A BRITISH hypersonic aviation company has opened talks with the government – leading to fresh hope for a new “Son of Concorde” style passenger plane.
The talks could re-ignite the dream of flying from London to New York City in 60 minutes in a passenger plane that can hit 4,000mph.
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Reaction Engines is in talks with Whitehall to secure a £20m lifeline amid mounting losses and slow revenue growth.
The company hopes its hybrid jet-rocket engine could one day enable a new era of hypersonic flight.
It would mean any destination around the world is never more than a few hours away.
Reaction hopes its engines will one day be able to fly at Mach 5 in the atmosphere – or even Mach 25 if they are used in space.
Mach 5 alone is more than three times faster than Concorde.
And it is hoped than one day these engines will power a new generation of high speed planes, often dubbed the “Sons of Concorde”.
Reaction have insisted their engines, dubbed Sabre, are well into development – and the new lifeline could be crucial.
The company has said a test bed for its engine had run at the equivalent of five times the speed of sound at its test facility at the Colorado Air and Space Port outside of Denver.
Reaction engines said: “Mach 5 is more than twice as fast as the cruising speed of the Concorde and over 50 per cent faster than the SR-71 Blackbird aircraft—– the world’s fastest jet-engine powered aircraft.”
Richard Varvill, Reaction Engines’ co-founder and current chief technology officer, said in a statement that the latest test was a “momentous landmark.”
He said: “The performance of our proprietary precooler technology was validated at hypersonic flight conditions and takes us closer to realising our objective of developing the first air-breathing engine capable of accelerating from zero to Mach 5.”
Reaction, which was founded in 1989, is building “Sabre”, short for Synergetic Air Breathing Rocket Engine, a new design that combines a conventional jet with a rocket.
The company however has stiff competition.
Boom Technology’s Overture promises to cruise twice as fast as a regular plane and offers luxurious travel with prices that rival business class on a Boeing 777.
Test pilot Tristan “Geppetto” Brandenburg claims the airliner will do miles better than the Concorde, its predecessor that paved the way for supersonic travel.
The XB-1 plane is being used for the test flights before Boom unveils the actual aircraft set to be used in the future known as the Overture.
The XB-1 was inspired by the 1969 Concorde which flew passengers from New York to London in under three hours at Mach 2 (around 1,345 mph).
If tests are successful a supersonic airliner carrying between 64 and 80 passengers could be available from 2029.
Creators want the aircraft to reach Mach 1.7 (around 1,300 mph).
The XB-1, which has a range of 4,250 miles, achieved its fastest speed yet on October 7.
Chief test Pilot Tristan “Geppetto” Brandenburg took the aircraft out for its fifth spin from the XB-1 from Mojave Air and Space Port.
Geppetto flew the jet 17,800 feet into the sky pushing it as fast as Mach 0.69 (around 492 mph).
While he’s “never been scared in a plane”, Geppetto admitted he’d faced some nerve-racking flights in the past but described the thrill of piloting the XB-1.
“The first time I went to land on an aircraft carrier, I had a hard time sleeping that night, and I also got nervous for some of the important flights for my qualifications,” he said.
“Interestingly though, I wasn’t really that nervous for the flights in the XB-1. I knew the team I was working with, I knew the air.
“I know this aeroplane better than any aeroplane I’ve ever flown.”
Although the Overture will mostly fly over water, its noise reduction design will reduce sonic booms, which contributed to the end of Concorde in 2003.
Symphony, its turbojet engine, can run at both high and low speeds on sustainable aviation fuel.
Running at a lower speed means the Overture can land on the same runways as typical commercial aircrafts like the Boeing 737 or the Airbus A380.
Manufacturing for Overture will start in 2025, with test flights by 2027.
A short history of the Concorde
THE CONCORDE was the first supersonic passenger-carrying luxury airplane.
Two decades ago the Concorde took its first-ever flight.
It became supersonic in 1969, flying passengers from New York to London in less than three hours.
It was the only aircraft in the British Airways fleet that required a flight engineer.
Concorde needed unsustainable amounts of fuel and created very loud sonic booms.
Then, in July 2000, a horror accident saw 113 people killed when an Air France Concorde ran over a small piece of metal while taking off from Charles de Gaulle Airport.
It caused the tyre to explode and the engine to ignite.
A year after the horrific crash, 9/11 majorly affected passenger numbers.
Ultimately a combination of these events led to its downfall.
By 2003, Air France and British Airways announced they would be retiring their fleet of Concorde planes.
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