Lockheed X-59 first flight on 28 October from Palmdale, California

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DonWop1@reddit

Can someone explain how the pilot is supposed to see? Especially on final approach and landing?

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Shaun_Jones@reddit

The F-35 has technology that allows the pilot to see straight through the aircraft, so there’s probably something similar here.

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murphsmodels@reddit

In some jets you have to watch for tail swing when turning, to make sure you don't hit anything. This thing has to watch for nose swing as well.

Anybody know why the nose gear is half a mile behind the actual nose?

One hard landing, and they'll have to change the nickname to "droop snoot".

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Shaun_Jones@reddit

Most likely the nose contains sensor equipment and/or is too thin for the wheel well to fit.

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Xeelee1123@reddit (OP)

Source: https://www.nasa.gov/mission/quesst/

Source: https://news.lockheedmartin.com/2025-10-28-X-59-Soars-A-New-Era-in-Supersonic-Flight-Begins?_gl=1*16zl2i4*_gcl_au*MTk5ODEyODgxMS4xNzYxNzE1Njcw

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Away-Independence407@reddit

Does mean one day we may see the return of a concorde style aircraft or maybe a new tu-144 type ?

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The return of Concorde has been underway for a while. A company called Boom Technologies is working on a supersonic airliner. They've got a giant factory in Greensboro, North Carolina, and they're building their prototype. They're even developing a brand new engine in-house, because none of the Big Three were willing to help develop a new supersonic-capable medium-bypass turbofan.

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ItselfSurprised05@reddit

A company called Boom Technologies is working on a supersonic airliner. ...they're building their prototype...

Adding some detail about Boom, for people not familiar with them.

Their XB-1 demonstrator first flew in March 2024.

It first went supersonic in January of 2025. It was the first privately-developed aircraft ever to do so.

By the end of their test program in February 2025, the company said it had achieved its goal of supersonic flight without producing an audible sonic boom.

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Obnoxious_Gamer@reddit

called boom technologies

doesn't produce sonic boom

Fuckin amateurs

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Away-Independence407@reddit

You realize boom technology hasnt bulit their full size full power verison yet right?

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ItselfSurprised05@reddit

He's making a joke about their name.

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Away-Independence407@reddit

I know

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ItselfSurprised05@reddit

LOL

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Marionettework@reddit

Does this mean Boom is actually further ahead than NASA?

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ItselfSurprised05@reddit

This is not my field, and I only casually follow this stuff. But based on the pretty standard milestone of "first test flight", Boom is currently ahead by 19 months.

Besides being ahead, the Boom folks might also have a better concept.

The Wikipedia article for the Lockheed/NASA plane says that they estimate the X-59 "would create a 75 dB thump on ground, as loud as closing a car door..."

Whereas the XB-1 has actually gone supersonic "without generating an audible sonic boom that reached the ground".

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BigBlueBurd@reddit

The Baby Boom wasn't the prototype, to be clear. It was just a testbed.

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ItselfSurprised05@reddit

Yup. The article uses the word "demonstrator". Its intent was to show that they could suppress the sonic boom.

The demonstrator was a scaled down version of what the prototype will be. It was only 62 ft long and had a MTOW of only 13,500.

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not1or2@reddit

I think that’s the idea. Unless the enviromentalists get involved.

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KerPop42@reddit

Yeah who wants an ozone layer /s

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Away-Independence407@reddit

i hope so

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noneckjoe123@reddit

After only NINE years since design Began…..awriiiiiiiight…….

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RhynoD@reddit

🎵Long, long jeeeeeet🎵

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GnarlyNarwhalNoms@reddit

I'm guessing that pointyboi here is the successor to this aircraft project.

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NationalPumpkin8966@reddit

State of the art airliners already allow landing in near zero visibility. Cameras would be a useful/likely/obvious safety layer, but you can already land many existing aircraft without looking outside.

The F-35 also demonstrates augmented vision to 'see through' the non transparent portions of the airframe from the pilots perspective.

I would say the complex droop nose will be a thing of the past.

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Spiritual_Fox_8393@reddit

Charles Lindbergh could empathize with this pilot

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commanche_00@reddit

Mmmmmmmm pointy

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CAMSTONEFOX@reddit

Oh, they got the flying lawn dart up finally? About darned time…

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yaxgto@reddit

Long long maaaaaan

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Calm-Ad3031@reddit

Finally, we have a plane that can blast away Chinese balloons by ramming.

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jokerzwild00@reddit

Looks straight out of the 60s to me. Something from that wild era of try anything and see if it works. If this was postes as "XF-113 Needlenose circa 1962" I wouldn't have given it a second thought before thinking wow that's cool and went to the comments for a wiki page. Maybe it's the Nasa logo giving it that effect for me.

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propsie@reddit

Yeah, it has real X-3 vibes.

Hopefully it's a better aeroplane than the X-3.

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Quiet-Temporary-6666@reddit

Pointy.

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GnarlyNarwhalNoms@reddit

"How long does the nose need to be, exactly?"

"Just keep going and I'll say when."

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ImNotAlpharius@reddit

"How much more pointy should the nose be?"

"Yes."

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Pyrhan@reddit

Aladeen approves!

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NF-104@reddit

Sure looks like repurposed A-7/F-8 main landing gear.

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DisregardLogan@reddit

I think it actually has various parts of different aircraft in it

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GnarlyNarwhalNoms@reddit

It's way too late in life for me to change careers, but I honestly cannot think of a cooler job than figuring out how to stick different airplane parts together and making it fly.

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slups@reddit

I think the canopy is an aft canopy off a T-38

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Aratheon01@reddit

That's basically the Skunkworks MO, at least historically. Pull as much off the shelf (so to speak) as possible for a one-off demonstrater like this to keep costs down. Why waste time and money designing a part from the ground up, when you can find an existing part that is very close to what you need and then modify it a bit?

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CKinWoodstock@reddit

Grumman did the same thing with the X-29; probably more than half the plane came from the spare parts bin.

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McFlyParadox@reddit

On that note, I'm surprised by how far "back" the front landing gear is. There must be nothing but empty space in that nose.

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NSYK@reddit

Guess it’s off an F-16

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Melech333@reddit

It does kind of look like someone started with an F-16, then stretched out the Play-Doh to make it real long, before swapping out a bunch of the Lego pieces to play with the wing shapes some more.

I'm going back to sleep now.

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