Monday, August 9, 2021

Supersonic is coming (not near you)

I was in transit Saturday afternoon - on United airlines, from DC(ish) to Denver. United's inflight rag regaled me with several boasts about their Sustainable supersonic option. They'd bought several such craft promising Mach 1.7. h/t Sabine Hossenfelder, NASA are looking into getting that sonic-boom quieter, around 2024. The X59.

"Sustainability" aside, the damn'd noise pollution is of concern where people are living, lookin' especially at densely-populated regions where the rich people take off and land... like Washington DC and New York City. That's what limited the Concorde.

So until that little problem is solved, expect United to be flying their supersonics to distant suburbs, or to parts of the world where the people are such people as Hossenfelder and the United C-suite doesn't like such as Trump voters who fly "Economy". Actually Denver's aeroport isn't a bad idea for the former. United won't be flying to DC/NYC until they get X59.

Then there's that Branson / Rolls-Royce thingy at Mach 3. That'll probably always be exurban.

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