Why can the new Overture Boom plane only go 20% faster over land but 2x over water?
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In general, governments and people really don’t like excessively loud aircraft passing over inhabited areas, so high speed supersonic flight has been heavily restricted over land.
https://boomsupersonic.com/overture
[Overland supersonic](https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/14/91.817) flight is currently banned in the US per 14 CFR 91.817.
So if a normal airliner cruises at mach .8, then this one can cruise at just under the speed of sound to avoid window shattering sonic booms over land, and then once over water really give it the go juice.
Sonic booms are also not just one boom. They continuously follow the aircraft, and as such continuously emit huge amounts of noise.
They’re obtrusive and damaging enough that it was even a [serious point of contention with the Concorde. ](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Concorde_Project)
Sonic booms are **very** loud. There are widespread rules limiting them over land for this reason.
Most airliners cruise at around Mach .80, so in theory Overture could fly in the M0.95-0.99 range (approx 20% faster), but would burn a lot more fuel doing so due to wave drag.
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