Nasa tests ‘quiet’ supersonic jet in quest for faster passenger air travel

- Nasa’s X-59 Quesst supersonic-but-quiet jet soared over the Southern California desert on Oct 28 in the first test flight of an experimental aircraft designed to break the sound barrier with little noise, paving the way for faster commercial air travel.

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The sleek aircraft, built for Nasa by aerospace contractor Lockheed Martin, took off about an hour after sunrise from a runway at Plant 42 of the company’s Skunk Works facility in Palmdale, about 100km north of Los Angeles.

After a steep climb over sod fields just east of the runway, the plane was seen banking to the north on a trajectory towards Edwards Air Force Base, where it landed safely about an hour later near Nasa’s Armstrong Flight Research Centre. It was accompanied by a Nasa chase plane.

The plane’s unique shape is designed to greatly reduce the explosive-like sonic boom normally produced when an aircraft breaks the sound barrier, lowering the volume to a muffled “sonic thump” no louder than slamming a car door.

Perfection of such low-decibel flight technology is aimed at overcoming one of the primary obstacles to supersonic commercial flight, long restricted over populated areas on land due to noise concerns, according to Lockheed.