transport: Concorde

Evidence: 59 • authority: 72

A supersonic transport (SST) or a supersonic airliner is a civilian supersonic aircraft designed to transport passengers at speeds greater than the speed of sound in terms of air speed. To date, the only SSTs to see regular service have been Concorde and the Tupolev Tu-144, although the Boom Technology Overture SST may succeed in starting service around 2029, which would make it the third operational SST. The last passenger flight of the Tu-144 was in June 1978 and it was last flown in 1999 by NASA. Concorde's last commercial flight was in October 2003, with a November 26, 2003, ferry flight being its last flight. Following the termination of flying by Concorde, there have been no SSTs in c…

Evidence: 52 • authority: 72

The North American Aviation XB-70 Valkyrie is a retired prototype version of the planned B-70 nuclear-armed, deep-penetration supersonic strategic bomber for the United States Air Force Strategic Air Command. Designed by North American Aviation in the late 1950s, the Valkyrie was a large six-engine, delta-winged aircraft able to fly Mach 3+ at an altitude of 70,000 feet (21,000 metres). At these speeds, it was expected that the B-70 would be practically immune to interceptor aircraft, the only effective weapon against bomber aircraft at the time. The bomber would spend only a brief time over a particular radar station, flying out of its range before the controllers could position their figh…

Evidence: 45 • authority: 72

Boom Overture is a supersonic airliner under development by Boom Technology. The aircraft is designed to cruise at a maximum speed of Mach 1.7 or 975 knots (1,806 km/h; 1,122 mph), and is expected to reach supersonic speeds without causing a sonic boom at ground level by taking advantage of a physics phenomenon known as mach cutoff. It is expected to carry 60 to 80 passengers, depending on configuration, with a range of 4,250 nautical miles [nmi] (7,870 km; 4,890 mi). Boom aims to introduce the Overture in 2029. The company projects a market for over 1,000 supersonic aircraft serving more than 600 viable routes, with fares comparable to business class. Featuring a delta wing design similar…

Evidence: 38 • authority: 92

Stabilized detonation for hypersonic propulsion.. Future terrestrial and interplanetary travel will require high-speed flight and reentry in planetary atmospheres by way of robust, controllable means. This, in large part, hinges on having reliable propulsion systems for hypersonic and supersonic flight. Given the availability of fuels as propellants, we likely will rely on some form of chemical or nuclear propulsion, which means using various forms of exothermic reactions and therefore combustion waves. Such waves may be deflagrations, which are subsonic reaction waves, or detonations, which are ultrahigh-speed supersonic reaction waves. Detonations are an extremely efficient, highly energe…

Evidence: 38 • authority: 92

Framing Multipolar Tourism: Imaginaries, Visualities and Futures.. This article examines multipolar iconography and how imaginaries of remote, climate-vulnerable places have materialized through improved transport, enhanced accommodation facilities, and increased human labor facilitating tourism. These imaginaries are perpetuated through technologies of visual culture, most commonly, through images taken on smartphones and circulated over social media platforms. We argue that a closer investigation and comparison of three distinct places not only illuminates the relationship between imaginaries and visualities as expressed through visual tourism practices but also demonstrates how these pra…

Evidence: 38 • authority: 92

Cosmic Ionizing Radiation: A DNA Damaging Agent That May Underly Excess Cancer in Flight Crews.. In the United States, the Federal Aviation Administration has officially classified flight crews (FC) consisting of commercial pilots, cabin crew, or flight attendants as "radiation workers" since 1994 due to the potential for cosmic ionizing radiation (CIR) exposure at cruising altitudes originating from solar activity and galactic sources. Several epidemiological studies have documented elevated incidence and mortality for several cancers in FC, but it has not yet been possible to establish whether this is attributable to CIR. CIR and its constituents are known to cause a myriad of DNA lesions…

Evidence: 38 • authority: 80

Is supersonic air travel about to return, two decades after the last Concorde flight?

Evidence: 38 • authority: 72

Concorde ( KONG-kord, French: [kɔ̃kɔʁd] ) is a retired Anglo-French supersonic airliner jointly developed and manufactured by Sud Aviation and the British Aircraft Corporation (BAC). Studies began in 1954 and a UK–France treaty followed in 1962, as the programme cost was estimated at £70 million (£1.77 billion in 2025). Construction of six prototypes began in February 1965, with the first flight from Toulouse on 2 March 1969. The market forecast was 350 aircraft, with manufacturers receiving up to 100 options from major airlines. On 9 October 1975, it received its French certificate of airworthiness, and was certified by the UK CAA on 5 December. Concorde is an aircraft design with a narrow…

Evidence: — • authority: 72

An airplane (American English), or aeroplane (Commonwealth English), also plane, is a fixed-wing aircraft that is propelled forward by thrust from a jet engine, propeller, or rocket engine. Airplanes come in a variety of sizes, shapes, and wing configurations. The broad spectrum of uses for airplanes includes recreation, transportation of goods and people, military, and research. Worldwide, commercial aviation transports more than four billion passengers annually on airliners and transports more than 200 billion tonne-kilometers of cargo annually, which is less than 1% of the world's cargo movement. Most airplanes are flown by a pilot on board the aircraft, but some are designed to be remot…

Evidence: — • authority: 72

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 the human ear. The crack of a supersonic bullet passing overhead, the crack of a bullwhip, and the snapping of a rolled up towel are all examples of small sonic booms. Sonic booms due to large supersonic aircraft can be particularly loud and startling, tend to awaken people, and may cause minor damage to some structures. This led to the prohibition of routine supersonic flight overland. Although sonic booms cannot be completely prevented, research suggests…

Evidence: — • authority: 88

Recording sonic booms with the Romanian infrasound arrays. <p>Two infrasound stations are currently in operation on the Romanian territory: IPLOR 4-element array of 0.6 km aperture, in the central part, and BURARI 6-element array of 0.7 km aperture, in the northern region.</p><p>Automatic processing of continuous data recorded by the two arrays has revealed many impulsive signals generated by repeating sources confined in certain directions, i.e., sonic booms induced by supersonic aircraft activity. The approximate origins of the infrasound found by cross bearing the detections of IPLOR and BURARI arrays are typically pointed to the military air bases located in Romania and across Europe an…

Evidence: — • authority: 88

Concorde Sonic Booms as an Atmospheric Probe. Infrasound generated by the sonic boom from the inbound Concorde supersonic transport is recorded at Palisades, New York (Lamont-Doherty Geological Observatory), as a series of impulses from distances varying from 165 to about 1000 kilometers. Refraction effects determined by temperature and wind conditions return the signal to the surface from both stratospheric (40 to 50 kilometers) and thermospheric (100 to 130 kilometers) levels. The frequency of the recorded signal is a function of the level of reflection; the frequency decreases from impulse stretching as the atmosphere becomes more rarified relative to the sound pressure. The horizontal t…