NASA has a way to cut your flight time in half
For almost a half-century there’s been a clear speed limit on most commercial air travel: 660 miles per hour, the rate at which a typical-size plane traveling at 30,000 feet breaks the sound barrier and creates a 30-mile-wide, continuous sonic boom. The ground-level disturbances that result—shattered windows, cracked plaster, maddened farm animals—have kept supersonic travel mostly off-limits since 1973, when the FAA banned its use over US soil. That may be changing. In August, NASA says, it will begin taking bids for construction of a demo model of a plane able to reduce the sonic boom to something like the hum you’d hear inside a Mercedes-Benz on the interstate. The agency’s researchers say their design should cut the 6-hour flight time from New York to Los Angeles in half. <br/>
https://portal.staralliance.com/cms/news/hot-topics/2017-07-25/general/nasa-has-a-way-to-cut-your-flight-time-in-half
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NASA has a way to cut your flight time in half
For almost a half-century there’s been a clear speed limit on most commercial air travel: 660 miles per hour, the rate at which a typical-size plane traveling at 30,000 feet breaks the sound barrier and creates a 30-mile-wide, continuous sonic boom. The ground-level disturbances that result—shattered windows, cracked plaster, maddened farm animals—have kept supersonic travel mostly off-limits since 1973, when the FAA banned its use over US soil. That may be changing. In August, NASA says, it will begin taking bids for construction of a demo model of a plane able to reduce the sonic boom to something like the hum you’d hear inside a Mercedes-Benz on the interstate. The agency’s researchers say their design should cut the 6-hour flight time from New York to Los Angeles in half. <br/>
