{"id":282116,"date":"2025-07-22T09:12:13","date_gmt":"2025-07-22T09:12:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/282116\/"},"modified":"2025-07-22T09:12:13","modified_gmt":"2025-07-22T09:12:13","slug":"nasa-tests-new-quiet-supersonic-plane-capable-of-london-new-york-flight-in-under-four-hours","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/282116\/","title":{"rendered":"NASA tests new \u2018quiet\u2019 supersonic plane capable of London-New York flight in under four hours"},"content":{"rendered":"

NASA has begun testing a new supersonic<\/a> aircraft, almost 22 years after Concorde<\/a> flew its last passenger service.<\/p>\n

The \u201cquiet\u201d X-59 research aircraft \u2013 99.7 feet long, with a wingspan of 29.7 feet \u2013 is designed to fly faster than the speed of sound, without generating loud sonic booms.<\/p>\n

On 10 July, NASA <\/a>test pilot Nils Larson performed the X-59\u2019s first low-speed taxi test at US Air Force Plant 42 in Palmdale, California.<\/p>\n

During the taxi test, flight<\/a> crews monitored steering and braking systems as the aircraft manoeuvred the runway.<\/p>\n

According to NASA: \u201cOver the coming weeks, the aircraft will gradually increase its speed, leading up to a high-speed taxi test that will take the aircraft just short of the point where it would take off.\u201d<\/p>\n

The X-59 is part of NASA\u2019s Quesst mission to complete a quiet supersonic flight with a \u201cthump\u201d rather than a sonic boom.<\/p>\n

The space administration says that the aircraft is expected to fly at 1.4 times the speed of sound, or 925mph, with the potential to connect New York and London in three and a half hours.<\/p>\n

NASA said that data gathered from the X-59 test flights will be used to inform \u201cacceptable noise thresholds\u201d for commercial supersonic flights over land.<\/p>\n

On 27 April 1973, the US federal government banned all civilian supersonic flights over land to prevent the resulting sonic booms from startling the public.<\/p>\n

NASA’s Quesst mission integration manager Peter Coen previously said: \u201cInstead of a rule based solely on speed, we are proposing the rule be based on sound. If the sound of a supersonic flight isn\u2019t loud enough to bother anyone below, there\u2019s no reason why the airplane can\u2019t be flying supersonic.\u201d<\/p>\n

Concorde, the last supersonic passenger service, was operated by British Airways from New York’s JFK Airport to London’s Heathrow Airport on 24 October 2003.<\/p>\n

The supersonic aircraft suffered a catastrophic crash in Paris on 25 July 2000, which, along with high operating costs and declining passenger numbers,\u00a0caused the aircraft to be retired.<\/p>\n

For more travel news and advice, listen to Simon Calder\u2019s podcast<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NASA has begun testing a new supersonic aircraft, almost 22 years after Concorde flew its last passenger service.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":282117,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7757],"tags":[748,393,4884,257,874,106004,106003,106005,7420,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-282116","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-london","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-london","12":"tag-nasa","13":"tag-passenger-service","14":"tag-research-aircraft","15":"tag-sonic-booms","16":"tag-supersonic-flight","17":"tag-uk","18":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114896119009804978","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282116","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=282116"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282116\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/282117"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=282116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=282116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=282116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}