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Speed, Space And Serenity – The Future Of Aircraft Looks Exciting
Sonic booms, the disruptive side effect of passing the sound barrier, is something that NASA wants to place in the past with its new QueSST (Quiet Supersonic Transport). The QueSST Experimental Aircraft is being developed with Lockheed Martin and has already passed an initial design review with...ahem... flying colours, during testing in a 2m X 2.5m supersonic wind tunnel testing facility at Glenn Research Center in Cleveland.
The testing so far has seen the QueSST X-Plane design ‘flying’ at supersonic speeds, i.e. 1.4 times the speed of sound to create what the NASA team describe as a ‘soft thump’ rather than the familiar sonic boom. So what does this mean for the future of aircraft?
In a nutshell it could help create supersonic aircraft that are able to fly over populated areas without causing disruption to those people living below. The next step of the testing is to contract out a full-scale build of the single engine aircraft, find a brave test-pilot to take it through its paces in the thick air and atmosphere outside of laboratory conditions and find out just what effects flying at supersonic speeds will have on not just the aircraft, but also on people and structures on the ground.
Lockheed Martin though are obviously not content with flying at just Mach 1; they are developing the SR-72, which on June 7th this year was confirmed to have been given the green light for further development. The SR-72 will be a future reconnaissance and strike capable aircraft with top speeds that could exceed Mach 6 (3,000mph+). This new breed of hypersonic aircraft could be functional and ready for use by 2030.
Even the UK, the famed inventors of the jet engine, are firmly staking their claim in the hypersonic arena with the firm, Reaction Engines Limited and their SKYLON aircraft/spacecraft hybrid using their bespoke Synergetic Air Breathing Rocket Engine (SABRE for short...does each team employ an acronym producer we wonder?) to carry passengers and freight at Mach 5.4 for Earth atmosphere transport and a crazily ambitious Mach 25 for space access. This technology could make any journey around the globe possible in as little as four hours.
If you had the money, this means you could have breakfast with friends in New York City, lunch and posing for a few selfies on the Great Wall of China, then finishing off with supper under the Eiffel Tower in Paris before flying back to your start point with no jet lag for a decent night’s sleep prior to going back to work the next morning.
I can already hear people screaming, ‘But what about the carbon footprint you selfish oil burners!’, well what if I told you that the company, Eviation Aircraft, are designing an electric aircraft that they say will revolutionise air travel like nothing before. Their Alice Commuter plane will take nine passengers on trips up to 1,000Km at speeds of around 240 knots (KTAS). It may not be as fast as the hypersonic aircraft of the future, but it will be green, clean and with no engine noise, serene.
