Us poor folks would just have to keep dreaming for the day we enter a Concorde, but for most people airplane travel is as much a part of their lives as anything else.
For folks like that, there is an exciting new milestone on the horizon. Airbus, operators of the original Concorde jet, has just won a patent for the Concorde 2.0. For the usual 7-8 hour New York London route, which Concorde could do in 3-4 hours; Concorde 2.0 would complete in a breathtaking one hour!
The new plane, whenever it becomes available, would travel at Mach 4.5. That’s 4.5 times the speed of sound.
“Aircraft manufacturer Airbus has won a patent for the next stage in speedy travel. And this monster goes faster and higher than ever before seen in commercial air travel.
One hour. That’s how long London to New York would take in the planned hypersonic plane, called the “Ultra-rapid air vehicle” but dubbed Concorde 2.0. This new passenger aircraft would fly at up to four and a half times the speed of sound, Mach 4.5, compared to up to Mach 2.5 for the original Concorde.
Passengers of Concorde 2.0 would be in for a bit of a space-like adventure. The plane takes off vertically just like a Space Shuttle. After takeoff, a rocket motor would shoot the plane high into the sky where the ramjets would take over and accelerate the aircraft to hypersonic speeds (loosely defined as around Mach 5). Ramjets are more commonly found on missiles than commercial aircrafts.
To take off vertically, passengers would have to sit in hammock-like seats. And, instead of the 100-passenger Concorde, the Concorde 2.0 would only carry 20 passengers.
Unfortunately, you’re not going to be able to book a seat on this vehicle anytime soon. The project is predicted to take 30 to 40 years before it becomes a commercially viable form of travel.”
Still, it’s exciting to think of the progress we keep making due to science. Hopefully, the day would when scientific enquiry would be the only means of acquiring knowledge, and not knowing by intuition or being told by others.