The National Aeronautics and Space Administration plans to conduct test flights to study how to measure how people on the ground perceive quiet supersonic jets.
For several days in November, the agency will fly two F18 jets over Galveston and break the sound barrier up to eight times a day.
Five-hundred preselected people living or working in and around Galveston will then be surveyed about what, if anything, they heard.
The responses will be compared to what noise sensors in the same area will have registered.
The results will help to develop future noise tests over larger communities.
While the F18s will perform a maneuver to avoid a sonic boom, NASA is currently developing a jet whose aerodynamics would make it quieter when breaking the sound barrier.
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