Since Concorde's retirement in 2003, fliers have had to settle for the subsonic speeds of standard commercial aircraft. Although supersonic flight is by no means a recent technological development, for the members of the general public it remains wistfully shelved next to flying cars and butler robots. Why haven't supersonic jets come back? The primary reason for this is simple: The Federal Aviation Administration and international regulations don't allow sonic booms over populated areas. That limits airlines to hops across large bodies of water, making supersonic flight too costly for airlines to keep up.
So why not get rid of the boom? That's exactly what NASA has been attempting to do with several new designs they have tested that may lessen the impact of the sonic boom. Many of these designs feature a long needle (pictured), extending from the nose of the plane, giving the aircraft the general appearance of a narwhal. When an aircraft reaches supersonic speeds, the resulting air pressure that builds up in front of the aircraft is released in the form of a thunderous sonic boom. The needle, also called a telescoping nose boom, better distributes the air pressure building up in the front of the plane and results in a much quieter release once the plane breaks the sound barrier. For the time being, these designs remain experimental.
The idea of getting rid of the boom is nothing new. In 2008, we reported on Aerion, a company that was using data and flying habits to hold off on supersonic booms until planes are high enough to go unnoticed by the public. Even earlier, in 2004, we ran a feature on a Lockheed Martin project for private jets that were designed to fly at supersonic speeds with a very minimal sonic boom. Instead of a nose spike, these planes incorporated an inverted V design where the tail end of the plane connected to its arrow shaped wings, creating a modified pressure wave that softened the sonic boom. Although this project has since been discontinued, the inverted V design recently resurfaced in the form of Lockheed Martin supersonic plane concept that was presented to NASA in April last year.