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Sonic Boom Assumes New Shape
Image to right: Northrop Grumman Corportion's modified U.S. Navy-F-5E
Shaped Sonic Boom Demonstration (SSBD) aircraft flies over the company's
Palmdale, California facilities on August 2, 2003.
An aircraft that could fly at supersonic speeds over land opens new
frontiers in passenger and cargo flight by decreasing travel time and
improving mobility.
A key challenge to over-land flight is learning how to lower the impact
of sonic booms. Under the Shaped Sonic Boom Demonstration* project, NASA
researchers and their partners modified the forward section of an F-5E
aircraft to give a new shape to the shockwave and its accompanying sonic
aftereffect. Test flights of the aircraft in August 2003 proved the
theory that the modified shape can reduce the intensity of sonic boom
noise.
Work to measure the effects of sonic booms over land continued in
January 2004 when NASA flew the same modified F-5E on an additional
series of 21 flights under the Shaped Sonic Boom Experiment. In April
2005, NASA began a series of month-long tests using an F-18 in special
flight maneuvers that would generate low-altitude sonic booms to be
measured by microphones, and sometimes human researchers, on the ground.
Resulting data has been compiled into a database to capture the results
of these multi-year efforts.
Shaped Sonic Boom Demonstration Team
NASA Langley Research Center, NASA Dryden Flight Research Center, NASA
Glenn Research Center; Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Company; Defense
Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA); The Boeing Company; U.S. Air
Force Research Laboratory; Northrop Grumman; General Electric; Eagle
Aeronautics, Inc.; Gulfstream Aerospace; Naval Air Systems Command;
Raytheon Aircraft; Wyle Laboratories; Institute for Defense Analysis;
U.S. Air Force Aeronautical Systems Center
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