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It's not something they probably want to draw attention to (despite the name), because it is a barrier to allowing these kinds of flights over land.



No, it's the whole point of Boom. They won't be able to keep the sonic boom a secret. They whole company's future hangs on making that sonic boom minor enough that supersonic flights will be allowed with few restrictions. Therefore asking what the boom was is perfectly fair.

Now, Boom might say (have they? I'm not following them) that the XB-1 is a demonstrator that they can do supersonic flight, and that the sonic boom reduction work will follow on. In that case asking what today's boom was is not that interesting.

The chase planes also went supersonic, so they would have contributed to the sonic boom, which might complicate that analysis (well, there would be at most 3 pairs of sonic booms, and it should be possible to tell which ones correspond to which planes).


I'm not criticizing anyone for asking how loud the boom was. I'm telling you why they didn't provide that answer unprompted.




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