If you really want to make an impact on the noise floor, ban gasoline leaf blowers.
go to switzerland. gas leaf blowers and jet ski's. not allowed
Supersonic flight returning to US after half-century ban
141–150 of 207 posts
Re: Supersonic flight returning to US after half-century ban
#142Ars Technica has a more detailed article [1]. Here are some excerpts:
> The newly proposed rule would replace the 53-year prohibition with an interim “noise-based” certification standard requiring any sonic boom overpressure at the surface to be kept below 0.11 pounds per square foot. That proposed standard is based on the Colorado-based startup Boom Supersonic having demonstrated quiet Mach cutoff flights with its XB-1 aircraft—harnessing specific atmospheric conditions while flying just beyond supersonic speeds at higher altitudes so that the aircraft’s shockwaves are refracted upward into the atmosphere rather than traveling to the ground
I've got a question about that approach. It depends on temperature gradients in the atmosphere to refract the boom away from the ground. In their test flights that demonstrated that this worked they depended on being able to predict when and where the atmospheric conditions would be right for this.
Are such conditions common enough and stable enough both in time and space so that this could actually work in regular scheduled commercial service?
There has been some criticism of basing the standard on overpressure:
> However, not everyone is sold on this proposed standard for allowing overland supersonic flights. Dan Rutherford, senior director at the nonprofit International Council on Clean Transportation, told Aviation Week that the overpressure metric was previously discarded by United Nations experts in 2014 because “it doesn’t actually measure loudness or annoyance.”
NASA's work on this has been using perceived sound levels to evaluate annoyance on the ground instead of overpressure:
> Meanwhile, NASA has been testing a different approach to quieter supersonic flight with the Lockheed Martin X-59 Quesst—a needle-nosed experimental aircraft with an airframe designed to reduce the typical sonic boom to a sonic thump. NASA has relied on perceived levels of decibels (PldB) to evaluate sound levels, with the goal of consistently demonstrating sonic thumps around 75 PldB that would sound like a car door slamming about 20 feet away.
There is a bill [2] in Congress that has passed the House:
> US lawmakers in Congress have also been pushing forward the Supersonic Aviation Modernization Act. That would require the FAA to allow for overland supersonic flights “so long as the aircraft is operated in such a manner that no sonic boom reaches the ground in the United States.” The bill passed the House on March 24, 2026, and is still awaiting a vote in the Senate.
The bill is short (3 paragraphs) and doesn't say what it means for no sonic boom to reach the ground. The Boom approach of making use of the Mach cutoff would almost surely qualify. Would the X-59 approach where it is a "sonic thump" rather than a "sonic boom" qualify?
[1] https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/07/faa-proposal-superso...
[2] https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/3410...
Re: Supersonic flight returning to US after half-century ban
#143Re: Supersonic flight returning to US after half-century ban
#144Earlier quoted context omitted.
If supersonic flight is so expensive that less than 1% of the population can enjoy it its not clear why the rest of us ought to tolerate it
Get those rich people out of the private jets and into the supersonic ones. Then the rich people currently in first class can move into the private jets. Eventually, that means that there will be some seats in the back of the regular plans for everyday wage slaves.
Its not clear why you would think any of this works this way. Not one thing you said makes sense it's like a weird trickle down economics for flights as if better steaks would get oliver twist more gruel
Re: Supersonic flight returning to US after half-century ban
#145This is so exciting. The only ones I know working on this are Boom (unless they’ve pivoted entirely into AI DC turbines). Between this and the wind-turbine-blade air transporter it’s an exciting time for aviation. Now if we can only transition off leaded fuel!
Why is this an exciting time for aviation? Or more specifically, why should I (a person who never spends more than $2,000 on air travel) be excited?
Because I can get somewhere faster for the same price over time.
Re: Supersonic flight returning to US after half-century ban
#146That's funny - I had no idea it was actually banned in the first place. I live near a number of large military bases and hear the fighter jets break the sound barrier on a somewhat regular basis.
Are you sure you're actually hearing sonic booms? The low-bypass turbofan engines used on most current tactical aircraft are quite loud even in subsonic flight. F-35 and F/A-18 fighters overfly my house occasionally and while I don't mind the noise they're definitely much louder than airliners. They generally only go supersonic over designated training ranges away from heavily populated areas.
I live along the coast. They’ll routinely go supersonic too near to shore and violate their own standards. Nothing ever comes of it. Just part of life.
Re: Supersonic flight returning to US after half-century ban
#147Earlier quoted context omitted.
Back in the 1960s (!) the military would fly supersonic over the town I lived in. I always enjoyed the boom. I would also open the window during a thunderstorm or go sit on the porch because I enjoyed the incredible electric display and the booms.
Memories of a kid on a road trip...Interceptors taking off low, at full afterburners, in the dark of the night, screaming across the highway, for their practice sorties... I am more anti-(manufactured)-war than most, but these sights were the stuff of goosebumps (the good kind).
The sound of freedom!
Re: Supersonic flight returning to US after half-century ban
#148Earlier quoted context omitted.
Increased adoption will put price pressure on traditional flights making them more affordable
Why? They already have price pressure due to some people not having enough money. If the people currently flying business class all move to SSTs, won't the airlines now have to charge more for coach seats fitted in their place because they were previously making much more profit per square area from business passengers?
> If the people currently flying business class all move to SSTs
Which is vanishingly unlikely for almost all routes. A proper premium F or J experience that takes a few more hours is going to be a better deal for most people than a Y-like experience that shaves some hours off, like Concorde was. For a similar parallel, look at luxury travel. Private for the short hops, but the premium cabins on premium carriers are the better experience for longer journeys unless you're one of the truly tiny number of people flying a G6.
Re: Supersonic flight returning to US after half-century ban
#149Earlier quoted context omitted.
Increased adoption will put price pressure on traditional flights making them more affordable
Not particularly knowledgable about this, but I was under the impression the front of the bus subsidizes the back. So if the front opts for more expensive supersonic flights then the back will have to increase in cost to make it profitable to fly subsonic flights at all.
Economy and business seem to be on the same total sum level for revenue.
Economy needs more passengers but I doubt you could make an all business class flight at the size of a typical airplane and sell enough tickets to make up for the lost economy passengers.
https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/travel/our-insights/the-...
Re: Supersonic flight returning to US after half-century ban
#150On one hand I think we should applaud when regulators target the specific issue (like noise or pollution level) vs using some other metric to achieve their desired outcome. On the other hand I don’t have a ton of faith that current administration will set the targets at levels that have the general public’s interest in mind
They simply mention that the sonic boom will be less than it has been. It seems obvious the current admin is just stripping away regulation that harms the billionaire class.