Arguably the first major development in the scope of Flight Test for many years is the publication by the FAA of the
Final Rule "to facilitate the the safe development of civil
supersonic aircraft. I happen to know several people involved in the various Design Teams (the breakup of Bombardier caused a lot of migration) and they're very competent Engineers but I wonder if this will be like the original Sound Barrier era. Back then several aircraft had sufficient installed thrust but still did not achieve Supersonic flight consistently or even at all. What are your thoughts?