Aerion, based in Reno, Nev., is at Booth No. 6202 in NBAA exhibit Hall C to describe preliminary results from the latest round of flight tests of a NASA F-15B on the road to what it envisions as the worlds’ first supersonic business jet (SBJ).
The tests during July and August in collaboration with NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center achieved a top speed of Mach 2.0. The flights at Edwards AFB, Calif., marked the latest milestone in preliminary engineering activities directed toward a design capable of cruise speeds up to Mach 1.6 Dr. Richard Tracy, Aerion’s chief technology officer, is in Atlanta to provide details on the tests and explain the video being presented at the Aerion booth which documents the five-flight test series. Tracy has collaborated with NASA on supersonic natural laminar flow flight research since the early 1990s, and the Aerion research team has conducted supersonic flight tests with NASA since 1999. “Future tests will evaluate supersonic boundary layer transition properties as they relate to manufacturing standards for surface quality and assembly tolerances, both of which are crucial to future production of Aerion’s supersonic business jet,” said Tracy.
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