Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Lockheed Martin X-59 First Showing

I don’t think that thing will work on the boat. 😁 It would need a folding fuselage instead of folding wings. 😳

Simple solution: Longer carriers. Half mile long would work.

A larger version with internal weapons bay might be the cats meow..

Woody.

Would low sonic boom signature be any advantage to a fighter, strike aircraft, or bomber? I have seen no mention of stealth in discussions of this air frame.

While obviously a super sonic bomber to replace the aging B1 fleet would be advantageous, as opposed to the subsonic B2 and B21.

My vision would be strictly the bomber version
My vision would be strictly a bomber version as you say to replace our aging Bone fleet..

We know speed has always been a military advantage from its infancy, as in this case faster time to engage targets and get quickly out of harms way is a big plus..

I seriously doubt it would incorporate any stealth enhancing material because of the extreme heat generated besides I think sooner than later that technology unless refined will be defeated by our adversaries..

Proof of concept to get rid of the sonic boom that prevents Mach plus flight over inhabited areas during peacetime. I'll bet the area rule plays big in the shape and cross section. If you can get the drag down you can go fast with less power, too, if you're really lucky a turbofan could actually go supercruise. So lots going on here, hope it flies well.

Sonic booms never, ever bothered me, that meant Dad was back or someone was going real fast. But even in the Super Sonic Sixties they were relatively rare, I'd not like to hear hundreds per day.

Canopy looks like it was unbolted from an old F 5.

I miss those days. A flight would go over out of Mountain Home, the windows would rattle a bit. But mostly, it would set off every rooster pheasant within a couple miles. Probably further, but we could hear them within about two miles.

Unimpressed! Bring out the ET models.

The X-59's mission is to expose communities to the noise levels a low sonic boom commercial aircraft would generate in order to provide the data the FAA and ICAO can use to justify the rule changes that would allow commercial supersonic flights over land. One of the things the NASA test design for the noise surveys has to factor in is the number of noise complaints the public used to file for the old Concorde SST on days it wasn't even flying. Lockheed and Gulfstream both studied low boom supersonic business jets, but investing in these aircraft is a nonstarter until the laws prohibiting supersonic flight over land are changed.

Then it wouldn’t need a tailhook. 😳

I realize this is a concept test design only but I'd like to see the airframe not so dirty with its outboard power plant..

Same as that of an unladen swallow. (Monty Python reference)

Bring back the F 105?

Or the widow maker 104, not to many much faster these days than those old gas guzzling dinosaurs !

Yes, Woody.

The 104, the SR 71, Mig 25, all came off the drawing boards 60 to 70 years ago. The science of aerodynamics has progressed little since. Just subtle refinements.

No getting around the Laws of Physics. It takes a lot of fuel to go fast. An aircraft can only carry so much of the stuff. Pretty soon you spend all your time at the tanker.

I was watching a documentary last week. A pilot stated he had to tank 11 times to complete 8 hours of flight time in readiness for combat air support calls over Vietnam.

Might have been a Thud driver? Not sure now.

Could have easily been a Thud driver, we saw many inbound strike packages of 105's at dawns early light inbound from Thailand headed N while on our way home from all night air ops..

Tanker anchors we were privy to were located in the Gulf of T however many were down S or in Laos.

Walking speed towing and 15MPH on ramp not near aircraft.

Not according to our guys. It was full bore. I had to put a block on our tractors to lock out 3rd and 4th gears for the rampers. They seem to think they need to hit 4th in there 75ft pull/push and then slam on the brakes and wonder why the shear pins broke.
Our A&Ps tractors were fast and they had no problems pulling the 737's and 747's way faster than taxiing speeds.