NASA’s one-of-a-kind X-59 experimental aircraft was spotted flying over Fort Worth, Texas, on October 28 as it continued a rare cross-country journey from California toward Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
The aircraft, developed by Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works for NASA’s Quesst (Quiet SuperSonic Technology) mission, is designed to fly faster than the speed of sound while producing only a quiet “sonic thump” rather than the loud sonic booms that have long restricted supersonic flight over land.
The October 28 flight from Edwards Air Force Base marked exactly one year since the X-59’s maiden flight on October 28, 2025. After an overnight stop at Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base Fort Worth, the jet continued to Birmingham, Alabama, before heading to Kennedy Space Center, where it is scheduled to appear at NASA’s MAX POWER aerospace exhibition and airshow on November 7–8.
In its first year of testing, the X-59 has completed more than 40 flights, reached altitudes above 56,000 feet, and hit a top speed of Mach 1.53. It has also demonstrated its intended operating condition of Mach 1.4 at 55,000 feet—the speed and altitude at which NASA expects the aircraft’s long, tapered nose and carefully shaped airframe to turn a traditional sonic boom into a soft thump roughly equivalent to a car door closing about 20 feet away.
The X-59 features a distinctive design: a needle-like nose that accounts for nearly a third of its nearly 100-foot length, an engine mounted on top of the fuselage, and no forward-facing window. Pilots instead rely on an external vision system of cameras that feed a high-resolution display in the cockpit. These features are intended to prevent shockwaves from merging into a single sharp boom.
NASA’s longer-term goal is to gather acoustic data and community response surveys that could help the FAA and international regulators establish new noise standards. A ban on civil supersonic flight over land has been in place in the United States since 1973 largely because of the disruptive noise of conventional sonic booms.
The cross-country flight, accompanied by NASA chase aircraft, gives the public an early look at the experimental plane ahead of the next major phase of testing focused on validating its quiet sonic signature.