On a plane anywhere in the world for four and a half hours

Aerospace company Reaction Engines Limited from the UK working on a new engine, the use of which the aircraft will be able to deliver 300 passengers with luggage from Europe to Australia for four and a half hours. The maximum speed of passenger aircraft will reach 1700 m / s and a maximum range of flight - about 20,000 kilometers. Also, new engines will be able to output craft into space. The technology will be available for 10 years. This is described in статья in the Business Insider .

The basis of the engine, which has been called SABRE, a unique technology of cooling air before it is fed into the engine. The system consists of a plurality of twisted tubes with liquid helium to cool the air to a temperature of -150 degrees. Under normal conditions, it would have led to the emergence of ice, but the know-how to avoid this effect. Chief Project Engineer, Alan Bond, says in the video, that their project is unique in nature and has no analogues in the world. He also expressed the hope that the project "converts high-speed aircraft."



First Flight test engine planned to start in 2019. Passenger supersonic aircraft will be called LAPCAT A2 . The aircraft with the possibility of reaching orbit will be called Skylon, have about 90 meters in length and cost about $ 1.1 billion. The plane will take off from the runway, and sit down on it like a normal jet plane. At low altitudes it will work on the seawater oxygen, and when flying into space is to use the stock oxidant. Such a combined system would reduce the necessary supply of fuel and carry out spacewalk without using rockets. This should dramatically reduce the cost of putting cargo into orbit.



But besides the huge price there is one drawback - the plane is not windows. And what kinds and how to fly in space and on the planet watching? But this, apparently, new trend in aviation - increasingly offered to give up the windows in favor of external cameras that broadcast images on a large screens inside the cabin.



Source: geektimes.ru/post/242977/