US moves to lift its 50-year supersonic flight ban
The FAA wants to repeal the 1973 ban on civil supersonic flight over American land and replace it with a noise limit, acting on a Trump executive order aimed at winning the supersonic race.
- The proposed rule scraps the blanket speed ban and instead lets aircraft go supersonic over land as long as the sonic boom at the ground stays below 0.11 pounds per square foot.
- It follows Executive Order 14304, “Leading the World in Supersonic Flight” (June 2025), which ordered the FAA to repeal the ban and set a noise standard so the US writes the global rules before an international standard arrives in 2031.
- The FAA calls the old ban an “unnecessary restraint on the growth of the US aviation sector” and points to “Mach Cutoff” techniques that, it says, keep the boom from ever reaching the ground.
Why it mattersThe government is not lifting the ban because the public asked; it is following a presidential order to free a young supersonic industry and plant the US flag on the rules first. The whole bet rides on the claim that you will not hear or feel the boom.
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