NASA’S NEWEST X-PLANE COULD REVIVE SUPERSONIC FLIGHT FOR THE MASSES

• NASA has awarded Lockheed Martin a $247.5 million contract to turn its Low Boom Flight Demonstrator into the next X-plane.

NASA/LOCKHEED MARTIN

• IF THERE’S A pantheon of great airplanes, the X-planes deserve an entire wing of the place. Since the Chuck Yeager-toting Bell X-1 broke the sound barrier in 1947, these experimental aircraft have pushed up against, and burst through, the boundaries of flight. The X-15 was the first plane to demonstrate hypersonic flight — over Mach 5 — and set a manned speed record in 1967. In the early 2000s, the X-35 evolved into the F-35 fighter jet. The latest in the line, the X-57, is working to prove electric power can work as well in the air as on the ground.
• NASA, which runs the X-plane program, has just announced the newest member of this vaunted club. The space and aeronautics agency is giving Lockheed Martin a $247.5 million contract to build a supersonic aircraft. Now, flying faster than sound is the easy part. The real trick is doing it without creating the eardrum-battering sonic boom, a key hurdle to reviving supersonic flight for civilians.
• The goal is to clear the way for a successor to the supersonic Concorde, which started service in 1976. That plane created such a loud crack as it blasted overhead that regulators banned it from flying at supersonic speeds over people in the US and Europe. Effectively relegated to a few transatlantic routes, the Concorde struggled financially, and was retired in 2003. A quieter plane, the thinking goes, could ease those restrictions, and allow more profitable flights of rich, important, businesspeople from New York to LA and San Francisco, as well as across the ocean.
• “This X-plane is a critical step closer to that exciting future,” says Jaiwon Shin, who runs NASA’s aeronautics research. “People enjoying affordable, quiet, supersonic flights in the future will say April 3rd, 2018 is the day it all began.”
• Lockheed Martin’s task is to build a one-off, manned, flying example of a prototype it has been developing for a couple of years: the Low Boom Flight Demonstrator. The aircraft doesn’t have an official X designation yet — NASA will apply to the US Air Force for that in the next few months — but the logical guess is X-58. It would be the first manned X-plane in a generation, after a series of remote controlled demonstrators.
• The Low Boom Flight Demonstrator takes the Concorde’s long pointy nose and swept back wings to an extreme. The result looks like a missile with small wings, which should minimize the pressure waves that come off the plane in supersonic flight — they’re what make all the noise. The plane is designed to hit 940 mph and cruise at around 55,000 feet, far higher than the typical 35,000 for subsonic airliners. For people on the ground, Lockheed says, the shockwaves should sound more like a car door closing than the Concorde’s canon-like boom. The jet will be propelled by one General Electric F414 engine, the sort used in F/A-18 fighters. The cockpit design will be the same as the rear seat in the T-38 training jet.
• “A supersonic manned X-plane — this is probably going to be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for me,” said Jim Less, one of two NASA pilots lined up to fly the plane from NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in California. “We’re all pretty excited.”
• If you too are excited about the idea of Yeager-ing your way across the country, get ready to wait. Although NASA hopes the technology will eventually lead to civilian airliners, this plane will be just 96 feet long, with room for a solo pilot. “This airplane, like the Bell X1, or the X15, is a purpose built experimental research aircraft,” says Dave Richardson, the director for air vehicle designs and technologies at Lockheed Martin. He says he fields a lot of questions about where the passengers or missiles go, but that this isn’t a prototype business jet or weapons system. Its mission isn’t carrying CEOs or taking out enemies — it’s defeating the boom.
• NASA hopes to start flying the plane in 2021, if Lockheed meets its production targets. To date, the contractor has tested scale models in a wind tunnel. (“I’ll lose a lot more hair in the time between now and then,” says Richardson.) It will operate over test ranges first, to make sure it’s safe, then start flying over select US cities in 2022, accompanied by surveys of the people on the ground. If all goes according to plane, those folks won’t be bothered — and eventually, they’ll be able to join in on the fun

A new ‘revolutionary’ high-speed aircraft design promises to ‘change air travel forever’ offering travel to more places in the world in shorter times from nearly anywhere.

• The six-seat TriFan 600 aircraft proposed by the XTI Aircraft Company on the crowdfunding website Start Engine last month, combines a helicopter’s ability to take off from and land on any helipad-sized flat surface with the speed and mileage range of private jets. The new design would remove the need for runways and ‘airport-to-airport’ travel, potentially saving travellers hundreds of hours a year in flight journey times.
• Made with three advanced ducted fans which propel its vertical lift, two high performance turbo shaft engines and lightweight carbon fiber materials, the TriFan 600 is said to reach its maximum cruise speed of 400mph in 90 seconds, while reaching its maximum cruise altitude of more than 30,000 feet (9144 metres) above predominant weather in 11 minutes.
• Other high-tech features include advanced safety functions such as an autopilot mode and computerised controls for take-off and landing, and a sleek sliding cover which neatly hides away its central fan during the forward horizontal flight.
• The aircraft’s “exceptionally spacious interior” with “elegant surfaces and intelligent high-tech features” is said to offer “unparalleled cabin comfort” with enough space to carry overnight bags.
• The plane’s unique application of the latest aviation technology and combination of aircraft capabilities is said to offer a more efficient way of travel between any two points than any other traditional jet, helicopter or VTOL (vertical take off and landing) aircraft currently available.
• Initially aimed at business travellers, the designers believe the TriFan 600 will have future implications for travellers in various travel sectors, from leisure and personal to medical, looking to travel in shorter periods and access destinations not served by airlines .
• The aircraft’s expected preliminary retail price is currently set at $US10-$US12 million ($A14-$A29 million) per TriFan 600.
• While the TriFan 600 might become the first small aircraft to offer a vertical take-off, earlier this year Boeing’s new 787 Dreamliner displayed a near-vertical ascent in a test flight before the Paris Air Show. Seemingly defying laws of physics, it ascended into the sky in Washington, where the company is based, showing off some stomach-churning maneouvres in the sky.
• The TriFan 600 is just one of several futuristic plane designs that claim to radically change the way we travel.
• Earlier this year, KLM’s proposed AHEAD (Advanced Hybrid Engine Aircraft Development) aircraft featuring a “blended wing” seamlessly connected to the plane was said to minimise drag and therefore reduce fuel consumption, while its completely new engine design would provide better efficiency.
• Last year, the Boston-based engineering firm Spike Aerospace unveiled plans to develop Spike S-512, a 12–18 seater supersonic private jet designed for commercial use and supposedly capable of flying from New York to London in under four hours — that’s about half the time taken by current commercial flights.
• HyperMach Aerospace previously proposed the development of SonicStar, a jet it claims would allow travel from London to Sydney in an afternoon or from New York to London in about an hour. The firm estimated it could enter production in the 2020s

NASA’S NEWEST X-PLANE COULD REVIVE SUPERSONIC FLIGHT FOR THE MASSES was originally published in Exponential Technologies / Industrial Revolutions Based Infrastructure on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.