Lockheed Martin X-59 QueSST
From its initial cut of metal in 2018 to now, the production of the X-59 is still very much underway, but it lines up with the X-57 as one of the most exciting X-planes currently in development. The X-59 is basically what the X-3 Stiletto and the X-15 rocket plane were building toward: a supersonic plane that can fly without a sonic boom. Its nose alone is 30 feet long, and the sky in front of the cockpit is visualized on a 4K computer monitor that pulls visuals from cameras mounted on either side of the nose. (If the pilots were to look nakedly down the plane’s nose, they wouldn’t be able to see the sky in front of them.) Ground tests were set to begin in Texas in early 2022, and NASA plans to fly the aircraft over communities in 2024 to see if the sonic booms can be heard on the ground. Even if supersonic flight doesn’t take off again—RIP Concorde—this thing is wicked cool.
