Airbus patents hypersonic jet that aims to cut New York-London trip to 1 hour

At four-and-a-half times the speed of sound, a hypersonic jet that Airbus has secured a patent for could change the aviation industry. Jets could make more trips and air carriers could boost their revenues by using the “ultra-rapid air vehicle and related method of aerial locomotion.”

Business Insider reports that with the jet capable of flying as high as Mach 4.5, the 3.5 hours trip from New York to London could be cut to just one hour. Marco Prampolini and Yohann Corabeouf of Airbus got in July and approval of its patent application from the US Patent and Trademark Office.

The Mach 2 Concorde, now retired, took 210 minutes to fly the route. Production of that aircraft was a joint venture between British Aerospace and Aerospatiale of France, the predecessors of Airbus. In turn, conventional jets such as the A330 of Airbus take seven to eight hours to fly between the two global cities which crosses the Atlantic.

From Paris to San Francisco and Tokyo to Los Angeles, the hypersonic jet is expected to fly in just three hours. The speed is made possible by three different types of engines that work in sequential order that first gets the plane aloft, into cruising altitude and at a cruising speed of 3,000 mph.

The patent includes a fuselage, gothic delta wing on either side of the fuselage and the system of motors. Two turbojets mounted under the fuselage and a rear-mounted rocket motor would get the jet off the ground. Upon lifting off the runway, the plane would do a vertical climb similar to the Space Shuttle.

When the jet is almost near the speed of sound, the turbojets would shutter and retract in the aircraft’s belly with only a rocket motor guiding the plan at an altitude of more than 100,000 feet. The jet would likely be powered by various forms of hydrogen stored on board, said Airbus.

Meanwhile, Airbus will join a three-day Russian air show in late August too display its A350-900 jet at MAKS Moscow. The aircraft is on a flight test, and Airbus is sending the MSN1, the first prototype, to Ramenskoye, reports Flightblobal.

Aeroflot, the Russian flag-carrier, has 22 orders for Airbus’s A350, specifically the Rolls-Royce Trent XWB-powered type, including 14 -900s.

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