Steve Pace
Aviation History Writer
- Joined
- 6 January 2013
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The Skunk Works is to build a single, piloted LBFD aircraft which is shown here.
LBFD: Low Boom Flight Demonstrator
6/25/14 – contract award
By federal law there can be no commercial supersonic transports traversing the contiguous United States. This is the primary reason the government cancelled the U.S. Supersonic Transport (SST) program in (date) and the reason the doublesonic British/French Concorde SST wasn’t allowed to cross over U.S. territory when it was operating.
NASA – in particular its NASA-Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia has continued to investigate the flight of aircraft with low sonic boom levels as part of its Structures, Materials, Aerodynamics, Aerothermodynamics and Acoustics Research and Technology (SMAAART) program.
To do this in part it tasked the Skunk Works® with low sonic boom technology work with the award of a contract on June 11, 2014. This contract calls for the creation of a Low Boom Flight Demonstrator (LBFD) aircraft.
The LBFD aircraft is to be a piloted air vehicle that will be flown to measure sonic boom levels over select communities. And under the NASA SMAAART program it is hoped that federal regulations governing acceptable sonic boom levels can be developed through the flight testing of the LBFD air vehicle.
-SP
LBFD: Low Boom Flight Demonstrator
6/25/14 – contract award
By federal law there can be no commercial supersonic transports traversing the contiguous United States. This is the primary reason the government cancelled the U.S. Supersonic Transport (SST) program in (date) and the reason the doublesonic British/French Concorde SST wasn’t allowed to cross over U.S. territory when it was operating.
NASA – in particular its NASA-Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia has continued to investigate the flight of aircraft with low sonic boom levels as part of its Structures, Materials, Aerodynamics, Aerothermodynamics and Acoustics Research and Technology (SMAAART) program.
To do this in part it tasked the Skunk Works® with low sonic boom technology work with the award of a contract on June 11, 2014. This contract calls for the creation of a Low Boom Flight Demonstrator (LBFD) aircraft.
The LBFD aircraft is to be a piloted air vehicle that will be flown to measure sonic boom levels over select communities. And under the NASA SMAAART program it is hoped that federal regulations governing acceptable sonic boom levels can be developed through the flight testing of the LBFD air vehicle.
-SP
