Lockheed moves towards QueSST PDR

Skunk Works should complete PDR on their quiet SST design by June, and then move on to CDR with NASA. They plan to put a 9% model into a high speed wind tunnel to test before flying.

Once flight tests start at the Armstrong Flight Center, Lockheed expects to see a reduction of 1,000 times current sonic boom footprints. After flying at Palmdale they will move to various communities around the country to measure effects.

www.flightglobal.com...

a reply to: Zaphod58

OK can you explain the 9% scale but 90 feet long for me or am I missing something ??

Thanks

a reply to: mikell

It's 9% of the total weight and size of the aircraft. To get the weight they wanted they had to go fairly large.

a reply to: Zaphod58

I guess all that technology is burning a hole in their pockets, isn't it.

a reply to: Barnalby

Might as well make some money off it.

a reply to: Zaphod58

So what is the reduction of the "sonic boom" to facilitate faster fighter jets flights over populated areas or to let super sonic commercial jets to get closer to population centers before they have to throttle back? Both?

a reply to: Aliensun

Both. QueSST is more for commercial operations and that's where most of the benefit will go, but it will also benefit future military projects. Not so much for fighters, but for future high speed ISR platforms and the like.

a reply to: Zaphod58

I will laugh out loud if Boeing gets its military operations rejuvenated by T-X and ASH sales while Northrop wins F-XX and Lockheed has to get back into the civil airliner market to keep the cash coming in.

I wonder how much they kick themselves for building the L-1011 instead of the L-2000.

a reply to: Barnalby

That would be pretty funny. Skunk Works Commercial Division.

First thing I thought about was the cartoon Johny Quest. I wonder if that had anything to do with the creation of the name?

questfan.com... But that was named the Dragonfly.

originally posted by: mikell
a reply to: Zaphod58

OK can you explain the 9% scale but 90 feet long for me or am I missing something ??

Thanks

The physics of the problem demand the plane to be long and slender. You want to avoid sudden cross section changes.

originally posted by: moebius

originally posted by: mikell
a reply to: Zaphod58

OK can you explain the 9% scale but 90 feet long for me or am I missing something ??

Thanks

The physics of the problem demand the plane to be long and slender. You want to avoid sudden cross section changes.

I was thinking the 9% scaled up to 100 would have a plane 1000 feet long but the 9% only has to do with weight but I'm still confused because I figured the shape is the secret no matter the mass.

a reply to: moebius

I wonder if you could extend the shape of an otherwise short aircraft like a fighter jet via laser pulses to create a air spike ahead of the vehicle effectively giving it a longer fuselage or shockwave envelope around the vehicle in lue of a long telescopic poll on the nose like theyve experimented with or pencile like stretched out fuselages like current quiet boom planform depictions.

I bet something like desiging wingtips to resemble navy submarine screws in the smoothness and acuteness of their cutback or sweep would help too in cutting a boom down.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Would there be pictures of what this plane will look like?

Article doesn't have any because it no one knows yet?

a reply to: Zaphod58

Its funny they confidently say it will reduce the boom by 1000 as if they already know it will.

As for me i say we'll never be able to quiet a sonic boom successfully.

a reply to: D8Tee

The final design isn't finalized. That's what PDR and CDR do.

a reply to: Barnalby

Wow! I had forgotten all about the L-2000. But, now that I think about it, I do remember seeing the mock up.

"Skunk Works Commercial Div." Now that's funny!!

Isnt that what Gulfstreams playing with?

a reply to: Blackfinger

No, they're playing with a straightforward SST. They may try to get some footprint reduction into it, but not to this level.

a reply to: SonofaSkunk

The L-2000 was probably the best chance that the SST concept had in the 60s.

It wasn't small enough to be useful only as a niche aircraft like Concorde, and it didn't suffer the whole "pulling a technical Icarus, flying too high/too ambitiously, and getting torched up in the process" issue that plagued and killed the 2707.

Ticket prices would have been manageable, and it had enough range to make many more overseas routes work than Concorde could manage. Eventually, that success could have paved the way for supersonic corridors within the ConUS.

And what did Lockheed build instead? An also-ran widebody tri-jet that was hamstrung by the RB-211's teething problems only to get completely eviscerated by ETOPS barely a two decades later.