Is it possible to fly from Hong Kong to Los Angeles in just four hours? Well, the answer is positive. You’d be capable to do just that on the plank of the “Cygnus M3”. Tom Johnson is the creator (UK-based innovator) of this mighty design of jet. Johnson was inspired by military bombers from the 1950s and ’60s. The concept of supersonic aircraft has a top speed of Mach 3 or 2,000 mph—and features a sleek, svelte formation in the midst of variable-geometry wings, which can brush off back and forth while flying.
“The swing-wing blueprint allows slower, quieter and safer take-off and landing, and would also allow the jet to travel cost-effectively at subsonic speeds when over land, where commercial supersonic flight is unlawful now, ” he says.
Johnson endeavored to conceptualize “a longer-range and faster aircraft that would facilitate an over-water path business case to be built, even if over-land supersonic flight was still forbidden, rather than making a focus on dropping the sonic boom produced by short-range, low-supersonic vessels the same as lots of similar concepts aspire to do.”
The final outcome is a 135-foot-long, 25-ton jet power-driven by 2 mixed-cycle turbofan engines, competent to have room for up to 32 passengers and four team members. According to an estimation of Johnson the plane which could travel up to 6,710 miles totally full, would need an estimated $120 million to build, and depending on fuel prices roughly cost for tickets the commercial airliner would be $3,300 per head for a round-trip flight.
The Cygnus M3 could hypothetically be created with accessible knowledge, but it requires minimum a decade to make a feasible prototype, Johnson admits. ”finding and budding an suitable power plant would be the major engineering challenges of this design, although there are two suitable engines previously in existence that might serve as the foundation and dealing with the heat produced at throughout mach 2.8 speed,” he says.
Then there are the lawful barriers. “While all the technologies requisite do exist and have been flown, a few will still be enclosed by patents and armed forces export limitations, which will have to be beat,” he notes.
More critical, however, is the matter of safety. “Even if well-funded, this is still a up to date commercial craft that cannot be hurried into production and flight like lots of military aircraft in the history, like the SR-71, were pretty risky to fly.” A huge amount of redundancy must be planned in, he asserts, united with a prolonged trial program. The “Cygnus M3” might be years from fetching a reality, but supersonic flight is fit on its approach to making a return.
Last month, at the Paris Air Show, Boom Technology startup aerospace company make claimed that five airlines including Virgin have placed orders for a supersonic commercial craft. The airliner is still in its concept stage.
“We’re removing the long flights blockade, turning eight-hour flights into three- to four-hours of daylight flights. Unbearable 16-hour journeys turn out to be easy overnights,” Boom states on its website.
