All posts tagged: supersonic

Dyson Supersonic Travel hair dryer review: kiss goodbye to subpar holiday hair | Hair care

Dyson Supersonic Travel hair dryer review: kiss goodbye to subpar holiday hair | Hair care

Published by Sam Flores

With the summer holidays fast approaching, the usual anxieties might be taking hold: pickpockets and touts, lost passport, severe sunburn, holiday tummy, and – perhaps most pressingly – the horrors of the hotel hair dryer. That last one is not to be underestimated: an outdated dryer with one scorching heat setting is a fast track to frizzy, dehydrated, unfabulous hair – not something you want immortalised in your holiday photos. The Guardian’s journalism is independent. We will earn a commission if you buy something through an affiliate link. Learn more. Worry not, though: Dyson promises to fix that particular woe. The British engineering brand has shrunk its Supersonic into a smaller, lighter, travel-friendly dryer offering the same powerful airflow and heat-control technology as its full-size sibling. So does this admittedly very stylish compact dryer really justify its premium price? View at Dyson View at John Lewis How I tested Our tester used the Dyson Supersonic Travel to create simple blow-dries and more styled looks. Photograph: Lise Smith/The Guardian I tested the Dyson Supersonic Travel by using …

NASA’s new supersonic X-59 aircraft shows off its dizzying acrobatics in new video

NASA’s new supersonic X-59 aircraft shows off its dizzying acrobatics in new video

Published by Jenni Sidey

Get the Popular Science daily newsletter💡 Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent six days a week. It’s been over a decade since engineers officially got to work on the X-59 Quiet SuperSonic Technology (QueSST). Designed in collaboration with NASA, Lockheed Martin’s state-of-the-art aircraft is built to fly very high and very fast, all without leaving a telltale sonic boom in its wake. Lockheed finally revealed the X-59 to the public in January 2025 a few years behind schedule, and completed its first subsonic test flight that October.  They’ve been making up for lost time ever since. The X-59 has flown on nine more occasions, most recently on April 14 when it accomplished some of its biggest feats to date while cruising over the Mojave Desert in California. This time around, however, Lockheed was ready to show off the aircraft in action. From the opening maneuvers, it’s clear that a ride in the plane isn’t for the faint of heart. The dizzying ascensions and precise axial turns look uncomfortable even from the distance of a computer …

Brazil Unveils First Supersonic Fighter Jet Assembled in Country

Brazil Unveils First Supersonic Fighter Jet Assembled in Country

Published by Sam Flores

GAVIAO PEIXOTO, Brazil, ⁠March ⁠25 (Reuters) – Brazil became ⁠the first Latin American nation to build ​a supersonic fighter jet on Wednesday when it unveiled ‌the first Gripen plane ‌assembled in the country. Brazil first signed the ⁠contract for ⁠Saab’s Gripen in 2014, choosing it over Boeing’s F-18 ​Super Hornet and the Rafale, made by France’s Dassault, to replace its aging fleet of fighter jets. The country ​joins Western powers such as the United States ⁠and France, ⁠as well as major ⁠developing ​economies including Russia, India and China, in building a ​supersonic fighter jet. Its ⁠deal with Swedish defence group Saab included the production of 15 of the 36 jets under contract at Brazilian planemaker Embraer’s Gaviao Peixoto plant ⁠in Sao Paulo state under a technology transfer agreement. Saab said ⁠it expects to use the Brazilian production line as an export hub, a prospect bolstered by an agreement last year for neighboring Colombia to acquire Gripen fighters. “This is the first time since 1937, when Saab was founded, that a fighter aircraft is manufactured outside …

Watch NASA’s experimental supersonic jet land early after system warning

Watch NASA’s experimental supersonic jet land early after system warning

Published by skeptic

Nothing seemed amiss as NASA‘s experimental X-59 supersonic jet touched down after its second test in the air, smoothly coasting onto the runway.  But the sleek, needle-nosed airplane had completed only nine minutes in the air on Friday, March 20, before a cockpit warning light forced an early landing. That warning was separate from a caution light that occurred during an earlier takeoff attempt just before 10 a.m. P.T., said Cathy Bahm, project manager at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center. The brief flight left from Edwards Air Force Base in California at 10:54 a.m. P.T. marked only the second time the aircraft had flown. While the team originally planned for about an hour, leaders stressed that even short flights provide new data for moving the project forward. You can watch the landing in the video below.  Bob Pearce, who heads NASA’s aeronautics research, said the team made the right call to cut the flight short on Friday. The agency expects to find and fix issues at this stage of an X‑plane, an aircraft the U.S. …

Dyson Supersonic Nural review: can a hair dryer really save your scalp from heat damage? | Hair care

Dyson Supersonic Nural review: can a hair dryer really save your scalp from heat damage? | Hair care

Published by Sam Flores

Tell most hair-care enthusiasts you want to upgrade your hair dryer, and I’d bet good money you’ll be asked, “Will you buy a Dyson?” That would have been a ludicrous question more than a decade ago when the brand specialised in vacuum cleaners, but not since it took the luxury hair-care market by storm in 2016 with its Supersonic hair dryer. The Guardian’s journalism is independent. We will earn a commission if you buy something through an affiliate link. Learn more. The Supersonic ripped up the hair-dryer rulebook, with its distinctive design, lightweight feel and quiet operation. Eight years after the original, Dyson launched the Supersonic Nural: an upgraded version with new tricks up its sleeve. Upgrading to one of the best hair dryers is still one of my top beauty tips: they’re better at controlling heat levels and dry hair faster. All the same, is there really any need to spend up to £400? Having put the Supersonic Nural hair dryer through its paces and compared it with 19 other hair dryers that I tested, …

Dyson Supersonic dupe deal: The Dreame Glam is 30% off on Amazon

Dyson Supersonic dupe deal: The Dreame Glam is 30% off on Amazon

Published by skeptic

SAVE $30: Amazon has the Dreame Gleam Hair Dryer on sale for just $69.99 as of Jan. 21. That’s 30% off its $99.99 sticker price, which is its biggest discount to date. $69.99 at Amazon $99.99 Save $30   The Dyson Supersonic is a fast and effective hair dryer, but like most Dyson beauty tech, it suffers from the affliction of Being Way Too Expensive. Fortunately, my colleague Bethany Allard has made it part of her life’s work to find the best Dyson Supersonic dupes that replicate its results for $300 or less. Her top budget pick, the Dreame Gleam, manages to do it for just $100 — but if you hustle, you’ll pay a fraction of that. As of Jan. 21, Amazon has the Gleam on sale for just $69.99, or 30% off its usual $99.99 MSRP. (You could buy six of them for the price of one Supersonic.) Data on the price-tracking site CamelCamelCamel shows that this is a match of its record-low price from last September, which hasn’t reemerged until now. SEE ALSO: …

Is supersonic air travel about to return, two decades after the last Concorde flight?

Is supersonic air travel about to return, two decades after the last Concorde flight?

Published by skeptic

An experimental supersonic aircraft called the X-59 took to the skies for the first time in October. The plane lifted off from Skunk Works, the famed research and development facility in California owned by aerospace giant Lockheed Martin. It cruised for about an hour, before landing at Edwards Air Force Base 85 miles (136km) away. Nasa’s X-59 is designed to test technology for quiet supersonic flight. In the US, loud sonic booms led to a five-decade ban on non-military supersonic aircraft flying over land. The ban was lifted this year by the US president Donald Trump, via an executive order. In the UK, supersonic flight over land needs to be specifically approved by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), which functions independently of government. The X-59 aims to turn sonic booms into a quieter “sonic thump”. So if this proves possible, how likely is it that we will see a return to commercial supersonic air travel – not seen since the Concorde passenger jet was retired in 2003? Beginning in the 1950s, the race to achieve …