FAA Proposal: Quiet Supersonic Jets Allowed Over US Cities
▼ Summary
– The FAA proposed a new rule to overturn the 1973 ban on commercial supersonic flights over the US, contingent on aircraft reducing the ground-level impact of sonic booms.
– The rule follows an executive order from President Trump and replaces the 53-year prohibition with an interim noise-based certification standard.
– The proposed standard requires sonic boom overpressure at the surface to stay below 0.11 pounds per square foot, based on Boom Supersonic’s quiet Mach cutoff flight demonstrations.
– The Concorde, which flew supersonic from 1976 to 2003, produced a sonic boom overpressure of 1.94 pounds per square foot at Mach 2.
– Critics, like Dan Rutherford of the International Council on Clean Transportation, argue the 0.11 pounds per square foot metric was discarded by UN experts in 2014 because it does not measure loudness or annoyance.
A decades-old prohibition on commercial supersonic travel over U.S. soil could soon be lifted under a new proposal from the Federal Aviation Administration. The rule change would permit supersonic jets to fly over American cities, provided they can significantly reduce the ground-level noise created by their sonic booms.
The FAA first banned civil supersonic flights over land in 1973, a move triggered by U. S. military tests in the 1960s that sent jets roaring over cities like Oklahoma City, Chicago, and St. Louis. Now, the Trump administration has pushed to reverse that ban, aiming to clear the path for a new generation of airliners that can break the sound barrier without rattling neighborhoods below. The FAA’s rulemaking action, announced on June 30, 2026, aligns with an executive order President Trump signed on June 6, 2025.
Under the proposed rule, the 53-year-old blanket restriction would be replaced with an interim noise-based certification standard. Any supersonic aircraft would need to keep its sonic boom overpressure at ground level below 0.11 pounds per square foot. That threshold is grounded in demonstrations by Colorado-based Boom Supersonic, whose XB-1 aircraft has achieved quiet Mach cutoff flights. By flying just beyond supersonic speeds at higher altitudes in specific atmospheric conditions, the plane’s shockwaves are refracted upward into the atmosphere rather than reaching the earth.
To put that in perspective, the Concorde, which flew commercial transatlantic routes from 1976 to 2003, generated a sonic boom overpressure of 1.94 pounds per square foot while cruising at Mach 2 and 52,000 feet.
A NASA fact sheet notes that “some public reaction could be expected between 1.5 and 2 pounds” of overpressure, but it rules out structural damage to buildings at one pound. The agency also points out that humans have experienced overpressure between 20 and 144 pounds without injury when supersonic aircraft flew below 100 feet.
Still, not everyone is convinced the new standard is adequate. Dan Rutherford, senior director at the nonprofit International Council on Clean Transportation, told Aviation Week that the overpressure metric was rejected by United Nations experts in 2014 because “it doesn’t actually measure loudness or annoyance.”
(Source: Ars Technica)
