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Supersonic Flight

Power Play: Jet Engines Won’t Be The Only GE Tech Powering New Civilian Supersonic Jet

Tomas Kellner
December 16, 2019
It’s been 16 years since the Concorde landed for the last time and the iconic supersonic jet became a coveted museum exhibit. But engineers working on civilian supersonic jets are nowhere near ready to give up on their dreams. If you listen to them, we’re about to enter an era where quieter and more fuel-efficient supersonic jets will again zip across the sky.
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Aerospace

The Greatest Program That Never Was: The US’s Answer To The Concorde Never Took Off — But It Helped Shape The Future Of Passenger Travel

Rick Kennedy
October 11, 2019

First-time visitors arriving for a meeting at GE Aviation’s headquarters should give themselves a few extra minutes: Located in the Cincinnati suburb of Evendale, Ohio, the plant is huge, security is tight — and there are distractions everywhere. Perhaps the largest, a massive jet engine stretching some 27 feet long, collects dust along a wall inside Building 700. Too big to fit in the company’s museum, which is also located on the Evendale campus, the lone surviving GE4 turbojet is a stunning relic from an era when everything in commercial aviation seemed possible.

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Paris Air Show

Feeling Supersonic: Jets Traveling At 1,150 MPH Get A Boost From Regulators

Kristin Kloberdanz
June 20, 2019
The glamorous age of the Concorde may soon be returning, if you can afford it. A few companies are developing small supersonic business jets that will be able to travel as fast as 1,150 miles per hour. Plane-makers like Boeing and Aerion, along with NASA, are coming up with new, quieter designs. GE Aviation is building a new civilian supersonic jet engine. Now at the Paris Air Show, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is moving to streamline the process to get supersonic aircraft the approvals they need to take to the air.
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Supersonic Flight

This News Travels Fast: Boeing’s Partnership With Aerion Could Supercharge Supersonic Travel

Tomas Kellner
February 08, 2019

Time-strapped travelers will like the sound of this. Early in February, Boeing announced it would partner with Aerion Supersonic, a Nevada company that has spent the last two decades developing a supersonic business jet called the AS2. Boeing said in a news release it would “provide engineering, manufacturing and flight test resources, as well as strategic vertical content, to bring Aerion’s AS2 supersonic business jet to market.”

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Supersonic Travel

Fast Friends: The World’s First Supersonic Business Jet Gets A New Engine

Tomas Kellner
October 16, 2018
The Concorde had its place in the sun for 27 years, shuttling passengers between Europe, the Americas and Singapore at supersonic speeds. But when British Airways retired the last jet in 2003 “for commercial reasons with passenger revenue falling steadily against a backdrop of rising maintenance costs for the aircraft,” it also put the brakes on commercial supersonic flight.
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Supersonic Flight

A Quieter Sonic Boom: GE Is Helping NASA, Lockheed Martin Design A New Supersonic Jet

Fred Guterl
September 11, 2018
When Chuck Yeager flew NASA’s first rocket plane, the X-1, past the sound barrier for the first time in October 1947, confirmation of his feat rang out across the desert in the form of a sonic boom — the thunder caused by compression of sound waves at the bow of the plane as it reached Mach 1. In the seven decades since, the boom has remained an impediment to widespread supersonic travel, outside of the military.
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Supersonic Flight

Back To The Future: This Pointy-Nosed Plane Could Make Jet Set Feel Supersonic Again

Tomas Kellner
December 15, 2017
The Concorde, the iconic pointy-nosed supersonic jet that shuttled passengers between Paris, London, New York and other choice destinations, landed for the last time 14 years ago, after 27 years in service. The only civil supersonic airplane to enter service apart from Russia’s TU-144 jet, the plane was never replaced. “The Concorde was successful from a technical standpoint, but in terms of economics, it was too expensive to operate, its range was limited, it was noisy and its fuel consumption was high,” says Jeff Miller, vice president of marketing at the U.S.
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Aerospace

Comeback Kid: The Next Sound-Barrier-Busting Passenger Jet Could Be Quietly Supersonic

Tomas Kellner
May 26, 2016
The Concorde was the first and last supersonic jet in passenger service. But that claim comes with a caveat.
The plane could accelerate above the speed of sound only over the ocean. The prospect of noisy sonic booms caused by the plane crossing the sound barrier forced pilots to hold back the throttle above towns and cities after takeoff and before touchdown. “This speed limit actually made the plane much less efficient,” says Karl Wisniewski, director of advanced programs at GE Aviation. “It was designed to fly fast.”
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Aerospace

This Mother Of 6 Helped GE Build Its First Supersonic Jet Engine

Tomas Kellner
May 06, 2016

Engineer Mark Leary has been helping GE Aviation build jet engines for three decades. The work is in his blood — literally. More that 60 years ago, Mark’s mother, Patricia, helped the company design the supersonic engine that allowed Lockheed to build the F-104 Starfighter jet, known as “the missile with a man in it” and capable of sustained flight at twice the speed of sound, or Mach 2.

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