I received this in an e-mail from a friend and thought I'd
share it with the group.

Dan Edwards

A new generation of supersonic private jets could trigger a
boom in luxury high-speed flight -- without the sonic boom
normally associated with breaking the sound barrier.

Lockheed Martin's advanced Skunk Works
http://www.lockheedmartin.com/wms/fi...sp=fec&ci=
13150&sc=400 unit is designing a small, 12-seat
passenger jet that would travel at 1,200 mph (Mach 1.8) but
which would produce only a whisper of the annoying crack once
emitted by the retired Concorde.

The sleek, 130-foot-long QSST (for "quiet supersonic travel")
aircraft is being designed for a Nevada consortium called
Supersonic Aerospace International
http://www.saiqsst.com/press.html , or SAI, at an estimated
cost of $2.5 billion.

Aimed at business executives and diplomats, the QSST will fly
at nearly twice the speed of conventional business jets and
have a range of 4,600 miles nonstop -- Los Angeles to New York
in just over two hours.

It could be ready for boarding by 2013, according to the
company.

"Our design uses innovative aerodynamic shaping and employs a
patented inverted V-tail that is instrumental to the radical
reduction in sonic boom," said Frank Cappuccio, Skunk Works'
executive vice president.

Designers expect the QSST to make a sonic boom less than a
hundredth that of the Concorde's aural impact. Concorde was
barred from flying at supersonic speeds over the United States
when it debuted in the 1970s because excessive noise was
produced by pressure waves colliding in the plane's wake.

Now, using modern computer-aided design software to model
quieter "boom reshaping" techniques pioneered by military test
fighters, SAI hopes to use a smaller craft to fill a gap left
by the collapse of the Concorde's service following a fatal
2003 crash in Paris.

SAI revealed new details to aerospace analysts at the
Farnborough International Airshow
http://www.farnborough.com/ in England last month, claiming
to have received interest in creating a scheduled supersonic
service linking the world's financial centers.

But QSST is not the only group scrambling to create a
superfast executive commuter network.

Rival Aerion http://www.aerioncorp.com/ , also of Nevada, is
designing a slower 12-seat supersonic business jet, or SSBJ,
that would reduce aerodynamic drag using straight, natural
laminar flow http://www.aerioncorp.com/tech_supersonic-nlf-
concept.html wings. The SSBJ would produce a quieter, Mach-
1.6 boom over water and fly at near-supersonic speeds over
land. The wings will be tested at Albuquerque, New Mexico,
this month.

Both companies have identified a market for up to 300 jets in
little over a decade, each craft costing around $80 million,
and are looking for investors and development consortia.

But engineers will have to carefully navigate laws restricting
overland supersonic flight if they're ever to take off, said
Bill Dane, senior aviation analyst with aerospace research
firm Forecast International
http://www.forecastinternational.com/ .

"The two major obstacles are available engines and the need to
significantly reduce or to outright eliminate the sonic boom
phenomena," he told Wired News. "If such an aircraft is to be
a commercial success, it will have to fly over land and not
just oceans."

Dane said there also needs to be an international set of rules
regarding the noise issue.

"Several company spokespersons have said flat out that they do
not want to invest millions or more in SSBJ research only to
find that the aircraft cannot be operated in some regions or
countries," he said.

Dane added that teams in France, Italy and Russia are also
pursuing supersonic passenger jet designs. Delaying half the
sonic waves so they do not reach the ground at the same time
and create the unwelcome boom is one concept being explored,
he said.

Some of the designs look into a crystal ball and assume the
laws prohibiting sonic booms from civilian aircraft, first
introduced in 1968, will be redrafted to take account of
newer, quieter technologies.

"Over the next several years, regulations for low sonic boom
will be developed and low-boom technology will be improved,"
says Aerion's promotional material. "Aerion will then develop
low-boom aircraft to operate under the new regulations."