Fuselage design for sonic boom suppression of supersonic aircraft
Disclosed is an aircraft configured to reduce the effects of a sonic boom when flown at supersonic speed. The aircraft has a tapered fuselage. The fuselage has a first predetermined cross-section at a first longitudinal position. The cross section has a horizontal dimension which is greater than the vertical dimension of the cross section. This maximizes off-body pressures to the sides of the aircraft, but mitigates the off-body pressures above and below. This enables the suppression of sonic boom.
1 . A fuselage for an aircraft, said fuselage configured to reduce the effects of a sonic boom when said aircraft is flown at supersonic speed, said fuselage comprising:
a forward end;
said fuselage having a plurality of cross sections between said forward end and a rearward position; and
each of said cross sections having a vertical dimension and a horizontal dimension, said horizontal dimension being greater than said vertical dimension thus mitigating off-body pressures below said aircraft for the purpose of suppressing sonic boom.
2 . The fuselage of claim 1 wherein at least some of said plurality of cross sections are substantially oval.
3 . The fuselage of claim 2 wherein substantially all of said plurality of sections are substantially oval.
4 . The fuselage of claim 1 wherein at least some of said plurality of cross section are one of: (i) inverted-pie, (ii) inverted diamond, (iii) offset oval, (iv) flattened downwardly extending bicycle seat, (v) Saturn, and (vi) rotated crescent shaped.
5 . A method of making a supersonic aircraft, said method comprising:
maximizing off-body pressures above and below said aircraft and minimizing off-body pressures laterally from said aircraft by increasing a plurality of horizontal cross sectional dimensions of a fuselage relative to a plurality of vertical dimensions.
6 . The method of claim 5 comprising:
shaping at least a subgroup of said plurality of cross sections to be substantially oval.
7 . The method of claim 5 comprising:
shaping substantially all of said plurality of cross sections to be substantially oval.
8 . The method of claim 5 comprising:
shaping at least a subgroup of said plurality of cross sections to be substantially: (i) inverted-pie, (ii) inverted diamond, (iii) offset oval, (iv) flattened downwardly extending bicycle seat, (v) Saturn, and (vi) rotated crescent shaped.
9 . The method of claim 5 comprising:
shaping substantially all of said plurality of cross sections to be substantially: (i) inverted-pie, (ii) inverted diamond, (iii) offset oval, (iv) flattened downwardly extending bicycle seat, (v) Saturn, and (vi) rotated crescent shaped.
10 . A method of minimizing a sonic boom of an aircraft, said method comprising:
tapering a fuselage of said aircraft such that the entire aircraft cross-sectional area due to volume combined with the equivalent cross-sectional area due to lift closely matches a target SEEB curve; and
elongating a horizontal dimension of said fuselage.