Supersonic Diversions: Assessment of Great-Circle versus Sonic Boom-Restricted Flight Routing

Abstract

Overland supersonic flight bans due to the sonic boom are often said to be the reason for civil high-speed aircraft not being able to make a breakthrough. However, there is an apparent lack of studies actually quantifying the disadvantage of law-compliant supersonic flight paths versus optimum overland tracks. This paper presents a framework of city pair-specific flight routes and mission performance simulation for accurate operational assessment of supersonic airplane designs. By application to a supposedly realistic representation of a future civil supersonic air transportation system as a use-case, the impact of rerouting on flight distance, block times, and block fuels is quantified locally as well as globally.