Sound Propagation of Sonic Booms through Real Atmospheres Emitted from a New Supersonic Business Aircraft

Supersonic air transport generates sonic booms that can affect people, animals and structures. There is a renewed interest in high-speed transport for civilian application. The widely used standard atmosphere for sonic boom prediction is neither capable of describing topographical variation, nor temporal variations, nor the impact of wind on the propagation of a sonic boom. However, within the frame of the 6th FP EU-project HISAC (HIgh Speed AirCraft), our ray tracing studies are performed through real atmospheres from emissions of a supersonic aircraft that can impact people in case of overland flights. Obviously, the mountains are affected more often by the noise carpet than the lowlands. The used ERA-40 data over the domain of Europe are appropriate to define flight tracks for supersonic aircrafts that avoid the noise carpet of sonic booms at the ground depending on the actual state of the atmosphere. A key role plays the atmospheric refraction due to temperature and wind gradients and the atmospheric absorption due to the humidity. Primary use of improved prediction possibility is expected to operational route planning, especially as supersonic activity increases. Recently, flight demonstration of shaped sonic boom that generates low overpressure N-waves show the potential for quiet overland supersonic flights.