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A comment on Boom (YC W16) – Supersonic Passenger Airplanes. Parent comment

Re:Boom (YC W16) – Supersonic Passenger Airplanes by tempestn on Monday March 21, 2016 @05:03PM (#11332023)
As others have said, the boom is continuous. However, what you could (and presumably would) do is gain altitude at sub-sonic speed, then go supersonic only once cruising altitude is reached. That should help with volume. Also presumably they would avoid flying over major population centers.
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Re:Boom (YC W16) – Supersonic Passenger Airplanes by mark-r on Tuesday March 22, 2016 @01:20AM (#11334568)
Is the boom attenuated by flying through much less dense air?
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Re:Boom (YC W16) – Supersonic Passenger Airplanes by tempestn on Wednesday March 23, 2016 @12:47AM (#11342221)
Possibly! Certainly if the plane was traveling in a vacuum it would produce no boom, so one would assume that the boom would be reduced as the air became less dense. However my understanding is that most of the advantage from altitude comes from the attenuation (or really spreading out) of sound with the square of distance.
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Re:Boom (YC W16) – Supersonic Passenger Airplanes by mark-r on Wednesday March 23, 2016 @01:17AM (#11342310)
Since hearing response is logarithmic, the inverse square law probably isn't as helpful as you'd expect.
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