Aug 10 2006
From The Space Library
NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center (DFRC) and the private company Gulfstream Aerospace conducted the first test of the Quiet Spike, a 24-foot-long (7.3-meter) retractable, lance-like rod, affixed to the nose of NASA’s F-15B research aircraft and designed to suppress sonic booms during supersonic-jet flights. The term “sonic boom” refers to an accumulation of shock waves that develop around aircraft as they near the speed of sound (760 miles per hour or 1,223 kilometers per hour at sea level). Like an explosion, the sound energy generated by sonic booms can damage windows on the ground below a supersonic jet’s path. The FAA prohibits supersonic-jet flight over land, except in designated military flight corridors. DFRC and Gulfstream had designed the Quiet Spike, which created three small shock waves, traveling parallel to one another to the ground, thereby reducing the noise produced when supersonic jets break the sound barrier.
NASA, Dryden Flight Research Center, “Gulfstream, NASA Dryden Joust with Supersonic Shockwaves,” news release 06-39, 5 October 2006, http://www.nasa.gov/centers/dryden/news/NewsReleases/2006/06-39.html (accessed 5 March 2010).
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