Wednesday, June 29, 2011

2 Hour Trans-Alantic Flight?

A two hour flight across the Atlantic may be possible within 10 years. Employing new hyper speed engine technology the HyperMach SonicStar will be able to fly twice as fast as the Concord or 3.6 mach. and do so at altitudes above 60 thousand feet (high enough to see the curve of Earth) while carrying a passenger load of 20 souls.

Plans for the SonicStar were unveiled at the 2011 Paris airshow. The engines are supposed to be 30% more efficient and the overall airframe will all but eliminate sonic overpressure. The plane's ultra high speed will put most of Europe in range of a 2 hour plus flight and complete circumnavigation a hair over five hours.



4 comments:

Dave Tackett said...

Wow! That's even faster than the old SR-71 Blackbird's cruising speed of Mach 3.2. Of course, with long airport waits and holding patterns before landing, the flight will take much longer - but the plane itself sounds quite impressive.

Beam Me Up said...

really? wow! I wonder why I thought the blackbird was faster. May be confusing it with the x-15. But looking at the Wiki is an eye opener. Oh and the hoops they had to jump to to get sub sonic air to the compressors while cruising at mach3.2...wild!

Homer said...

Damn, I wonder what the ticket prices will be? Will I still get my free pretzel? You'll have to be a sheik from Dubai in order to fly on this thing. I would love to see a faster mode of transport come to fruition. I start getting stir crazy after two hours on a plane!!

Beam Me Up said...

Homer you won't even have TIME to eat them pretzels! And funny you should say that because that was where they got their trans Atlantic time was from the US to Dubai and that was exactly my thought...that's the only people that will be able to afford the tickets anyway!

Oh no Homers on a plane......

You know, I hate flying because an evil genius designed the whole process...I mean TWO JACKS for STEREO?!!! Come on! they KNOW what they are doing! and 6 bucks for head phones that are useless anywhere else? and thats the first 90 minutes!!!4 more to go!