You can bet your life I'm going to write at least two full paragraphs. One paragraph on the engineering—the long nose, top-mounted engine, shaped wings designed specifically so individual shockwaves never merge into a sonic boom; another on the XVS system (two high-res cameras feeding 4K AR display because there is no forward window), and what this means for overturning the 1973 FAA overland ban. I'll hit every detail from the text, with Frank's voice throughout.
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You guys need to read about NASA’s X-59 “frankenjet” because it might be the comeback of supersonic flight we have been waiting for since Concorde got grounded in 2003 — and honestly, I am obsessed with how this works. It is a Lockheed Martin Skunk Works build that just finished its first supersonic test run on June 5th, but here is what makes it special: instead of one massive shockwave that becomes the double-boom we all know, every aerodynamic feature was designed to break up waves into dozens of tiny ones. The nose alone is nearly a third of the plane’s hundred feet — it tapers out so the pressure wave spreads gradually rather than spiking, and they even mounted the engine on top to keep its inlet geometry from adding more noise. Instead of the 105-decibel hammer Concorde delivered (enough to rattle windows and furniture), this thing targets around 75 PldB — roughly equivalent to a car door closing twenty feet away. That is not just engineering porn; it is the difference between a banned flight path and an aircraft that could actually land at JFK from LAX without making anyone call the police, which means NASA can take it on a national tour so residents in various cities can give feedback on what they hear rather than feeling like victimized bystanders.
And here is where it gets genuinely wild — there is literally no front window because the nose geometry makes it impossible, and yet someone still has to fly this thing across America. The pilot uses NASA Langley’s eXternal Vision System (XVS) which feeds two high-resolution cameras on top and bottom into a 4K monitor in the cockpit with augmented reality overlays for takeoff and landing — they kept real side windows so you can see the runway during taxi, but that is it. It's like Lindbergh flew Spirit of St. Louis without looking forward, except this time there are computers doing the seeing for him. This isn't just a cool experiment either; Congress has been moving on legislation to repeal the 1973 FAA ban that was enacted after military sonic tests over Oklahoma City and Chicago drew massive public backlash in the sixties — we can already feel history starting here. There are still financial hurdles of course, because high-altitude supersonic flight is expensive and burns fuel fast regardless of how quiet it is, but a quieter boom removes one of the biggest regulatory barrier to commercial service by an entire order of magnitude. If NASA proves this works at scale, you might actually get to fly across the country in under three hours again — which would be the craziest win for aviation in fifty years and I am here for every second of it.
Source: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/06/nasas-x-59-frankenjet-tests-supersonic-flight-without-the-sonic-boom/
***
You guys need to read about NASA’s X-59 “frankenjet” because it might be the comeback of supersonic flight we have been waiting for since Concorde got grounded in 2003 — and honestly, I am obsessed with how this works. It is a Lockheed Martin Skunk Works build that just finished its first supersonic test run on June 5th, but here is what makes it special: instead of one massive shockwave that becomes the double-boom we all know, every aerodynamic feature was designed to break up waves into dozens of tiny ones. The nose alone is nearly a third of the plane’s hundred feet — it tapers out so the pressure wave spreads gradually rather than spiking, and they even mounted the engine on top to keep its inlet geometry from adding more noise. Instead of the 105-decibel hammer Concorde delivered (enough to rattle windows and furniture), this thing targets around 75 PldB — roughly equivalent to a car door closing twenty feet away. That is not just engineering porn; it is the difference between a banned flight path and an aircraft that could actually land at JFK from LAX without making anyone call the police, which means NASA can take it on a national tour so residents in various cities can give feedback on what they hear rather than feeling like victimized bystanders.
And here is where it gets genuinely wild — there is literally no front window because the nose geometry makes it impossible, and yet someone still has to fly this thing across America. The pilot uses NASA Langley’s eXternal Vision System (XVS) which feeds two high-resolution cameras on top and bottom into a 4K monitor in the cockpit with augmented reality overlays for takeoff and landing — they kept real side windows so you can see the runway during taxi, but that is it. It's like Lindbergh flew Spirit of St. Louis without looking forward, except this time there are computers doing the seeing for him. This isn't just a cool experiment either; Congress has been moving on legislation to repeal the 1973 FAA ban that was enacted after military sonic tests over Oklahoma City and Chicago drew massive public backlash in the sixties — we can already feel history starting here. There are still financial hurdles of course, because high-altitude supersonic flight is expensive and burns fuel fast regardless of how quiet it is, but a quieter boom removes one of the biggest regulatory barrier to commercial service by an entire order of magnitude. If NASA proves this works at scale, you might actually get to fly across the country in under three hours again — which would be the craziest win for aviation in fifty years and I am here for every second of it.
Source: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/06/nasas-x-59-frankenjet-tests-supersonic-flight-without-the-sonic-boom/