The Concorde made its last supersonic flight across the Atlantic on October 24, 2003. It had a cruising speed of twice the speed of sound at Mach 2.04 or 1,354 mph (2,179 km/h).
More than a decade after the Concorde last went supersonic, a bold concept is looking to revitalize supersonic passenger jets once again.
The concept aircraft is named Skreemr, and it will be five times faster than the Concorde with speeds exceeding Mach 10, or 10 times the speed of sound. That means it could fly from New York to London in just 30 minutes.
Designers Charles Bombardier and Ray Mattison propose that the craft could be launched using a magnetic railgun system to project it into the sky at high speed.
After takeoff, the Skreemr would then ignite liquid oxygen or kerosene rockets to enable the plane to rapidly climb higher in the sky and reach Mach 4. At this point, the plane’s scramjet engine would fire up and take the aircraft to an unbelievable Mach 10, or just under 8,000 mph (12,348 km/h).
Scramjet engine technology is still under development so it will be a long way off before the Skreemr could become a reality. But if predictions hold, scramjets could even reach 15 times the speed of sound, making the New York-London journey even shorter.
