NASA/Lockheed Martin X-59A Quiet Supersonic Technology (QueSST)

Orionblamblam said:
Yup. The trick is *what* particulate. Something that will reflect sunlight during the day and filter down out of the sky by night and not cause environmental ruin. I wonder if studies can determine whether getting spewed by an SST would be better than a subsonic jet.
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You did miss some sarcasm in there.
 
martinbayer said:
I guess that's why they're called testbeds...
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The difference being that the SSBD tried a novel and possibly practical configuration, whereas the X-59 is a configurational dead-end that could have come off a 1950s sketchpad.

Why not put the money towards something potentially practical, like an airliner-proportioned fuselage using adjustable aerospikes and ventral ramps? Then we'd get sound-pressure data plus a starting point for a usable design.
 
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Kiltonge said:
The difference being that the SSBD tried a novel and possibly practical configuration, whereas the X-59 is a configurational dead-end that could have come off a 1950s sketchpad.

Why not put the money towards something potentially practical, like an airliner-proportioned fuselage using adjustable aerospikes and ventral ramps? Then we'd get sound-pressure data plus a starting point for a usable design.
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Because the X59 will fly to determine what the maximum legally allowed sonic booms would be.

Then you build a commercially shaped plane to make booms at that level.

Remember, supersonic flight over land is generally banned! You need to determine what levels the public is willing to tolerate in order to change the flight restrictions, and determining those levels is exactly what the X-59 is designed to do.
 
Kiltonge said:
The difference being that the SSBD tried a novel and possibly practical configuration, whereas the X-59 is a configurational dead-end
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Can you elaborate more on this deep insight?
 
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Kiltonge said:
The difference being that the SSBD tried a novel and possibly practical configuration, whereas the X-59 is a configurational dead-end that could have come off a 1950s sketchpad.
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You are grossly misunderstanding the roles of the two aircraft.

The SSBD was the experimental proof that you could manipulate sonic boom loudness via airframe shape, as was the "Quiet Spike" tested on an F-15. The Quiet Spike didn't do enough on its own to reduce boom levels, so the SSBD got into how to shape an airframe to reduce sonic booms.

The X-59 is to establish the tolerance levels of the public towards sonic booms, to inform the regulation changes for just how much boom is allowed over land. It's not supposed to be an operationally representative shape for a commercial passenger hauler or even a business jet.

Only once the boom levels are established can we start designing a commercial airframe to meet them, likely using some combinations of the Quiet Spike and a whole lot of airframe shaping.
 

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