How possible is the hypersonic aircraft revolution?

 

               
 Commercial airliners haven’t broken the sound barrier since the Concorde was retired in 2003. But now some aerospace firms hope to usher in a new era of supersonic air travel. Boom Supersonic, for one, plans to build 1,451-mile-per-hour planes that would be able to make the trip from New York to London in 3 hours and 15 minutes starting in 2023.

Other firms aren’t content with supersonic flight. They’re designing so-called hypersonic aircraft capable of flying five times the speed of sound, or around 3,800 miles per hour. These ultra-fast planes would likely first be used by the military for strike and reconnaissance missions. But experts say hypersonic technology could make its way into commercial jets. It would then be possible to fly anywhere on Earth in under three hours.

Boeing has finally unveiled a successor to the legendary Blackbird SR-71 spy plane, capable of traveling at five times the speed of sound. The new 'Son of Blackbird' was revealed at an event in Orlando, Florida, but it's only a concept design for now. The new aircraft will be a direct competitor to Lockheed martin's upcoming SR-72. These rival firms are racing to create a hypersonic aircraft that's capable of stealthy recon assignments – and strike missions, too. The first stage would involve flight tests of an "F16-sized, single-engine" precursor vehicle that acts as a "proof of concept". The second stage is the creation of a "twin-engine, full-scale operational vehicle" that has roughly similar dimensions to the 107-foot-long SR-71. Boeing's end goal is an aircraft that can travel at speeds beyond Mach 5 – that's five times the speed of sound. The speed of sound – or Mach 1 – is around 1235km/h. So hitting Mach 5 would mean the Son of Blackbird would have to travel at an incredible 6,174km/h. For comparison, a Boeing 747 passenger jet typically reaches cruising speeds of just 885km/h. The tricky part is that the SR-71 replacement needs to be able to take off, accelerate, slow down and land all on its own – just like the original 1964 model. Boeing is looking at using a conventional turbojet to hit Mach 3, then switching to a different configuration to boost beyond Mach 5.  Sadly, there's no guarantee when Boeing will have a sky-ready model, so we'll just have to drool over concept renders for now.