Cleveland Plain Dealer : SST redux? Could be, and check out that schnozz….
What The Tracker wants to have is a fuller explanation of the flagpole sticking straight out from the nose of this hypothetical supersonic airliner. One is forced to intuit that it spreads the sonic boom shockwaves more broadly than would a hornless airplane, yielding maybe more of a brief rumble than a big ka-WHAM on the eardrums.
The pic is in today’s Plain Dealer. Staffer John Mangels provides news, mainly via the NASA Lewis Research Center, that a steady federal effort toward commercial supersonic aircraft continues well after the money-sucking Concorde jets last flew and long after worries over ozone depletion and other matters killed the official US supersonic transport program. The main story comes with a sidebar on two small companies pursuing investors to help them build business jets that can fly faster than sound.
Mangels writes it with a slight, bemused skepticism that befits a time when money is short and environmental worries, including concerns about fuel-guzzling new airplanes, are rife. One thinks the puzzlement could have been more emphatic. But it’s sensible, one also thinks, that NASA maintain a low-key placeholder program going just in case such fast passenger carriers start to make sense.
As for the long nose on the artist’s impression, he does provide some info. It’s called a quiet spike, would probably telescope frontwards well after takeoff, and has been tested by NASA on an F-15.
Grist for the Mill:
The story carries embedded links to the official NASA program site. However, satisfying the urge to hyperlink: one finds down a layer or two in the NASA websites a majestic video, without narration but with a soaring orchestral musical score, that is guaranteed to stir the emotions of any lover of futuristic visions of sensational machinery. It even has a flying super schnozzistic transport in it.
- Charlie Petit
