World's Fastest Plane, Hypersonic Quarterhorse, USAF & Hermeus
Break the Airspeed Record & Go NY to Paris 90 Minutes
Successor to the Famous SR-71 Blackbird
The US Air Force and Atlanta-based aviation company Hermeus are developing a next generation hypersonic aircraft for both military and commercial use, that's designed to break the world airspeed record. Here are the key facts:
- With a $60 million USAF contract, Hermeus is developing a Mach 5 plus hypersonic plane for both military and commercial passenger travel applications
- Hermeus is working on 3 concept hypersonic planes including Quarterhorse
- Quarterhouse is a remotely piloted high-speed aircraft designed to sprint short distances at Mach 4 & Mach 5 speeds with a turbojet/ramjet propulsion system
- Quarterhorse is powered by two breakthrough engines: a turbojet engine that reaches Mach 3 (2,000 mph) and a ramjet engine that takes over and transitions to Mach 5 plus or 3,850 mph
- Quarterhorse's dual engine, hypersonic system is undergoing tests that so far are successful and have demonstrated that it can transition from turbojet Mach 3 performance to ramjet Mach 5 performance, which is a major milestone for hypersonic flight
- The engines will need to also transition back to turbojet performance in order to replace the USAF SR-71 hypersonic aircraft because they have to handle subsonic, supersonic and hypersonic speeds
- AF SR-71 Blackbird is currently the world's fastest aircraft with speeds above Mach 3.2 or 2,200 mph
- Hermeus is also working on Darkhouse, a hypersonic plane for defense and intelligence missions that's capable of sustained flight at Mach 5
- Hypersonic passenger jet Halcyon is also being developed by Hermeus with Mach 5 speed, 4,600 mile range and capable of flying from NYC to Paris in 90 minutes.
- It's expected that aviation could enter the hypersonic era of commercial travel by the end of this decade.
For more news stories like this, Flight Path to the Future
Comments
Post a Comment