NASA’s silent supersonic jet flies
The X-59 produces a lower sound thanks to its unique design. It was given a long, narrow nose that took up about a third of the overall length, eliminating pressure waves that would otherwise merge into other parts of the aircraft. The engine was mounted on top of the X-59’s fuselage, rather than underneath it like a fighter jet, to maintain a flat underbody that limits shock waves and also directs sound waves up into the sky rather than toward the ground. NASA’s goal is to provide key data to aircraft manufacturers so they can build quieter supersonic aircraft.
A jet like no other
The X-59 is a single-seat, single-engine jet. It is 99.7 feet long and 29.5 feet wide, nearly twice the length of an F-16 fighter jet, but with a slightly shorter wingspan. The X-59’s cockpit and ejection seat come from the T-38 training jet, its landing gear from the F-16, and its control stick from the F-117 stealth attack aircraft. Its engine, a modified General Electric F414 from the F/A-18 jet fighter, allows the plane to cruise at Mach 1.4, about 925 miles per hour, at an altitude of 55,000 feet. That’s almost twice as far and twice as fast as commercial airliners normally fly.
Perhaps the most notable change in the X-59 is that the cockpit window does not have glass. Instead, the cockpit is completely enclosed to be as aerodynamic as possible, and the pilot watches the camera feed of the outside world on a 4K monitor called the External View System.
“When you’re looking at it at a very shallow angle, you can’t see clearly through the glass, and so you have to have a certain tilt of the sight plane to get good optical quality, and that creates a strong shock wave that really messes up the low-canopy characteristics of the aircraft,” says Michael Buonano, the air vehicle lead for the X-59 Martined at Lockhe.
For the first flight, the X-59 flew at a lower altitude and at a speed of about 240 miles per hour, according to NASA. During future tests, NASA said, the jet will gradually increase its speed and altitude until it reaches supersonic speed, which occurs at about 659 mph at 55,000 feet, or 761 mph at sea level. The speed of sound changes less depending on temperature and pressure, and it decreases at high altitudes.
“The main goal on the first flight is really just to land,” James Less, the pilot of the X-59 project who will fly future flights, tells WIRED. Less flew an F-15 fighter jet with the X-59 as a support aircraft during the flight and observed the new test jet for any problems.
