China-US Rivalry Reaches Hypersonic Heights with Plans for Concorde-Beating Aircraft

Beijing — A new race to deliver ultra-fast travel times is shaping up to play out in the aviation industry as rival Chinese and US companies work towards reviving hypersonic travel to cut long-haul flight times to a fraction of what they currently are.

Beijing-based Space Transportation/Lingkong Tianxing Technology recently carried out what it said was a successful test flight of a hypersonic passenger jet that could fly at twice as fast as the old Concorde, which last took to the skies in 2003.

Venus Aerospace in Texas meanwhile says it is developing the RamJet engine for a passenger aircraft that could fly even faster, at Mach 6, around 7,400 km/h.

Engineers say it could hit this speed by saving energy and climbing to over 100,000 feet (30,000 metres) - high enough for passengers to see the curvature of the Earth. "This engine makes the hypersonic economy a reality," said Venus Aerospace co-founder Andrew Duggleby.

Space Transportation said it is aiming for a maiden commercial flight for the Yunxing by 2027, claiming the jet, if it makes it to production, could connect Beijing and New York in around 3 hours. 

The Chinese aircraft could potentially fly from London to New York in about an hour and a half, while Venus Aerospace could shave another 30 minutes off the trip if it succeeds in developing a passenger plane that can fly at Mach 6. 

Concorde’s best time for the journey was 2 hours 53 minutes, flying at around 60,000 feet (182,000 metres) up, or almost twice as a high as a conventional jet-engine aircraft. 

SpaceX and Tesla boss Elon Musk has also said he could be interested in reviving supersonic-or-faster commercial flying.

Aerospace businesses are separately developing eVTOLs (electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft) - electric flying taxis similar to helicopters - with some hoping to roll out commercial services in cities such as Dubai and Chicago in the coming years.

©2024 dpa GmbH. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.