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Comment by doh | Hacker News Reader

In USA, all supersonic flight over land by civil aircraft has been prohibited by regulation introduced in March 1973. [0] Without changes in the legislation, airlines can only offer supersonic flights over the ocean.

[0] https://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/ap...

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Boom (and others) are working to get those rules changed to limit maximum noise rather than maximum speed. If they can figure out how to make Mach 2.0 as quiet as Mach 0.85 to people in the flight path, go for it:

http://aviationweek.com/bca/legislation-open-door-us-superso...

It's pretty much a solved problem for the last two decades. You can use the shape of the wing and fuselage to broaden sound wave, and go supersonic at an angle of attack that sends the brunt of the transition sonic boom above the horizon or at least on a long trajectory to the ground.

Not necessarily a dealbreaker. Concorde did ok with British airways flying out of NY. Assuming the rules don’t change there are plenty of viable routes out of Houston, NY, and SFO.

I never said it's a deal breaker, just that it's not possible to fly supersonic over the land.

I do hope that the Boom team will be able to deliver a viable service for benefit us all. Would love nothing more than to travel faster.

Concorde was a British-French aircaft, so it was allowed to fly over the UK. If it had been American, it would have been banned instantly. It was horrifically noisy.

> It was horrifically noisy.

I saw it land/take off a handful of times as a kid. The noise was unlike anything else I've ever experienced - you could hear it many kilometers away and up close (on the airport boundary) you'd feel every internal cavity vibrating when it departed. As a child it was marvellous!

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