The U.S. House of Representatives has passed the Supersonic Aviation Modernization Act, a landmark bill that could end a decades-long ban on civil aircraft flying faster than the speed of sound over the United States. If enacted, this legislation would authorize the FAA to allow supersonic operations provided they do not produce a detectable sonic boom on the ground.
Good news for Boom Supersonic. As far as I know they still need an engine, though.
This is cool as long as rich people don’t start waking everyone up at night because they ignored the no boom part of the law. Also, wtf is there legislation for tech we don’t have yet? We can’t have privacy or decent Internet laws, but we’ll pass laws about shit that doesn’t exist. Typical.
Right now supersonic flight over land is banned and has been since the Concorde first launched (Braniff International Airways actually worked a deal with British Airways and Air France to fly their planes from Washington Dulles to Dallas-Fort Worth, but they had to stay subsonic and it was not profitable). Airlines and manufacturers have shown some interest in creating a new generation of supersonic transports, but there’s little reason to make the investment if they can only fly supersonic during the over water phase of intercontinental flights.
I get it. Just comparing that with having no Internet legislation after 40 years and wondering if they shouldn’t be prioritizing. A billionaire must be involved.
Boeing stock goes up… and then down. Just like their planes.
