A newly designed supersonic aircraft, named the Hyper Sting, has the potential to transport passengers from New York City to London in just 80 minutes.
Dubbed the Hyper Sting, the conceptual plane would be nearly twice as large and travel twice as fast as its predecessor, the Concorde, which concluded its commercial supersonic retirement in 2003
With dimensions of 328 feet in length and a wingspan of 168 feet, the Hyper Sting aims to whisk up to 170 passengers across the Atlantic and beyond at an astonishing speed of 2,486 mph—surpassing the Concorde's capabilities by more than three times.
Oscar Viñals, the Spanish designer behind the innovative aircraft, acknowledged the Concorde's brilliance but highlighted its drawbacks, stating, "Concorde was a brilliant piece of machinery, a noble experiment, but it put too many emissions in the environment, too much noise into our communities, and was too expensive to operate," as reported by The U.S. Sun.
According to The Sun, the Spanish designer of the craft, Oscar Viñals, said: “Concorde was a brilliant piece of machinery, a noble experiment, but it put too many emissions in the environment, too much noise into our communities, and was too expensive to operate."
The Hyper Sting is designed to be powered by a small nuclear reactor, pushing the boundaries of supersonic travel. However, it would also necessitate the utilization of a cold-fusion nuclear reactor, a theoretical concept that is yet to be realized, according to The Sun.
Startup Destinus unveils a plan for the Destinus S, a hypersonic passenger plane with a 'business jet' design, boasting a capacity of approximately 25 people.
Notably, this small private plane is intended for hypersonic travel, cruising at an exceptionally high altitude of approximately 108,000 ft. The Boeing 737, a standard airliner, typically cruises at an altitude of around 41,000 ft, indicating that the hypersonic plane operates approximately 60,000 ft higher.
In theory, this would mean that the aircraft could cover the distance from Paris to New York in a remarkably short time frame of 90 minutes
The power source for this innovative aircraft involves the use of liquid hydrogen fuel and ramjet engines. To transition from subsonic to supersonic speeds, a turbot will be paired with an afterburner, after which the ramjet will engage to propel the vehicle into hypersonic speed.
At the Paris Air show, senior business development manager Martina Löfqvist said: "It's somewhere of a mix between a rocket and an airplane.
"We've been speaking with a lot of airlines and airports who also support the notion that hydrogen will be the future of aviation."
