The aviation sector is making progress fast and the results it brings are astonishing. The new breakthroughs are bound to take the sector ahead my miles and become more advanced and modernized by the day. One of the innovations that have recently contributed to the growth and development of this industry is the soundless supersonic airplane.
The airplane, named the X-59, is both designed and built by NASA and Lockheed Martin who aim to make the flights of the future supersonic soundless and without the booms, we hear with the flight. The airplane is designed with a slim and elongated nose in the front, and it flies faster than the speed of sound. For this reason, it goes up in the air without giving off an explosive boom.
The previous airplanes of the sort used to produce such a loud thud that the Federal Aviation Administration in the USA had to ban the flying of these planes over land because they created massive noise pollution. The sound is brought down from 100 decibels to 75 decibels which is almost the same intensity of sound created when a car door is slammed shut.
The cockpit is dragged to the middle and the body elongated. The scientists state that they did all these variations so the shock waves due to volume changes in the airplane when flying are not piled up to create a sonic boom. In fact, they are evenly and separately distributed, so the sound is minimized.
More tests and trials are needed for it to be entirely commercialized and launched for wide usage. One of the steps of the trial is sending the supersonic airplane with an F-15 jet that will follow the flight and capture the shock waves created by the airplane. This will be captured through schlieren photography. Scientists are hopeful for the airplane to transforming the supersonic planes.