By South China Morning Post | Created at 2025-03-29 14:11:08 | Updated at 2025-04-01 01:10:03
2 days ago
The first details of C949, a supersonic airliner project, have been quietly unveiled by Chinese state-owned aerospace giant Comac, signalling its ambitions to dominate the skies with the radical new jet that could redefine global air travel.
In a recent academic paper, Comac engineers revealed the blueprint of a 1.6-Mach airliner designed to fly further and much more quietly than the retired Concorde – a feat that could position China at the forefront of a 21st century supersonic renaissance.
A team led by Wu Dawei, Comac’s award-winning aerodynamicist, said in a March 14 paper published in the journal Acta Aeronautica Sinica that the project aimed to achieve what engineers have chased for decades: a 50 per cent range boost over the Concorde (11,000km or 6,800 miles vs 7,200km or 4,500 miles) while slashing sonic booms to 83.9 perceived level in decibels (PLdB), comparable to the noise level of a hairdryer.
This reduction in noise, down to one-twentieth of the Concorde’s thunderclap-like boom by intensity, aims to bypass regulatory barriers that have long banned overland supersonic flights.
The C949 will compete with similar projects from other countries, such as Nasa and Lockheed Martin’s X-59, with the winner rewriting the rules of global aviation, according to the researchers.
The C949’s design features a shape-shifting fuselage with a curved “reverse-camber” midsection that weakens shock waves, delaying their transition into violent booms.
