A European company is working on creating a super-fast passenger plane that could potentially complete the journey from New York to London in just 90 minutes. This is an exciting development that comes more than 20 years after the retirement of the Concorde, a previous supersonic aircraft, due to safety concerns and high costs. While the Concorde took around three hours to fly from London to New York, it faced challenges such as using a lot of fuel per passenger and causing sonic booms over residential areas.
Now, a startup called Destinus aims to go beyond the capabilities of the Concorde with its hypersonic passenger aircraft currently under development. They have plans for two types of planes: the smaller Destinus S, which can carry about 25 passengers, and the larger Destinus L, designed to accommodate 300-400 people. These planes would fly at an altitude of about 108,000 feet, much higher than a regular Boeing 737, and reach a speed of Mach five, or five times the speed of sound.
The estimated travel time of 90 minutes from Paris to New York demonstrates the potential of this technology. However, it’s important to note that these aircraft are still being developed, and Destinus expects the first planes to be available between 2032 and 2035 for the Destinus S, and around the 2040s for the Destinus L. The planes will use liquid hydrogen fuel and special engines called ramjets. These engines will have a turbine paired with an afterburner to transition from regular speeds to supersonic speeds, and then activate the ramjet for hypersonic travel.
