Fighting supersonic shockwaves at Dryden, Gulfstream

http://www.avpress.com/n/09/1009_s11.hts ^ | Monday, October 9, 2006

[BenLurkin]

Early fighter pilots were sometimes called knights of the air, a reflection of medieval times when knights used blunted lances in jousting tournaments to dismount competitors from their horses. Now, jet-borne jousting is combating supersonic shockwaves, hopefully enough to lessen the resulting sonic boom heard on the ground.

Gulfstream Aerospace and NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center have teamed in a project called Quiet Spike to investigate the suppression of sonic booms.

The project centers around a retractable, 24-foot-long lance-like spike mounted on the nose of NASA Dryden's F-15B research testbed aircraft. The spike, made primarily of composite materials, creates three small shock waves that travel parallel to each other all the way to the ground, producing less noise than typical shock waves that build up at the front of supersonic jets.

After mounting the giant spike on the aircraft, NASA Dryden engineers and technicians, working alongside their Gulfstream counterparts, conducted various ground-based structural tests of the telescoping spike before taking it to flight.

"The partnership between Gulfstream and Dryden during Quiet Spike installation and ground testing on the F-15B has produced a wealth of valuable information," said Leslie Molzahn, NASA Dryden's operations engineer on the project. "The duration of this flight test effort will prove to be exciting and informative for everyone involved."

"Working with Gulfstream has provided a significant advantage to this flight research project," added NASA project manager Michael Toberman. "This project merges Gulfstream's manufacturing expertise with NASA Dryden's flight test expertise."

[verum ago]

looks a bit unwieldy

[SunkenCiv]

thanks BenLurkin, just parking some related info in this 2006 topic you’d posted, stumbled across these while reading some financial articles.

http://www.aerionsupersonic.com/

http://www.spikeaerospace.com/s-512-supersonic-jet/

[Hot Tabasco]

I can’t remember when I last heard a sonic boom.....

[AFreeBird]

That's the idea behind this design, I think. They're trying to become the first supersonic business jet.

http://www.aerionsupersonic.com