NASA/Lockheed Martin X-59A Quiet Supersonic Technology (QueSST)

the design reminds me of the old days, when you had all those supersonic experimental aircraft in the 50s
 
doe pilot eject prior to it piercing the enemy's aircraft or it's built to be sturdy enough that pilot can safely stay inside cockpit and maneuver it to the next target?
 
donnage99 said:
doe pilot eject prior to it piercing the enemy's aircraft or it's built to be sturdy enough that pilot can safely stay inside cockpit and maneuver it to the next target?
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It's meant for popping balloons, obviously.
 
Kiltonge said:
So, aerodynamics very different to those of the F-5E SSBD testbed. Curious.

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The purpose of that design was to take a known quantity, the sonic boom from an F-5, and show that careful shaping could be used to reduce the strength of the shock. The test was a success and proved that. The X-59 is a test to see how low we can get the boom down to and to test what the threshold may be between unacceptable to people on the ground versus what wouldn't bother them.
 
Sundog said:
The purpose of that design was to take a known quantity, the sonic boom from an F-5, and show that careful shaping could be used to reduce the strength of the shock. The test was a success and proved that. The X-59 is a test to see how low we can get the boom down to and to test what the threshold may be between unacceptable to people on the ground versus what wouldn't bother them.
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One of the unfortunate correlaries with the shaping for boom reduction is that it is very different from the transonic area rule shaping.
 
Western Museum of Flight said:
Lockheed Martin/NASA X-59 Quesst Mission with Nils Larson and Jim Less
Boom Proof – Quiet SupersonicThe quest for supersonic transportation over populated areas without the disruptive and destructive sonic boom is being explored with the help of this unique research aircraft. Hear the aircraft’s test pilots, Nils Larson and James Less, describe the airplane, its goals, and the plan for its future achievements.
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View: https://youtu.be/YH_S5ulR3i8?si=OGW6RSohZb2ZQMyD
 
Sundog said:
The X-59 is a test to see how low we can get the boom down to and to test what the threshold may be between unacceptable to people on the ground versus what wouldn't bother them.
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I see what you're saying, but the X-59 looks like a dead-end in terms of configuration for quiet SSTs. It is impractical to scale it to an airliner with any economic payload.

So even if it does demonstrate sonic 'thump' instead of boom, a new raft of research will be needed to find practical designs that can implement that capability economically. So... what's the X-59 really contributing?
 
Kiltonge said:
I see what you're saying, but the X-59 looks like a dead-end in terms of configuration for quiet SSTs. It is impractical to scale it to an airliner with any economic payload.

So even if it does demonstrate sonic 'thump' instead of boom, a new raft of research will be needed to find practical designs that can implement that capability economically. So... what's the X-59 really contributing?
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With the exception of the super extended nose, the X-59 generally resembles several different Supersonic transports or business jets. The real question is: "where do we need to put engines on full sized transports?" (as opposed to Business Jet sized craft)

Let's go big and take the Boeing 2707-300 (that's the production cathedral wing version, not the swing-wing) and stretch the nose out 100ft or so for boom control. It would require some new, longer jetways to get from the terminal to the plane. IIRC another 3-5 sections of corridor. Which are standardized parts, funny enough. So it's a relatively minor cost adjustment at the airport end, they'd only need to do that to a couple of jetways per airport. NYC-LA or NYC-Seattle are about the only overland routes I see being viable at supersonic speeds, the plane really exists for NYC-London/Paris or LA-Honolulu or LA-Tokyo flights. A 3600nmi flight takes about 3 hours, a bit under 2 hours of that at Mach 2.7 and 65,000ft.

This will haul some 300 passengers at 40" seat pitch (distance from seatback to seatback), but that was 1970 standards for air travel. Modern seat pitch is 32" for economy, which will get us up to about 375 seats or so. A bit light for an aircraft weighing more than a 747, but not unreasonable. It's not like airports can really handle more than about 350 passengers per plane arriving at one time anyways, so that's fine.

I'd use the longer nose to justify putting the nose gear directly under the pilot's seat, which would address a ground operations issue with the 2707. Driving the 2707 on the ground is weird because the pilot's seat is well forward of the NLG, some 60ft(!), so the swing in turns is rather extreme.
 
If it proves relable supersonic transport over inhabited lands, anyone would be ready to see the profitable future that lies beyond the nose tip.

Regarding the projected length of a derived commercial aircraft, in the domain of businesse jets, remember that these have considerably grown in size to accommodate comfortably passengers on long haul travel. If then flight time is reduced by three, a lot of the amenities like internal volume or cabin length would go on the shopping board first as being irrelevant. It's way more comfortable to spend your time in a 5 star hotel than in an aluminum tubular airframe. No VIP suite are built in a soda can!
 
It looks more like a record breaker one off airframe than a scaleable prototype, but hey, perhaps the X-3 Stiletto was onto something after all...
 
TomcatViP said:
If it proves relable supersonic transport over inhabited lands, anyone would be ready to see the profitable future that lies beyond the nose tip.

Regarding the projected length of a derived commercial aircraft, in the domain of businesse jets, remember that these have considerably grown in size to accommodate comfortably passengers on long haul travel. If then flight time is reduced by three, a lot of the amenities like internal volume or cabin length would go on the shopping board first as being irrelevant. It's way more comfortable to spend your time in a 5 star hotel than in an aluminum tubular airframe. No VIP suite are built in a soda can!
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For Business Jets, IIRC the typical load is 5-8 people, but they do need enough cabin diameter to stand up straight. Good thing we get to use area ruling to our advantage, use a fairly large diameter passenger compartment ahead of the wing, use the wasp waisted part as fuel tanks.


martinbayer said:
It looks more like a record breaker one off airframe than a scaleable prototype, but hey, perhaps the X-3 Stiletto was onto something after all...
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In a way it is a record breaker: quietest ever sonic boom.
 
Kiltonge said:
I see what you're saying, but the X-59 looks like a dead-end in terms of configuration for quiet SSTs. It is impractical to scale it to an airliner with any economic payload.

So even if it does demonstrate sonic 'thump' instead of boom, a new raft of research will be needed to find practical designs that can implement that capability economically. So... what's the X-59 really contributing?
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That's not the point of the X-59. It is not meant to be a configuration to demonstrate a new SST. It is designed to be able to vary it's boom strength to test a range of boom strength's to determine the limits of what is acceptable. Go through this site and look up the N3 SST designs the primes have made for NASA. They incorporate low boom design tech and Lockheed even presented a low boom SST design alongside the X-59 design. The problem is, while they now know how to design for low boom, they don't know what the boom spec. is required to be to make their designs acceptable. NASA needs to answer that question before they can finalize their low boom SST designs and the X-59 will provide the data for that answer.
 
Surprised to not see this thread be as big as the NGAD thread, considering this is an pretty big step in aircraft design and evolution. Already have my youtube notification set for when the rollout livestream starts.
 
Bounce said:
Sadly no droop snoot :(
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With cameras under the nose, you don’t need a droop snoot.
His jets have been flying with “artificial vision” for a good 15 years now. Artificial vision combines feeds from an under-nose camera with ILS data to fill in the gaps on heads-up-displays.
 
Kinda underwhelming rollout TBH. At some points there was no audio or it sounded bitcrushed. Although i still wonder why were they apparently fine with leaving the XVS's camera unevenly protruding out and not blended into the nose, not only here but also in renders of future airliners. Maybe they should take some inspiration from Ace Combat.
/s
AC7_FALKEN_Front_Camera.png
 
This program taste like some DIY project since a while (remember that Pic with the dozen supervisors watching a lone operator using a wrench?). See the impressive delay assembling something that remains a classical airframe when it comes to manufacturing. Then the u unofficial rollout just to plunge it back in hangar for 6 (?) extra months.
 
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TomcatViP said:
This program taste like some DIY project since a while (remember that Pic with the dozen supervisors watching a lone operator using a wrench?). See the impressive delay assembling something that remains a classical airframe when it comes to manufacturing. Then the u unofficial rollout just to plunge it back in hangar for 6 (?) extra months.
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Reasons for delays were explained quite clearly in prior posts in this thread like COVID and aeroelasticity issues - and last ones because X-59A is far from definition of 'classical' airframe (just to mention its CFRP nose with almost 40% of fuselage lenght hanging on 7 bolts).
 
In essence, the public is paying $630 million to change a few paragraphs in the relevant FAA regulations. It is doing so with no real prospect at present of an emerging market for supersonic passenger travel.
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www.forbes.com

$630 Million To Change a Regulation: NASA’s X-59 Has Questionable ROI

NASA’s newest X-plane rolled out last week. Though pitched as potentially ushering in an era of supersonic transport its real goal is not commensurate with its cost.
www.forbes.com www.forbes.com
 
I knew fairly well that I should have redacted the begining of that quote...
In essence was too much of a provocation for some.
 
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Orionblamblam said:
Sheesh. Some people are just too grumpy.

Here, let's trigger most everybody: the X-59 will lead not only to SSTs with their annoying soft Sonic Thumps, but also to Rich People both enjoying themselves *and* rolling coal on a global scale, AND to climate geoengineering via adding sulfur compounds to the fuel to create honest to god chemtrails.
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If the chemtrails can stop people from believing in conspiracy theories, I say go for it.
 
Orionblamblam said:
Sheesh. Some people are just too grumpy.

Here, let's trigger most everybody: the X-59 will lead not only to SSTs with their annoying soft Sonic Thumps, but also to Rich People both enjoying themselves *and* rolling coal on a global scale, AND to climate geoengineering via adding sulfur compounds to the fuel to create honest to god chemtrails.
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Hell, one of the major reasons for the reduction of particulates, SOx and NOx was to prevent Global Cooling!

Obviously we have done too good a job at reducing particulates, so we need to add tankage specifically to increase particulates in the exhaust...
 
Scott Kenny said:
Hell, one of the major reasons for the reduction of particulates, SOx and NOx was to prevent Global Cooling!

Obviously we have done too good a job at reducing particulates, so we need to add tankage specifically to increase particulates in the exhaust...
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Try to service LOX converters with no bagels and no queso de creamosa, it knocks your SOx off, whata gas!
 

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