New York JFK to San Francisco, supersonic and boomless?
Yes: today a boomless corridor covers 100% of the 3,902 km over land. Median usable corridor speed over land: Mach 1.13.
Water, Mach 1.7Land, boomless corridorLand, boom would land: subsonic
Plan this route on the live mapHow this is worked out Great circle, 55,000 ft, today's forecast, margin 0.05.
A supersonic aircraft is boomless when the air below it bends the boom back up before it reaches the ground (Mach cutoff). How fast it can fly that way depends on the temperature and wind on the day and on the direction of flight. This page follows the great circle from New York JFK to San Francisco at 55,000 ft through today's forecast (NOAA GFS and ECMWF, analysis time), takes the boomless Mach for the route's direction at each point, and keeps a typical safety margin of 0.05. Times assume no wind and add 30 minutes for climb and descent; the over-water cruise is Mach 1.7, like Boom Overture.
The great-circle distance is 4,152 km, 94% of it over land. The live map plans the real route: it can detour to find better air, picks the margin point by point from the ensemble forecast, and refuses a corridor when the forecast is too old.
Why it changes from day to day Half season, half the weather of the day.
About half of the variation in the boomless speed is the season and half is the weather of the day. Corridors are widest in summer and narrowest in winter, and flying east into the jet stream is the hardest direction in winter.
Forecast valid 24 Oct 2026 12:00 UTC. Updated four times a day.
Mach Corridor is an open research project; not for flight planning. Data: NOAA GFS and ECMWF IFS open data (CC BY 4.0). Privacy · Code and method.