Supersonic Jet

 Flight Times In Half

Race to be the new Concorde! Supersonic jets battle to become first aircraft to cut flight times in HALF... reaching speeds of 1,200mph

Lockheed Martin and NASA’s N+2 jet could cut cross-country flight times in half. (Photo: Lockheed Martin)

New York to Los Angeles in just over two hours? Passenger jets that fly faster than the speed of sound without that annoying sonic boom?

That could become reality thanks to two projects that aim to bring supersonic planes back to commercial air travel.

Lockheed Martin is working with NASA on a design called the N+2, an 80-passenger jet capable of cruising at Mach 1.7 (1.7 times the speed of sound).

One such jet, the N+2, designed by US global aerospace Lockheed Martin, is intended for commercial airlines, and aims to cut the travel time from New York to Los Angeles by half - from five hours to just 2.5.

The aircraft would accommodate 80 passengers and have a tri-jet configuration in which one engine is on top of the aircraft and the other two are under each wing to reduce sonic boom. 

'To achieve revolutionary reductions in supersonic transportation airport noise, a totally new kind of propulsion system is being developed,' said Michael Buonanno, Lockheed Martin manager of the NASA N+2 program.

The Aerion AS2 business jet will fly at 1,217mph, using proprietary supersonic laminar flow technology - almost as fast as Concorde, which flew at 1,350mph. 

Engineers from Airbus' Defence and Space Division will work with Aerion at its base in Nevada.

The cost of the AS2 is thought to be more than $100million - over £60million - and Aerion hopes test flights will begin by 2019

A British firm is in talks with Gulf investors to bankroll development of the next generation of supersonic jets, which when launched in 2023 could fly passengers from New York to London in just over an hour.
UK firm Hypermach has formally been developing the SonicStar aircraft since 2008 and while it has initially been funded by wealthy backers, it is now in talks with potential Gulf partners to fund the building of a prototype within the next decade.
“We have several, five or six, fairly interesting and serious discussions with geographic locations... In Abu Dhabi we have had talks with financial institutions and funds there... Also Qatar and Kuwait and Saudi Arabia aswell,” Richard Lugg, CEO of Hypermach

One problem facing supersonic aircraft is that the properties that make them fly efficiently at speeds greater than Mach 1 (the speed of sound, 761 mph) hurt their performance in subsonic flight.

To overcome the issue, Ge-Cheng Zha, an aerospace engineer at the University of Miami, has developed a concept plane that would rotate in mid-air to take advantage of the best aerodynamics.

It will also eliminate the sonic boom that plagued the Concorde and led to widespread bans of supersonic flight over land.

Zha calls it the "SBiDir-FW," for supersonic bi-directional flying wing, and received a $100,000 grant from NASA's Innovative Advanced Concepts program earlier this month. The plane is symmetrical on both axes, with two cockpits.

When flying at subsonic speed, the plane is wider than it is long, with its wingtips folded up. To transition for supersonic flight, the tips unfold, and the engines lock into place while the plane rotates 90 degrees. No power system is needed: Aerodynamic forces drive the movement, "like a flying Frisbee," according to Zha.

Optimized for high-speed flight, the SBiDir-FW will create "virtually no sonic boom," and minimize fuel consumption, according to Aviation Week. It will fly from New York to Tokyo in four hours.

Like most supersonic aircraft in the works, Zha's concept is not expected to become a reality for 20 to 30 years. But it's no fantasy: NASA awards the advanced technology concept grants based on "potential to transform future aerospace missions."

For the next year, Zha and his team will study the basic feasibility of the SBiDir-FW, and will be eligible for a second, $500,000 grant based on their results

Gulfstream Aerospace still has supersonic aircraft on its radar, but it is focusing on a “small” research and development program to suppress the sonic boom. In fact, the company’s Quiet Spike, intended to do just that, has previously been tested on an F-15B testbed at NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center.