So, you’re a businessman in London with a crucial dinner in Tokyo just hours away. Even allowing for the nine-hour time difference, you won’t be needing to reset your morning alarm as you’ll be on the ground and knocking back the sake just two hours after take-off, thanks to hypersonic flight. At Mach 6 (4567mph), this hypersonic craft would be three times as fast as Concorde. It will be so fast it will have to be clad in a skin made from titanium crystals wrapped in carbon fiber to resist the extreme friction heat such speeds will create. Continue reading for a video explaining how hypersonic flight will work.
Here’s what Dr Phillip Atcliffe, senior lecturer in aeronautical engineering at Salford University, has to say: ‘”There’s a lot of technology to be developed and we have to have governments and companies who are prepared to research and design it – and then airlines to buy it.” But he believes that if the money were available – and we are talking serious money – a hypersonic passenger jet would not be unfeasible. It could even be developed by 2030.’
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