A new engine could bring back supersonic air-travel

RENO, Nev., – Every morning, time once was, a giant roar from Heathrow Airport would announce the departure of flight ba001 to New York. The roar was caused by the injection into the aircraft’s four afterburners of the fuel which provided the extra thrust that it needed to take off. Soon afterwards, the pilot lit the afterburners again—this time to accelerate his charge beyond the speed of sound for the three-and-a-half hour trip to jfk. The plane was Concorde, reported The Economist.

Continue reading original article

The Intelligent Aerospace take:

December 14, 2018-The work being done by General Electric and Aerion has the possibility to bring commercial air travel back to the supersonic realm. Aerion's 12-seat supersonic business jet AS2 will be powered by a trio of GE jet engines and will fly at Mach 1.4. Aerion says the design could be scaled up to allow business jets to fly at Mach 1.8. While a bit slower than the Concorde jet, which flew at Mach 2, the smaller aircraft will produce much less noise thanks to some clever engineering. NASA, which is also developing supersonic passenger planes, used a "Mach cut-off" design to refract the sonic boom through layers of thicker air at lower altitude. This fall, an F/A-18 fighter jet outfitted with the Mach cut-off technology performed dives over Galveston. More than 400 residents were surveyed and reported hearing nothing at all up to a sound akin to a car door slamming.

Related: NASA ‘Son of Concorde’ is now being manufactured by Lockheed Martin

Related: Virgin Galactic, The Spaceship Company test supersonic, rocket-powered VSS Unity commercial spacecraft

Related: WOLF video graphics embedded computing modules help design windowless supersonic aircraft cockpit

Jamie Whitney, Associate Editor
Intelligent Aerospace

Ready to make a purchase? Search the Intelligent Aerospace Buyer's Guide for companies, new products, press releases, and videos