GeeWizDriver

The G650 is certified to .925 which is the fastest civil airplane flying (okay, the "new" Citation X bumped from .92 to .93 - in a tube half the size) A buddy flies the G650 and he says the fuel suck escalates dramatically to go from their normal cruise of .86 to high speed at .92 although it's nice to have that speed in your back pocket when you're late for a slot.

I've followed the Aerion project since well before it's current form. 4200-4500 mile range at 1.4 was the number they settled on for the balance point where the time on the tech stop for North America to/from Asia could be sufficiently overcome by cruise speed and North America to/from most of Europe would be doable.

Aerion claims the current design can be "boomless" to 1.2 but that would still require a regulatory change. There have been hearings in DC on the regulations and the environmental Gretas turned out to decry "raping the environment" yet again to benefit the uber-rich. Difficult optics and a tough sell in cancel-culture America. I don't see the rules changing for over land supersonic flight. Ever.

Ultimately, I see it coming down to the powerplant being flexible enough and efficient enough to make the numbers work. Safran couldn't do it but maybe GE can with the Passport.

TransWorld

Is there data to prove that?

Flyfalcons

To prove what?

TransWorld

Mach 1.2 has no boom on the ground.

GeeWizDriver

Over the years, multiple flight test experiments to reduce sonic boom have been conducted, mostly by NASA through the Dryden Research group. Search "Quiet Spike." The data gleaned from those experiments and others have given the pocket-protector crowd a pretty good data set to make predictions about transonic and supersonic noise signatures.

But the regulation refers to the SPEED. Not the level of noise. It will STILL take a regulatory change to enable over land supersonic flight. I just don't see that happening with the growing political influence of the Greens.

Flyfalcons

I literally said this is their advertisment and who knows if it will come to fruition. I know this because I said "Aerion is advertising that a speed of M1.0-1.2 will prevent the sonic boom from reaching the ground. Will that come to fruition, anyone's guess. "

MinRest

Yea, over water ops will be where this really shines. Flying 1.0 from SFO to TEB is all but pointless when you get slowed down over Ohio lol.

rickair7777

There is research, in both industry and government, to reduce the boom to acceptable levels. Even restricted to over-water, it still has a lot of utility for trans-atlantic and trans-pacific. With a max altitude of FL600, it can probably just go VFR-direct over the top of the NATS.

If they can make it quiet enough to get authorized to fly supersonic over CONUS, bonus.

I think the .gov is pretty open to changing the hard ban to a specific noise standard, ie decibels, frequency, and waveform, whatever is ultimately deemed to be not very annoying to folks on the ground. As far as the gretas, they may be able to deflect that by using SAF, etc. Also consider that the environmental elites in government (ex Gore, Kerry) surely enjoy their private jets.

https://www.faa.gov/news/fact_sheets...m?newsId=22754

Ultimately, reasonably assuming that aviation will be made fairly green one way or another, commonly-available supersonic flight will open up travel (and commerce) in a manner not seen since the advent of the jet age.

rickair7777

It's been demonstrated (by NASA IIRC), what they have to do is apply it to a commercial application. It may not be that zero noise reaches the ground but rather no sharp boom (N-wave), so maybe more like a low rumbling (similar to distant thunder).

Fly Dog

Your guess is wrong. Flex made that deal over 5 years ago. If you think Kenn Ricci, as a visionary, is going to abandon the Aerion, you are mistaken.

I am not aware of any layoffs and I work there. Every fleet has been flying balls to the wall.

According the FlightAware, we have 10 G-450s and 4 G-650s (two more G deliveries this year). So it appears that program hasn’t been abandoned either.