Hypersonic jet capable of flying from London to Texas in 2 hours prepares for first major test flight next year
A HYPERSONIC jet that can fly from London to Texas in just two hours will is set to take off on its first text flight in 2025.
The futuristic plane will eventually be able to reach eyewatering speeds of up to Mach 6 (3,600mph/ 5795km/h), according to bosses.
The plane, called the Venus Stargzaer M4, boasts an advanced rocket engine that allows it to reach high-speeds and high altitudes.
Venus Aerospace and Velontra, the companies behind the jet, believe it will make hypersonic travel a reality.
“We can’t wait to dig in, make the first one fly, and ultimately perfect an engine concept that has lived mostly in textbooks but never as a production unit in the air,” Eric Briggs, Velontra’s Chief Operating Officer, said in a statement.
If successful, such a jet would completely collapse global travel times.
But Venus and Veolntra aren’t the only one with that vision.
A number of proposals, prototypes and full fledged builds of hypersonic passenger jets are coming out of the woodwork.
The so-called ‘Son of Concorde’, XB-1, completed its third test flight in September, just weeks after its second test run.
The flight reached a new maximum altitude of 15,000 feet and speeds of 232 knots – the equivalent of 267mph – with a total flight time of 32 minutes.
However, another nine tests are needed before the jet reaches Mach 1 or supersonic status.
The experimental aircraft is the centrepiece of Nasa’s Quesst mission, which aims to figure out how to fly faster than the speed of sound without the ear-aching sonic booms.
Nasa and Lockheed Martin have joined forces on the project, in hopes of bringing back supersonic aircraft after the Concorde was banned.
With each flight, experts can gather data to help develop quieter supersonic aircraft.
Reaction to the quieter sonic “thumps” will be shared with regulators, according to Nasa.
Regulators will then consider writing new sound-based rules to lift the ban on faster-than-sound flight over land.
China is also developing a hypersonic jet capable of reaching six times faster than the Concorde.
Commercial supersonic flight over land has been banned in the US for more than 50 years, and about 20 years in the UK, because of the noise of sonic booms.
As such, there have been no commercial aircrafts even capable of hypersonic or supersonic flight since the Concorde.
With several manufacturers actively developing new supersonic aircraft, the UK’s aerospace watchdog has said it will review the ban.
Supersonic vs Hypersonic
What's the difference...?
Supersonic and hypersonic are basically one and the same.
But they do have different definitions.
Supersonic means faster than the speed of sound.
While hypersonic means specifically five times faster than the speed of sound.
So anything that reaches hypersonic speeds, is also technically supersonic.
But not every supersonic aircraft is hypersonic, by definition.