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Home / News / Next Big Thing – hypersonic plane travel

Next Big Thing – hypersonic plane travel

London to Sydney in an hour? It'll take us longer to stock up on duty free

 

You’ve been watching too much sci-fi

No we haven’t – this is a real aircraft. Right about now in California the Pentagon’s intergalactic pet project, Falcon HTV-2, is launching into space at hypersonic speeds.

So it’s a rocket, then?

We prefer the term ‘unmanned aircraft’. The 12 foot long HTV-2 jets into the big black on a (separate) massive rocket. And yes, it’s fast – 16,700mph fast. That’s New York to LA in 12 minutes and any journey across the globe in under an hour.

Where do I sit?

Good question. Remember we said it was unmanned? The extra body weight of actual passengers might slow it down a touch but we’d settle for anything over 10,000mph. A touch less for short haul flights – we’re not picky.

Track the HTV-2’s progress on Twitter.

EDIT: After a successful launch the Falcon HTV-2 reached Mach 20 then stopped transmitting data after nine minutes. Program manager Air Force Maj. Chris Schulz has said “I’m confident there is a solution. We have to find it.” That should give us a bit longer to save up for our ticket on the first hypersonic passenger flight, then.

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Profile image of Dan Grabham Dan Grabham Editor-in-Chief

About

Dan is Editor-in-chief of Stuff, working across the magazine and the Stuff.tv website.  Our Editor-in-Chief is a regular at tech shows such as CES in Las Vegas, IFA in Berlin and Mobile World Congress in Barcelona as well as at other launches and events. He has been a CES Innovation Awards judge. Dan is completely platform agnostic and very at home using and writing about Windows, macOS, Android and iOS/iPadOS plus lots and lots of gadgets including audio and smart home gear, laptops and smartphones. He's also been interviewed and quoted in a wide variety of places including The Sun, BBC World Service, BBC News Online, BBC Radio 5Live, BBC Radio 4, Sky News Radio and BBC Local Radio.

Areas of expertise

Computing, mobile, audio, smart home