The Quiet Little Life of NASA's QSRA

NASA's Quiet Short-Haul Research Aircraft was designed to navigate inner-city airports in dense population centers.

Tuesday, April 18, 2023 at 12:01 PM ET

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Among the QSRA’s more unique testing was that conducted aboard the USS Kitty Hawk, in which the unique control systems were evaluated for use in Naval aviation. [Credit: NASA]

Key Takeaways:

NASA's Quiet Short-Haul Research Aircraft (QSRA) was a unique twin-turboprop conversion into a four-engine jet in the late 1970s, developed to explore quiet, short-haul flight for potential inner-city airports.
The QSRA incorporated advanced aerodynamic features, including a swept wing with complex flaps, Boundary Layer Control (BLC), and engines mounted above the wing to utilize the Coanda effect for enhanced lift at low speeds.
It demonstrated impressive performance, achieving very short takeoff and landing distances and proving that steep approach paths could significantly reduce aircraft noise footprints (by 80-90%), validating concepts for future quiet STOL airliners.

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It would surely require a unique set of circumstances to convert a utilitarian twin-turboprop cargo airplane into a swept-wing four-engine jet. It would be especially peculiar if these modifications resulted in a maximum cruise speed of only 160 knots and a maximum range of only 256 miles. But in the late 1970s, this is precisely what occurred when NASA designed and built the Quiet Short-Haul Research Aircraft, or QSRA.

The genesis for this unique aircraft occurred when researchers around the world were investigating the concept of inner-city airports. These airports, sometimes called STOLports, were envisioned to become the next evolution of air transport. Proponents claimed that by building smaller airports in urban centers, population centers could be more easily and quickly connected with the larger air travel network.