003Oct24.html [Accessed 27/07/2020] NASA Chat: Taking the ‘Boom’ Out of Booms (2011). Available at: https://www.nasa.gov/connect/chat/sonic_boom_chat.html [Accessed 20/07/2020] NASA Facts – Sonic Booms (2003). Available at: https://www.nasa.gov/centers/dryden/pdf/120274main_FS-016-DFRC.pdf [Accessed 28/07/2020] O’Kane, S. (2017) Elon Musk proposes city-to-city travel by rocket, right here on Earth . Available at: https://www.theverge.com/2017/9/29/16383048/elon-musk-spacex-rocket-transport- earth-travel [Accessed 29/07/2020] Project 042 Acoustical Model of Mach Cut-off Flight (2017). Available at: https://ascent.aero/documents/2018/06/ascent-042-2017-annual-report.pdf/ [Accessed 27/07/2020] Review and prospect of supersonic business jet design (2016). Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/311987911_Review_and_prospect_of_supersoni c_business_jet_design [Accessed 28/07/2020]
48 Virgin Galactic: Vision . Available at: https://www.virgingalactic.com/vision/ [Accessed 29/07/2020]. 49 O’Kane, S. (2017) Elon Musk proposes city-to-city travel by rocket, right here on Earth . Available at: https://www.theverge.com/2017/9/29/16383048/elon-musk-spacex-rocket-transport-earth-travel [Accessed 29/07/2020].
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