Big Pic: What A Supersonic Aircraft Model Looks Like In A Wind Tunnel

Take a look into a supersonic wind tunnel at NASA

This is a 1.79 percent scale model of a concept supersonic aircraft designed by The Boeing Company. You’re seeing it through a window in the supersonic wind tunnel at NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Ohio.

Researchers recently wind tunnel-tested the model’s performance while changing the amount of air streaming through inlets you can see near the back of the model, NASA said. The research is part of the agency’s work into making supersonic flights quiet enough to go over land.

NASA

 
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Francie Diep is a science journalist based in Santa Barbara, California. Besides Popular Science, her work has appeared in Scientific American, Smithsonian, and elsewhere. She's fascinated by genes, cells, robots, archives, and weird stuff on the internet.