Boom Supersonic passed an important milestone last month when the XB-1 prototype became the first civil airplane that broke the sound barrier over the Continental US. Less than a month later Chief Test -Pilot Tristan “Geppetto” Brandenburg again surpassed Mach 1 in the experimental plane while he is as high as 36.514 feet above the Mojave desert. This time, however, the XB-1 showed another important performance during the 13th test flight: passing the “Mach Cutoff”. While the engines of the aircraft were still audible on the ground, the surpassing of the Mach -Cutoff made sure that nobody heard a disturbing sonic tree.
According to that of the company February 10 announcementThe test flight on Monday continued efforts to “assess the performance and data collection of the aircraft over Mach 1.” This included measuring acoustic sonic tree data using strategically positioned sound pressure recording equipment and microphones. While Boom Supersonic Engineers used similar methods during the last flight of XB-1 on January 28, the test on Monday also included the recording of what is known as Schlieren images. These visualisations, taken by photographers at ground level under precise conditions, describe the airtightness changes around a plane, including any supersonic shock waves.
The Boom Supersonic mission team was primarily aimed at demonstrating that the XB-1 is able to pass the Mach-Cutoff, a physics event that only occurs at sufficiently high heights. During a machining, a sonic tree is broken into the atmosphere and never prevented from reaching the ground level. In theory, this would ensure that no one under a super aircraft would hear the extremely disturbing (and sometimes dangerous) concussion.
But apart from an annoying, his audible sonic booms in the continental US illegal thanks to Long -term FAA instructions. For Boom Supersonic to achieve its final goal to reintroduce commercial flights faster than Mach 1, the aircraft must be developed to reach mach -cutoffs.
The XB-1 is a proof-of-concept of a third format that is intended to demonstrate aerodynamics involved in Overture, the proposed commercial supersonic jet of the company. Overture is ultimately intended to transport 64-80 passengers on both cross-continental and international journeys at speeds as fast as Mach 1.7-year-old twice as fast and modern subsonic jets. Because the design of XB-1 has created a Mach-Cutoff Monday, it will be more logical to do the same conviction during his “Boomless Cruise“To flee.
Boom Supersonic also noted that this week’s work has officially closed its multi -year flight test program. XB-1 will soon travel from the Mojave Air & Space Port near Barstow, California to the original house in Denver, Colorado. Once there, the company plans to “concentrate its complete efforts on scaling up XB-1 lessons and technology to build the Supersonic aircraft.”
But given the history of earlier delays, there is still a solid opportunity that is conviction, his currently planned debut from 2029 will not make. That does not mean that supersonic journeys never come back, but compared to an international Mach 1.7 flight it will probably take a little.
