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NASA Dryden Shaped Sonic Boom Demonstration Photo Collection
"Quieting the Boom: The Shaped Sonic Boom Demonstrator and the Quest for Quiet Supersonic Flight" by Lawrence R. Benson (NASA Aeronautics Book Series)
{{NASA space program NASA programs DARPA NASA aircraft Northrop Grumman aircraft
The NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research.
NASA was established in 1958, succeedin ...
Shaped Sonic Boom Demonstration, also known as the Shaped Sonic Boom Experiment, was a two-year program that used a Northrop F-5
The Northrop F-5 is a family of supersonic light fighter aircraft initially designed as a privately funded project in the late 1950s by Northrop Corporation. There are two main models, the original F-5A and F-5B Freedom Fighter variants and t ...
E with a modified fuselage
The fuselage (; from the French ''fuselé'' "spindle-shaped") is an aircraft's main body section. It holds crew, passengers, or cargo. In single-engine aircraft, it will usually contain an engine as well, although in some amphibious aircraft t ...
to demonstrate that the aircraft's shock wave, and accompanying sonic boom
A sonic boom is a sound associated with shock waves created when an object travels through the air faster than the speed of sound. Sonic booms generate enormous amounts of sound energy, sounding similar to an explosion or a thunderclap to ...
, can be shaped, and thereby reduced. The program was a joint effort between NASA's Langley Research Center
The Langley Research Center (LaRC or NASA Langley), located in Hampton, Virginia, United States of America, is the oldest of NASA's field centers. It directly borders Langley Air Force Base and the Back River on the Chesapeake Bay. LaRC has f ...
, Dryden Flight Research Center
The NASA Neil A. Armstrong Flight Research Center (AFRC) is an aeronautical research center operated by NASA. Its primary campus is located inside Edwards Air Force Base in California and is considered NASA's premier site for aeronautical rese ...
at Edwards Air Force Base
Edwards Air Force Base (AFB) is a United States Air Force installation in California. Most of the base sits in Kern County, but its eastern end is in San Bernardino County and a southern arm is in Los Angeles County. The hub of the base is ...
, California and Northrop Grumman
Northrop Grumman Corporation is an American multinational aerospace and defense technology company. With 90,000 employees and an annual revenue in excess of $30 billion, it is one of the world's largest weapons manufacturers and military tech ...
.
The program became, at that time (2003), the most extensive study on the sonic boom. After measuring the 1,300 recordings, some taken inside the shock wave by a chase plane, the SSBD demonstrated a reduction in boom by about one-third. Several of the flights included NASA Dryden's F-15B research testbed aircraft following to measure the F-5E's shock wave
In physics, a shock wave (also spelled shockwave), or shock, is a type of propagating disturbance that moves faster than the local speed of sound in the medium. Like an ordinary wave, a shock wave carries energy and can propagate through a me ...
signature close-up. During the flights, many shock wave patterns were measured by the F-15B at various distances and orientations from the F-5E.
An unmodified F-5E flew a few seconds behind the demonstration aircraft to provide a baseline sonic boom measurement to validate the reduced boom produced by the demonstrator.
A U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School
The U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School (USAF TPS) is the Air Force's advanced flight training school that trains experimental test pilots, flight test engineers, and flight test navigators to carry out tests and evaluations of new aerospace weapon ...
Blanik L-23 glider
Glider may refer to:
Aircraft and transport Aircraft
* Glider (aircraft), heavier-than-air aircraft primarily intended for unpowered flight
** Glider (sailplane), a rigid-winged glider aircraft with an undercarriage, used in the sport of gliding
...
carrying a microphone on the left wingtip, and a pressure transducer on the side of the fuselage, flew at a lower altitude of under the path of the F-5E, which flew at , to record sonic booms in the air. In addition, sonic boom data were gathered on the ground by an array of 42 sensors and recording devices along under the flight path of the F-5E. Dryden-developed boom amplitude and direction sensors recorded ground-level sonic boom signature data.
The demonstration was initially part of the Quiet Supersonic Platform program funded by Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is a research and development agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the development of emerging technologies for use by the military.
Originally known as the Adv ...
(DARPA). Subsequently, the vehicle systems division of NASA's Office of Aeronautics funded the project. Northrop-Grumman Corporation's Integrated Systems Sector in El Segundo, California
El Segundo ( , ; ) is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. Located on Santa Monica Bay, it was incorporated on January 18, 1917, and is part of the South Bay Cities Council of Governments. The population was 16,731 as of the ...
, modified the U.S. Navy
The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage o ...
F-5E aircraft into the SSBD aircraft. The aircraft is on display at the Valiant Air Command Warbird Museum
The Valiant Air Command, Inc. Warbird Museum (VAC) is located at the Space Coast Regional Airport in Brevard County, just south of Titusville, Florida. The VAC contains vintage aircraft and a hangar with a restoration area. The VAC also has a M ...
at Titusville, Florida
Titusville is a city in eastern Florida and the county seat of Brevard County, Florida, United States. The city's population was 43,761 as of the 2010 United States Census.
Titusville is located along the Indian River, west of Merritt Island and ...
.
See also
* Supersonic aerodynamics *Whitcomb area rule
The Whitcomb area rule, named after NACA engineer Richard Whitcomb and also called the transonic area rule, is a design procedure used to reduce an aircraft's drag at transonic speeds which occur between about Mach 0.75 and 1.2. For supersonic ...
*Sound barrier
The sound barrier or sonic barrier is the large increase in aerodynamic drag and other undesirable effects experienced by an aircraft or other object when it approaches the speed of sound. When aircraft first approached the speed of sound, th ...
*Mach number
Mach number (M or Ma) (; ) is a dimensionless quantity in fluid dynamics representing the ratio of flow velocity past a boundary to the local speed of sound.
It is named after the Moravian physicist and philosopher Ernst Mach.
: \mathrm = \f ...
* Quiet Spike
Quiet Spike was a collaborative program between Gulfstream Aerospace and NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center to investigate the suppression of sonic booms. The patent was published with the United States Patent and Trademark Office in 2004 and ...
* Low Boom Flight Demonstrator
* Gulfstream X-54
The Gulfstream X-54 is a proposed research and demonstration aircraft, under development in the United States by Gulfstream Aerospace for NASA, that is planned for use in sonic boom and supersonic transport research.
Design
Initiated during 200 ...
References
External links
* *NASA Dryden Shaped Sonic Boom Demonstration Photo Collection
"Quieting the Boom: The Shaped Sonic Boom Demonstrator and the Quest for Quiet Supersonic Flight" by Lawrence R. Benson (NASA Aeronautics Book Series)
{{NASA space program NASA programs DARPA NASA aircraft Northrop Grumman aircraft