Commercial air travel has significantly shortened how long it takes to travel from one part of the world to another. Some sixteen years ago the hope to shorten travel died along with the Concorde supersonic jet.
Even, so the dream of one day flying from London to Sydney in a just few hours remains. But that may be a dream no more as the UK Space Agency announced a revolutionary aircraft engine that could transform the aviation industry as we know.
This is largely thanks to the Oxfordshire-based Reaction Engines that is developing the Synergetic Air-Breathing Rocket Engine (SABRE) engine that will power the ‘space planes’ of tomorrow.
Using these engines, aircraft will be able to travel at speeds of Mac 5.4 which equates to speeds of 6,400km/h. That is but one part of the equation as the proposed ‘space planes’ can fly even quicker by switching to rocket mode, where it can travel at Mach 25 or a dizzying 30,600km/h.
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With such high speeds, this would theoretically allow passengers to travel from London to Sydney in just 4 hours instead of the usual 22 hours, which includes one transit stop. You could even travel from London to New York within an hour instead of 8 hours.
Just imagine, that would allow you to enjoy a slice of New York pizza for lunch and get back in time for dinner within the same day.
The idea is not just some pie in the sky dream either as the UK government is said to have invested  £60 million (MYR310 million) to make this engine a reality.
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Trials are currently being conducted in Denver, Colorado and if all goes according to plans, we might see the first hypersonic engine powered commercial flights take off by 2030.
