A new hypersonic plane could be jetting Brits to the US in under an hour as an aerospace company aims to launch flights travelling at six times the speed of light
A new hypersonic plane could soon be getting Brits to the US in an hour.
Texas aerospace company, Venus Aerospace, is currently working on a jet plane called Stargazer, along with the engine that will power it. The plane is designed to be hypersonic, meaning it will be able to travel more than five times the speed of sound. It would also fly higher than any other aircraft.
If cleared for commercial travel the $33 million (£25 million) jet would be able to complete the 3,459-mile trip from London, UK, to New York, US, in less than one hour. This would make the aircraft three times as fast as Concorde and five times that of NASA’s upcoming plane that’s being dubbed ‘Son of Concorde’.
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Andrew Duggleby, Venus Aerospace co-founder, said the engine will enable a “revolution in high-speed flight”. “This engine makes the hypersonic economy a reality,” said Andrew, who founded the company in 2020.
According to Venus Aerospace, its upcoming plane will not only be faster but will fly at, up to 110,000 feet. It will take off using traditional jet engines, but once it reaches a high enough altitude it will transition to the VDR2, which uses rockets and a ‘ramjet’.
Ramjets are a type of ‘airbreathing’ jet engine that uses the engine’s forward motion to compress the incoming air, reports the Daily Mail. Venus Aerospace unveiled its new engine at the Up Summit event in Bentonville, Arkansas last week. The engine, named the Venus Detonation Ramjet 2000 lb Thrust Engine, is also known as VDR2. According to Venus, the engine can reach speeds of up to six times the speed of sound, which is around 4,600mph.
This would make the vehicle it was in ‘hypersonic’, which is the level above ‘supersonic’. Mock images of the Stargazer have already been released but it is unclear when the prototype will be complete.
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For passengers, this could mean travelling from London to Sydney, Australia, in under two hours. However, they are likely to face G-forces during take-off and landing, as well as a period of zero-gravity mid-flight. When the VDR2 engine is ready, it will power high-speed drones as well as the Stargazer. The VDR2 was already successful in a small drone earlier this year, and now the company is hoping for a second test in 2025.
Venus Aerospace aims to run its first test flights next year in the hope of making “hypersonic economy a reality”.