Windowless(ish) Super Sonic Transport?

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#1

I got this article (well, one like it) dropped into my inbox today…


So what do you pilot-types think? Wanna fly in a plane with no forward-facing window?

Aside from this foray into the possible future of Super Sonic Transport… I also took a quick trek down memory lane, inspired by this. As a youngster in rural Texas, I recall sonic booms happening “not infrequently” (a phrase I’ve come to adopt, meaning, to my recollection, once a week or so, maybe more). I have reasonably distinct memories (which is unusual for me) of playing in our back yard among the pecan trees, hearing the boom, and trying to spot the plane. I don’t remember exactly when I quit hearing them, but sometime in my early adulthood it struck me - It’s been YEARS since I’ve heard a sonic boom! I wonder what happened…
Turns out, as far as I can tell, mostly politics. I have no idea what kind of aircraft were making those booms. And I never heard a single complaint; in fact, most people continued to marvel that humans were capable of super sonic flight at no apparent adverse affect, and the more adventurous hoped one day to experience it. But apparently in the era between 1970 and 1990, domestic super sonic flights were made to stop by laws, regardless of their source. To this day, I think that was a mistake. The Concorde was One Bad Mother, and should have been given her head to roam domestic skies on x-continentals. Nope. Instead, Super Sonic Transport was given the death sentence, with “research” on it being handed off to NASA, and subsequently meticulously strangled to death through various avenues. But it’s never truly died. I think others like me, with more pull or influence than me, still think SST should or could be viable. So it crops up every once in a while. This is one of the latest efforts. Windows or no, I stand and applaud. “Ahead full!” I shout. Let’s see what’s next…

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#2

Cool airplane. We actually fly pretty speedy drones half way around the world already. When you combine the amazing navigations systems with GPS and surveillance technology as well as ordinance it is really amazing we’ve waited as long as we have to remove the pilots completely. In my own Air National Guard unit two crew members, the flight engineer and navigator, were removed from the flight deck of the C-130 and replaced by a so-called glass cockpit.

Press on. You’ve got to love a drone with the destructive power to destroy a whole city flying above you routinely. They’ve not equipped them with nukes yet, but there’s nothing to prevent them from doing so.

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#3

I share the rural Texas memories of sonic booms in the 50s and 60s and the almost total lack since then. I was in bed here in Dallas when I heard the Space Shuttle Columbia explosion which immediately brought to mind the old sonic boons.

Last year in Galveston I kept hearing what sounded exactly like sonic booms. At first I thought it might be something like construction blasting. Finally I googled and found out that it was for real.
https://www.khou.com/article/news/local/nasa-creating-quiet-sonic-booms-over-galveston/285-614200310

Is quiet sonic boom an oxymoron?

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#4

When you train for your IFR (instrument rating) license you wear a helmet that only let’s you see the gages.

I can see some advantages to a screen: can shift to IR or thermal. Drone pilots take-off and land using just a screen.

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#5

Empirically, no.
Check out this video


(loathe though I am to use “daily mail” as a source, this is an interesting video, and that’s where I found it)
That is definitely, measurably, a much quieter boom…

Also interesting that my family’s more southern-dwelling contingent hasn’t mentioned a thing… Maybe they aren’t close enough to the action, being more northward of Houston, but that in itself is an interesting thing…

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#6

We were in an RV on the beach. The sound was unmistakable but not very loud. In a house or commercial building it would have been much softer and may not have been noticeable. I guessed that the origin was out over the gulf but I was not sure. Articles always mentioned Galveston so it was likely not expected to be heard in Houston or beyond.

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#7

Here all along I thought IFR stood for “I Fly Roads”. Ha! Ha!

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#8

That’s IFRR - I fly railroads. :smiley:

Russell Ward

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#9

The display is more or less a necessity given the shape of the fuselage. I suppose you could use mirrors and optics to get a view that doesn’t rely on a display but then you’d add weight and a bunch of optics that would cost more and get a worse image. The 4K display at that distance has more resolution than our eyes can perceive and it’s not going to be a typical consumer display (probably redundant power and signal processing) so I think I’d be okay with it. Then again I’m not a pilot. I like what @Photomancer pointed out about switching spectrum. There’s all kinds of tricks you can play with a system like that (computer vision, amplification, augmented reality, etc.).

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