Game changing flight test takes place

Well, those possibilities just got a step closer to happening, with the next generation of air travel on the minds of military scientists, as a series of test takes place in the Australian desert .

The successful completion of a rocket test, which is a part of ten test that will take place, could one day lead to travelling from London to Sydney in as little as two hours.

US and Australian military scientist were able to send an experimental scram-jet attached to a rocket booster to an altitude of 278 kilometers, with a top speed of more than seven times the speed of sound.

It is by far and away faster than the top speed that the Concorde managed, before its high profile departure from the flight game. While the Concorde travelled at ‘supersonic’ speed, this test exceeded five times the speed of sound, surpassing the threshold for ‘hypersonic travel’.

Travelling at that speed would get you anywhere on the planet in a couple of hours.

Australia’s chief scientist, Alex Zelinsky, in a statement said, “It is a game changing technology and could revolutionise global air travel.”

The research programme, called Hypersonic International Flight Research Experimentation or HIFIRE for short, is due to be completed in 2018, with the next stage of testing going ahead next year.

The group behind the testing are excited, not only about the potential radical changes to air travel, but also about new possibilities of how it could change how satellites are put into orbit.

Michael Smart, a hypersonics expert involved  in the programme said, “it’s an exciting time, the practical application is that you could fly long distances over the earth very, very quickly, but also that it’s very useful as an alternative to a rocket for putting satellites into space.”