Passenger Planes in 2075 May Fly in Formation and Travel at 5x Speed of Sound
Posted on October 25, 2011
The British Institution of Merchanical Engineers (IMechE) has released a report about the future of flight. The report looks at where the airline industry may be in 2075. Some of the futuristic concepts include planes traveling at speeds of over 4,000 mph and planes traveling in formation to conserve fuel.
In 2005, NASA achieved the longest supersonic combustion ramjet-powered hypersonic flight with the X-51A air-breathing scramjet engine built by Pratt & Whitney. The engine burned for more than 200 seconds to accelerate the US Air Force's X-51A vehicle to Mach 5 and an altitude of 70,000 feet. And in 2006, the Australian Air Force tested the British-designed Hyshot III from QinetiQ, reaching Mach 7.6 (9,000km/h).The planes flying in formation in this video, which IMechE says could be commercial in 2050-2075, could be flown autonomously. Remote sensing equipment such as LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) and IR (Infra-red) cameras would allow the aircrafts to autonomously position themselves to make the maximum use of the vortexes from the aircraft ahead of them. Take a look:Charlie Brink of the Air Force Research Laboratory said about the ground-breaking X-51A flight, "We equate this leap in engine technology as equivalent to the post-World War II jump from propeller-driven aircraft to jet engines."
Scramjet engines provide propulsion at speeds above Mach 5, by capturing atmospheric air to mix with on-board fuel. The scramjet has no moving parts, it simply takes all the oxygen it needs to burn hydrogen fuel from the air. This makes the payload more efficient as it does not need to carry its own oxygen supply.