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A level of skepticism is understandable, especially in an industry known for physical vaporware, but I believe the elements are now in place to make this a reality.įor one thing, Gulfstream is now owned by General Dynamics, a conglomerate with deep pockets and significant experience with supersonic flight. So what has changed to make supersonic flight a potential reality for passengers? After all, we’ve had supersonic aircraft since the late 1940s, and airliners capable of the feat for half a century now. They determined that there wasn’t enough of a market to proceed. Sukhoi also partnered with Gulfstream on a potential Mach 2+ business jet called the S-21 in the early 90s. The X-54 is rumored to be an experimental stab at overcoming the challenges of domestic supersonic passenger flight. The Quiet Spike project has/had an offshoot called the Gulfstream X-54, which could very well be in development at this very moment. What’s stranger than a 24 foot spike on the front of an F-15? A Gulfstream logo on an F-15. The goal was to find ways to make transonic flight possible over the continental U.S. Spike Aerospace has designs on one, and Gulfstream worked with NASA on a project called Quiet Spike in 20 where they retrofitted an F-15 with a 24 foot-long retractable nose spike to experiment with reductions in the sonic boom footprint.
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There’s nothing on the horizon in that department from the airlines, but for the corporate/charter folks, there is plenty of research and development taking place. More like the return of supersonic passenger aircraft. Well, perhaps “return” isn’t the proper word, because GA has never had them. I’m talking about the return of supersonic aircraft to general aviation. It begs the question: what comes next? I believe we’re headed back to the future. The VLJ sector has brought small, quiet, efficient business jets to market, while on the ultra-large cabin side, today’s airplanes fly higher, faster, and further than ever before.īut we’re pressing up against the limits of what’s possible through the continuing evolution of current designs. Over the past couple of decades, competition and market demand for ever more capable business aircraft has revolutionized that segment of general aviation. When it comes to atmospheric flight, the most exciting developments are no longer taking place at Boeing or Airbus. The space program has some promising “green shoots” with the Orion/SLS program and the emergence of third-party spaceships from companies like SpaceX and Sierra Nevada’s Dream Chaser. Visit any airport this side of Mojave and tell me I’m wrong. While the march of computer technology has certainly eclipsed anything we could have dreamed of in the 60s, aerospace has, in many ways, stagnated. By 2014 we were going to be colonizing Mars! unable to launch a man into space on its own? Or that Concorde would be a dusty museum piece replaced by aircraft which lack the speed, altitude, and glamor of that legendary delta-winged craft? Anyone prescient enough to make that call would have been laughed out of the room. I wonder, who could have predicted that the year 2014 would see the U.S. In the realm of atmospheric flight, the 1960s saw the development and construction of the first supersonic passenger aircraft, the stratospheric cruising and futuristic-looking Concorde. Over the course of a single decade, the United States went from being unable to reliably launch a rocket (nearly half of the twenty-nine attempts in 1960 were failures) to putting men on the moon and bringing them back to Earth in one piece. Despite wars - both hot and cold - abroad and social upheaval at home, the 1960s must have been an incredible time for those in and around the aerospace industry.