Meet Skreemr, the concept Mach 10 jet that would make the Concorde look like a hot air balloon. The proposed hypersonic aircraft would travel at the equivalent of 7,673 miles per hour, five times faster than the other popular high speed passenger jet – that means traveling from New York City to London in about 30 minutes flat. The concept for Skreemer comes from Canadian engineer and inventor Charles Bombardier, who designed the jet to take off using a railroad-like track to essentially fling the craft into the sky. The unusual take-off method, combined with an innovative engine design, allows the plane to be small and light, lending to greater speeds.
Skreemr aims to slice even the fastest proposed jet’s time in half, promising to carry passengers across the Atlantic in approximately 30 minutes. Bombardier points to his concept of a magnetic railgun launching system as the feature that will enable Skreemr to achieve the speeds necessary to travel at such record-breaking speeds. Instead of using a runway, Skreemr is designed to travel horizontally on a track and then rockets would give the craft enough of a boost to ignite its scramjet engine, which will make it possible to reach an extreme speed before rising upwards.
Scramjet engines, or “supersonic combustion ramjets”, are currently being developed in the United States and China. The special engines draw in the oxygen needed for combustion from the atmosphere passing through the vehicle rather than from a tank onboard, keeping the size and weight of the aircraft lower than it would be otherwise.
Skreemr is designed to carry 75 passengers, but there is no sense in queuing up for a ride yet. The design still has to overcome a number of hurdles, including cost and temperature resistance, before it can be built and tested.
Via Popular Science
Images via Ray Mattison