Lockheed Martin Corp and the US space agency are preparing to give the public a sneak peek of a plane that could pave the way for airlines to dramatically speed up flights.
The X-59, to be unveiled on Friday afternoon local time in Palmdale, California, has been designed to fly faster than the speed of sound — about 760 miles per hour (1,220 kmh) at sea level — but with much less noise.
When planes break the sound barrier — known as Mach 1 — a loud and continuous sonic boom is created that can shatter windows on the ground. The US banned civilian aircraft reaching this speed over land in 1973.
Lockheed Martin won a contract in 2018 valued at about $250 million to build a demonstrator plane, which has room for one pilot and is powered by a General Electric F414 engine, to help overcome this hurdle.
The aircraft is designed to reach 1.5 times the speed of sound, while reducing a sonic boom to a weak thump with its v-shaped wing and elongated nose. The company originally had expected to fly the X-59 in 2021. The overall project, including testing, will cost about $632 million over eight years, the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) said.
If the X-59 is successful and then applied to commercial aviation, flight times could be reduced dramatically. Lockheed has said the plane will reach speeds of 925 mph, far surpassing today’s single-aisle passenger jets that top out at about 550 mph.
But besides overcoming the sonic boom, the industry would have to deal with more stringent noise regulations at airports than when the European-built Concorde stopped taking supersonic flights in 2003. Nowadays, there is also heightened scrutiny over the impact of aircraft emissions on the environment.
The plane isn’t ready to fly yet and will undergo more ground tests to determine if any further assembly tweaks are required, said NASA engineer Mark Mangelsdorf in an email response to questions.
The X-59 is expected to have its first flight this year, but a date hasn’t been set. The plan is for the research aircraft to fly over yet-to-be-selected communities to measure whether the noise level on the ground is low enough to be accepted by the public.
Aerion Corp, a startup backed by Texas billionaire Robert Bass, attempted to build a business jet that would cruise over the ocean at 1.4 times the speed of sound and throttle below that barrier over land. The company folded in 2021 because of a lack of funding.
Boom Technology Inc plans to build a supersonic airliner and has attracted interest from American Airlines, United Airlines and Japan Airlines.