The old ban was for flight faster than Mach 1, yet was ostensibly put in place due to outcry over sonic booms. Well, if it’s sonic booms that people care about, that is an issue of (loud) shock waves. The executive order instead asks for an interim regulation based on noise, the actual part of sonic booms that people take issue with and which is actually fixable. So, it’s good!
The other issue is the energetics of supersonic flight. It takes more fuel, and thus pollutes and costs more, and is thus also for the rich only. All true. The only way to address the environmental factor is to bring down the cost of synthetic aviation fuel by greatly increasing green energy production. By the time a supersonic airliner is ready to fly in a couple decades, China will probably be able to do this assuming the administration(s) in Northern America are willing to import.
If they go mach+ only at altitude, don’t think it’ll be a problem. Back in the 90’s as a kid I lived near a military bombing range in southern California. Jets would often be flying supersonic. It shook the walls just as much as the actual bombs sometimes. But they were already flying fairly low on approach to the range. It was hard to tell what was a sonic boom, explosions, or an earth quake sometimes XD.
Then you’d have whole formations with apache helicopters and the cargo/fortress bombers with jets…
All that said, as long as they’re only allowed to go supersonic at higher altitudes it shouldn’t be an issue.
The old ban was for flight faster than Mach 1, yet was ostensibly put in place due to outcry over sonic booms. Well, if it’s sonic booms that people care about, that is an issue of (loud) shock waves. The executive order instead asks for an interim regulation based on noise, the actual part of sonic booms that people take issue with and which is actually fixable. So, it’s good!
The other issue is the energetics of supersonic flight. It takes more fuel, and thus pollutes and costs more, and is thus also for the rich only. All true. The only way to address the environmental factor is to bring down the cost of synthetic aviation fuel by greatly increasing green energy production. By the time a supersonic airliner is ready to fly in a couple decades, China will probably be able to do this assuming the administration(s) in Northern America are willing to import.
If they go mach+ only at altitude, don’t think it’ll be a problem. Back in the 90’s as a kid I lived near a military bombing range in southern California. Jets would often be flying supersonic. It shook the walls just as much as the actual bombs sometimes. But they were already flying fairly low on approach to the range. It was hard to tell what was a sonic boom, explosions, or an earth quake sometimes XD. Then you’d have whole formations with apache helicopters and the cargo/fortress bombers with jets…
All that said, as long as they’re only allowed to go supersonic at higher altitudes it shouldn’t be an issue.
There has also been work done on supersonic planes that produce shockwaves that make much less noise.