> Are people forgetting about how incredibly loud is a sonic boom? It is unlikely that it will get rights to fly over land, just like the Concorde.
Remember a few years back when the Canadian-made Bombardier C-Series was selling well, so Boeing got their allies in the US government to impose a 300% tax on them as an "America First" policy?
Well, the rules around sonic booms were similar. Were there sonic booms? Sure. But the real reason for the ban was that they were foreign-made sonic booms.
Now the world's only supersonic passenger plane is being made in America, you might find Congress is much less worried about sonic booms.
This was done to prepare people and gauge the reaction to BOEING sonic booms, for the SST. Everything about a supersonic future was scuttled when it became obvious that people clearly suffered when planes flew supersonic above them.
Keep in mind that the US Air Force still does not go supersonic over populated areas except when absolutely necessary, like during 9/11.
This study mind you was done with SCHEDULED sonic booms. Now imagine, instead of being able to set your clock to a loud, disruptive noise and plan around it, you must deal with completely unpredictable and variable EXPLOSION of sharp noise (130ish decibels is standing 100m from a jumbo jet as it spools up or a trumpet being blasted directly into your ear from a couple feet away)
People already hate the noise of cities when that noise is an occasional quiet siren heard from a mile away a few times a day. Imagine instead if the noise was completely unpredictable explosions. Also imagine you can't move out of the city to get away from it, because the sound blankets an entire flight corridor.
Unless NASA finds a way to magically evaporate all the energy in a sonic boom such that it makes almost no noise at ground level, we would have to literally depopulate mile wide corridors of the US just so a bunch of stupidly rich people can get from NY to LA in an hour? Nah
This isn't true. The backlash to sonic booms grew well before Concorde and was part of why the US government canceled its support of the SST program. Boeing canceled their part of the 2707 because of the (extremely) unexpected success of the 747 program (a larger plane slower addressed a larger market) and the 737 success.
Sources:
Joe Sutter, Creating the worlds first Boeing Jumbo Jet
Sure, being a domestic enterprise might help here, but you will have to deal with regulations abroad, too (and Concorde had arguably the edge there because it had both London and continental Europe as home court).
I'm also fairly sure that softening/undermining noise regulations in general has become harder (less tech enthusiasm, more NIMBYism, especially in Europe).
Remember a few years back when the Canadian-made Bombardier C-Series was selling well, so Boeing got their allies in the US government to impose a 300% tax on them as an "America First" policy?
Well, the rules around sonic booms were similar. Were there sonic booms? Sure. But the real reason for the ban was that they were foreign-made sonic booms.
Now the world's only supersonic passenger plane is being made in America, you might find Congress is much less worried about sonic booms.