Hypersonic Passenger Jet Designed

A British team has designed a hypersonic passenger aeroplane that could one day fly passengers between Europe and Australia in less than five hours. The A2 plane, designed by Oxfordshire-based Reaction Engines, could carry 300 passengers at a top speed of almost 4,000 mph, five times the speed of sound.

The plane, which at 143 metres long would be about twice the size of the biggest current jets, could fly non-stop for up to 12,500 miles. It would be lighter than current intercontinental planes and designed to operate on liquid hydrogen.

The jet would produce only water vapour and nitrous oxide as exhaust. It’s high-speed would make windows impracticable so flat screen monitors instead would substitute for an actual outside view.

Fares for the four-hour and 40-miute flight to Australia would be comparable with current first-class tickets on standard flights, of around £3,500. The company said the aircraft, which is still at the concept stage, could be operating within 25 years.

Alan Bond, managing director of Reaction Engines, told The Guardian newspaper: “The A2 is designed to leave Brussels international airport, fly quietly and sub-sonically out into the north Atlantic at mach 0.9 before reaching mach 5 across the North Pole and heading over the Pacific to Australia.
The flight time from Brussels to Australia, allowing for air traffic control, would be four hours 40 minutes. It sounds incredible by today’s standards but I don’t see why future generations can’t make day trips to Australasia. Our work shows that it is possible technically; now it’s up to the world to decide if it wants it.”

The LAPCAT (Long-Term Advanced Propulsion Concepts and Technologies) project is being funded by the European Space Agency (ESA) to encourage companies to push the boundaries of commercial air travel using technology more commonly associated with space travel.