There’s been a great deal of interest lately in the return of supersonic aircraft (see my post of June 22, 2024 titled What Will the Next Decade Bring?). Boom Supersonic broke the sound barrier in a test flight of its XB-1 jet last month, taking yet another step towards a potential return for supersonic commercial flight. The small aircraft reached a top speed of Mach 1.122 (roughly 859 miles per hour) in a flight over southern California and exceeded the speed of sound for a few minutes. Boom plans to start commercial operation with a scaled-up version of the XB-1, a 65-passenger jet called Overture, before the end of the decade, and it has already sold dozens of planes to customers including United and American Airlines. “XB-1’s supersonic flight demonstrates that the technology for passenger supersonic flight has arrived,” said Boom founder and CEO Blake Scholl in a statement made after the test flight. But, as the company inches toward that goal, experts warn that such efforts will come with a hefty climate price tag. Supersonic planes will burn significantly more fuel than current aircraft, resulting in higher emissions of carbon dioxide, which fuels climate change. Supersonic jets also fly higher than the current fleet of commercial planes, introducing atmospheric effects that may warm the planet further. It’s not all bad news, to be fair. The drier air in the stratosphere means supersonic jets likely won’t produce significant contrails. That could be a benefit for climate, since contrails contribute to global warming.
But, the Boom Overture isn’t the only aircraft on the drawing board. Imagine flying from London to New York for a lunch meeting, and being home again in time for tea. Well, that could soon become a reality for transatlantic business travelers if one aviation designer gets his way. Don’t pack your bags just yet though. Spanish designer Oscar Viñals claims his latest invention could spirit passengers across the Atlantic at three times the speed of sound, making a trip from Britain's capital to the Big Apple in less than 80 minutes flat. The theatrically named Hyper Sting nuclear-powered aircraft would be nearly twice as fast and larger than the iconic Concorde, the last and to-date the only commercial supersonic jet. At 328 feet long, the Hyper Sting would carry between 130 to 170 passengers. In theory, it could reach a maximum speed of 2,664 mph, which means a trip from London to New York would take about as long as a subway ride from the Bronx to Brooklyn. By comparison, Concorde measured only 200 feet, carried 100 flyers and had a top speed of 1,354 mph. And keep in mind that an average commercial aircraft currently flies between 460 to 575 mph.
The aircraft's success as the fastest commercial passenger plane in history lies firmly on the as-yet untested theory of cold fusion via a "cold fusion nuclear reactor" that would power two ramjet engines and four next-generation hybrid turbojets. Viñals claims that his vision for a new dawn of high-speed air travel would be capable of hitting Mach 3.5. Currently, such innovative technology is the preserve of the military. The fastest aircraft ever to shoot through airspace is the now-retired North American X-15, a rocket-powered aircraft which reached a face-melting hypersonic speed of 4,520 mph (Mach 6.7) on Oct. 3, 1967. And that was over 57 years ago!
Among a number of questions that hang over the Hyper Sting's future is one about its financial viability — what are the production costs of such a jet, given the issue that ultimately led to the demise of Concorde? Viñals, however, remains bullishly unburdened by the significant doubt over his idea from the aviation community. "Concorde was a brilliant piece of machinery, a noble experiment, but it put too many emissions in the environment, too much noise into our communities, and was too expensive to operate," he explained. ”A new era of supersonic flight might be just around the corner, but there are challenges to overcome when it comes to flying faster than the speed of sound. The Hyper Sting is a new concept for future supersonic commercial airplanes," he added. He does admit, however, that "supersonic flights will return, but in this case due to some very innovative systems, like the cold fusion reactor, the date of a possible production, would be after 2030 and the cost would not be cheap."
While the idea for the Hyper Sting currently only lives inside Viñals' imagination, it revives a dream that has perplexed aircraft designers since the 1950s: How can you fit a nuclear reactor into an aircraft? The invention of nuclear reactors in the 1950s brought the promise of cheap travel, not to mention the initial possibility of planes staying aloft for days at a time, even months. The only hurdle was making it small and safe. It began on boats, then as the technology shrunk, it found its way onto submarines. Submarines can now cruise below the sea at high speeds for decades without ever needing to refuel. Making a nuclear reactor flightworthy, however, has proven a far more challenging conundrum. It starts with preventing the reactor from spewing out lethal radioactive particles into the bodies of passengers and crew. The casing required would also be too heavy for a plane to take off. Next, therefore, was the issue of scale. How could a reactor be shrunk to fit aboard a plane?
The search began in America as the Cold War was gaining speed with the establishment of the Aircraft Nuclear Propulsion Program. Between 1946 and 1961, teams of engineers worked amidst blueprints and chalk dust trying to unlock the secret of perma-flight. In the end, only one aircraft has ever successfully carried a nuclear reactor on board, the Convair NB-36H in the late 1950s. But, the reactor didn’t power the aircraft. It was only aboard to gauge the effects it might have on the crew and the airframe. In 1961, newly elected President John F. Kennedy canceled the program. "Fifteen years and about $1 billion have been devoted to the attempted development of a nuclear-powered aircraft; but the possibility of achieving a militarily useful aircraft in the foreseeable future is still very remote," he said. Technology has moved on since that time, and a number of attempts to harness nuclear power have begun. Still, we have yet to see one get off the ground.
While technological advancements in aviation are nothing new, an enormous number of hurdles remain before the Hyper Sting could take to the skies. It's an exciting prospect and one we aviation enthusiasts would warmly welcome, but as I said earlier, don’t pack those bags just yet.
Until next time…safe travels.
Comentários