NASA’s silent supersonic aircraft is getting closer to its first test flight after passing engine testing.
Starting October 30, engineers in NASA’s X-59 Questt (Quiet Supersonic Technology) program conducted a series of tests with the jet’s engine at Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works facility. in Palmdale, California, according to Space. Testing takes place in phases. In preliminary testing, the team of engineers ran the X-59’s engines at low speed without firing to check for any leaks and ensure the plane’s various systems worked together smoothly. After that, the X-59 engineering team refueled the X-59 and checked the engine. They said that so far, the jet model has performed very well.
The X-59 is designed to cruise at a speed of Mach 1.4 (1,728 km/h) and an altitude of 16.7 km. The aircraft uses a modified General Electric F414-GE-100 jet engine. The F414 engine family is widely used in military aircraft, including some versions of the US Navy’s Boeing F/A-18 Super Hornet. NASA used the F/A-18 to simulate the sound of the X-59 and test the microphone and many other sound sensors.
The X-59’s design helps the vehicle fly faster than the speed of sound without creating the common sonic boom when overcoming the sound barrier. Currently, supersonic flight over land is banned by the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). NASA hopes the X-59 will help prove that supersonic flight can take place without creating deafening explosions. Domestic flight times could then be cut in half, supporting not only commercial aviation but also disaster relief and medical transport.
To reduce the volume of the sonic boom, the X-59 has a unique geometry that includes an elongated beak-like nose (11.5 m) compared to the aircraft’s total length of 30 m. Instead of emitting a loud explosion that shook the ground, the jet only made a light sound like a car door slamming when it passed the sound barrier. However, due to the elongated nose, pilots controlling the X-59 will have limited forward visibility. The aircraft’s cockpit doesn’t even have a window on the front but is equipped with an eXternal Vision System (XVS), which includes a camera connected to a screen in the cockpit, helping pilots see the front through real-world technology. virtual.
The next phase of testing involves feeding data into the aircraft’s computer system under both normal and malfunctioning conditions to see how the vehicle reacts. The X-59 will then take to the runway to examine how its surfaces, brakes and engines perform on the ground. NASA has not revealed the time when X-59 first took off. It is expected that the X-59 will fly over several US cities so that researchers can collect data on the softer sounds the aircraft makes, as well as the community’s reaction to that noise.