Thanks to the flight technology inherited from the Concorde, supersonic flights, which expired in 2003, are expected to return in the form of hypersonic flights that will allow them to fly from Istanbul to New York in just an hour and 40 minutes.
Wherever the future is depicted in novels and science fiction films, we find that transportation has received great attention, because it is one of the most important indicators of technological development. Although there are no flying cars or remote transportation technology so far that keeps pace with what science fiction films predicted for the current year 2022, transportation technologies are improving day by day, especially since the point we have reached is still promising.
As a continuation of the high-speed air transport project, hypersonic air transport aircraft, whose speed exceeds the speed of sound by 5 times or more, will allow it to go to the farthest place in the world in just 4 hours. However, some problems must be resolved in advance, chief among them being the high costs and high noise.
In this regard, many companies are trying to reintroduce supersonic air travel with new high-speed jet concepts amid fierce competition, whether between private companies or countries that push their air and space laboratories to develop the latest and most superior versions in the military and commercial fields.
The origin of the story
The idea of supersonic aircraft originated in the mid-1960s, and continued from the beginning of the era of supersonic commercial air travel in 1973, with the first transatlantic crossing of the famous Concorde, until passenger flights ceased in 2003, with the retirement of Air France and British Airways Concorde.
Concorde was a commercial supersonic airliner, flying passengers at 1,350 miles per hour, but high costs, safety concerns and loud sonic booms forced the plane to retire in 2003.
The early success of Concorde prompted British Airways and Air France - the only operators of the aircraft with seven planes each - to add more routes, such as Paris-New York and London-Washington, DC. However, the aircraft proved to be expensive, too noisy, and unmaintainable, which caused it to be retired over time.
Since Concorde retired, the industry hasn't seen another supersonic aircraft because manufacturers are still trying to solve the challenges the famous plane has faced, such as efficiency, cost and noise.
Promising attempts
The hypersonic aircraft, which are currently being worked on to carry passengers, can reach more than 5 times the speed of sound. In other words, its speed can exceed 8,000 kilometers per hour. The direct flight from Istanbul to New York is about 10 hours and 40 minutes with regular planes, and its duration with these planes can be reduced to one hour and 40 minutes.
And while supersonic travel hasn't been a reality for even the wealthiest since Concorde retired nearly 20 years ago, NASA is looking to bring back supersonic flights, and is working with aircraft maker Lockheed Martin to revive this type of aircraft with its hypersonic jet. Named "X-59", which is preparing to fly for the first time in 2023, it will try to prove that it is as calm as expected. If all goes well, before 2030 these planes will bring the two ends of the world closer.
US-based Boom also builds on Concorde's legacy with its supersonic aircraft called "Ovirgin", which aims to reach anywhere in the world within four hours for $100.
However, serious obstacles stand in the way of this transformation, are noise and pollution, while the increase in the amount of fuel used for high-speed travel leads to these flights leaving a much larger carbon footprint, thus damaging the ozone layer severely, traveling at supersonic speed leads to a bang that can be heard On the ground like loud thunder. In addition, high temperatures pose a threat to the durability of aircraft.
Heated competition
In December 2021, China announced that it was working on a hypersonic aircraft that could carry ten passengers anywhere in the world in less than an hour. At the time it was revealed that the plane, which was 45 meters long, about a third the size of a Boeing 737, had delta wings similar to those of Concorde, the first supersonic aircraft in history. And the EurAsian Times reported that China hopes to launch into the future a liquid-magnetic "air-breathing" engine, which could be commercially able to go anywhere on Earth in less than an hour.
During the Farnborough Air Show hosted by the United Kingdom at the end of last month, British companies in cooperation with the Royal Air Force's Rapid Capabilities Office (RCO) announced plans to deliver a hypersonic aircraft to enhance defense capabilities, as well as to compete in high-speed commercial transport.
Without a doubt, American companies are leading the promising shift towards hypersonic transport, and perhaps the most prominent example of this is the Texas startup Venus Aerospace , which unveiled a supersonic (Mach 9) jet plane, which means that the plane will fly nine times faster. of sound. The company says its Stargazer will connect any two cities on Earth in an hour or less by flying along the edge of space.
Tags:
YOU KNOW THAT
