I’m tired of Doom and Gloom posts, and thought it was time to post something that makes me happy.
Have a look at this:
That’s the Aeiron Business Jet. Pretty huh? Not only is it pretty, it’s ground breaking.
Aeiron have figured out how to defeat the formation of a shockwave at supersonic speeds (they call their design technique “Supersonic Natural Laminar Flow”). This is a big deal for two reasons:
- It takes a lot of energy to make that sonic boom. By stopping its formation, you save lots of fuel. This means supersonic air travel might just become affordable for the man on the street in the future.
- The sonic boom is very disruptive, being loud and damaging, meaning that it is illegal to fly supersonic over US land. That could change in the future if there is a really quiet supersonic plane, ALSO meaning we could all be travelling from A to B at supersonic speeds in the future.
I have family all over the world. Being able to do those long trips at faster than the speed of sound would be great. And, I’m an engineering geek, and it’s just cool. 
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