Quiet supersonic X-59 jet soars over California desert in first test flight

PALMDALE, California - Nasa’s X-59 Quesst supersonic-but-quiet jet soared over the Southern California desert on Oct 28 in the first test flight of an experimental aircraft designed to break the sound barrier with little noise, paving the way for faster commercial air travel.

The sleek aircraft, built for Nasa by aerospace contractor Lockheed Martin, took off about an hour after sunrise from a runway at Plant 42 of the company’s Skunk Works facility in Palmdale, about 100km north of Los Angeles.

After a steep climb over sod fields just east of the runway, the plane was seen banking to the north on a trajectory towards Edwards Air Force Base, where it landed safely about an hour later near Nasa’s Armstrong Flight Research Centre. It was accompanied by a Nasa chase plane.

The plane’s unique shape is designed to greatly reduce the explosive-like sonic boom normally produced when an aircraft breaks the sound barrier, lowering the volume to a muffled “sonic thump” no louder than slamming a car door.

Perfection of such low-decibel flight technology is aimed at overcoming one of the primary obstacles to supersonic commercial flight, long restricted over populated areas on land due to noise concerns, according to Lockheed.

Getting the plane off the drawing board and into the air was not inexpensive. Nasa has paid Lockheed more than US$518 million (S$670 million) since 2018 to develop and demonstrate X-59, according to agency contracting data.

The single-engine jet – measuring just under 30m from nose to tail – flew at subsonic speeds on its first flight, as expected, reaching 370kmh, according to Lockheed Martin. Its peak altitude during the flight was 3,660m.

About 200 aerospace workers and their families watched the take-off from a safe distance along a nearby highway.

“X-59 successfully completed its first flight this morning,” Lockheed Martin spokeswoman Candis Roussel told Reuters in a brief e-mailed statement, hailing it as a “significant aviation milestone”.

Nasa’s lead X-59 test pilot Nils Larson was at the controls in the single-crew cockpit for the flight, Ms Roussel said.

The X-59, a one-of-a-kind experimental aircraft, is built to reach a cruising speed of 1,490kmh, or Mach 1.4, at an altitude of 16,764m, higher and nearly twice as fast as conventional airliners fly, the company said.

Data derived from research with the X-59 will inform development of new sound thresholds for supersonic flight over land, the company said.

The

supersonic Concorde aircraft

began scheduled transatlantic flights with British Airways and Air France in 1976. But the plane was retired in 2003 due to high operating costs, limited seating and sluggish passenger numbers, following a fatal crash in July 2000 and the Sept 11 attacks in 2001.

In press materials posted online in September, Nasa said the X-59’s first flight would be a “lower-altitude loop at about 386kmh to check system integration, kicking off a phase of flight testing focused on verifying the aircraft’s airworthiness and safety”.

During subsequent test flights, the X-59 will travel higher and faster, eventually exceeding the speed of sound – approximately 1,225kmh at sea level.

The California Manufacturers & Technology Association earlier in October named the X-59 as 2025’s “Coolest Thing Made in California” in its annual statewide technology contest.

“This work sustains America’s place as the leader in aviation and has the potential to change the way the public flies,” US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, who is also acting Nasa administrator, said in a statement. REUTERS