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Airbus patents jet that could fly from Dublin to New York in under an hour

That’s pretty fast.

LAST MONTH, THE US Patent and Trademark Office approved an application from Airbus for an “ultra-rapid air vehicle and related method of aerial locomotion”.

In other words, the aerospace manufacturer just patented a hypersonic jet.

Airbus expects the jet to reach speeds as high as Mach 4.5 — or 4 1/2 times the speed of sound.

According to PatentYogi’s Deepak Gupta, this means the Airbus jet could make the trip from Dublin to New York in under an hour.

screen_shot_2015-07-28_at_11_01_56_am Screenshot Screenshot

That’s a significant improvement over the 3 1/2 hours it took for the now retired Mach 2 Concorde to make the same trip. The Concorde was a joint venture between Airbus’ two predecessors, France’s Aerospatiale and British Aerospace.

The hypersonic jet would also demolish the seven to eight hours it takes a conventional airliner, such as Airbus’ own A330, to cross the Atlantic.

In addition, Airbus thinks the patented craft would be able to complete trips like Paris to San Francisco or Tokyo to Los Angeles in just three hours.

In the patent, Airbus describes the craft as “an air vehicle including a fuselage, a gothic delta wing distributed on either side of the fuselage, and a system of motors able to propel the air vehicle”.

Untitled

The jet is powered by three different types of engines that work in sequential order to get the craft aloft, into cruising altitude, and then up to its cruising speed of more than 4,800 kph:

  • To get off the ground, the craft will use two turbojets mounted under the fuselage as well as a rocket motor mounted in the rear.
  • As the Airbus lifts off the runway, it will climb vertically like the Space Shuttle.
  • Right before the jet reaches the speed of sound, the turbojets shut down and retract into the belly of plane — leaving only the rocket motor to guide it up to an altitude of more than 100,000 feet.
  • At cruising altitude, the rocket motor will shut down and retract into the fuselage. Then the plane’s pair of wing-mounted ramjets take over and propel the aircraft to a top speed of Mach 4.5.

Plane

Airbus suggests it will be powered by various forms of hydrogen stored aboard the craft.

According to Airbus, much of the plane’s aerodynamics are designed to limit and reduce the sonic boom it will create when it reaches supersonic speed.

In the 1970s, the Concorde was beset by complaints of sonic booms and noise pollution created by its four Rolls-Royce Olympus turbojet engines.

Concorde test flight EMPICS Sports Photo Agency EMPICS Sports Photo Agency

Consequently, it was prevented from operating over land.

As a result, the supersonic Anglo-French airliner was never able to become the financially viable mainstream passenger transport its creators had hoped for.

Instead, the 14 production Concordes spent their 27-year career shuttling well-heeled VIPs across the Atlantic.

Airbus believes the hypersonic jet could have both civilian and military applications. In civilian trim, the craft could serve as private jet or as an airliner with room for 20 passengers.

In addition, Airbus has also proposed a variant armed with high-power electromagnetic pulse weapons to conduct precision strikes on high-value targets.

As with most patented ideas, it’s unlikely the jet will ever enter production. But technology derived from the hypersonic plane could make its way into Airbus’ other less extreme products.

For more information on the Airbus jet, check out the full patent at the USPTO database or this video from PatentYogi.

PatentYogi / YouTube

- Benjamin Zhang

Read: Wing part may be confirmed as piece of MH370 later this week >

More: Take a look inside Donald Trump’s private jet >

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    Mute Toby
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    Jul 28th 2023, 8:06 AM

    Every country France colonised is a mess now, recent coups in Mali, Burkina and Niger. Even France is a mess. Do we want to be in Europe as a bit player in their club?

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    Mute James Carroll
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    Jul 28th 2023, 8:51 AM

    @Toby: Yes.

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    Mute John Lonergan
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    Jul 28th 2023, 8:53 AM

    @Toby: cause the ones other countries colonised are all fine and dandy?

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    Mute Washpenrebel
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    Jul 28th 2023, 10:12 AM

    I would expect no one here realises that France is still has the biggest colonies in Africa. They countries they used to directly control, they now control their finances. Ie these countries reserves are stored in the French central bank. The French keep them poor and the enrich themselves with their resources. When a leader comes in they don’t like, they are removed. France is far from a democracy. In fairness to the British at least they left.

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    Mute Donal Desmond
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    Jul 28th 2023, 11:16 AM

    @Washpenrebel: In fairness the British left? Yes the British left after drawing lines in the sand that led to the deaths of millions between India and Pakistan. The mess they left behind in the Middle East is still going on to this day. The British Empire was just as bad as the French Empire. A legacy of murder and destruction.

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    Mute Washpenrebel
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    Jul 28th 2023, 12:37 PM

    @Donal Desmond: 100% agree with you. But the way the French still control former colonies is horrendous. There is a reason why the French foreign legion are still active all over Africa. Africa is still used as a resource to plunder a pillage from. The Congo being a perfect example with all its rich minerals.

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    Mute P.J. Nolan
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    Jul 28th 2023, 10:31 AM

    Washpenrebel.
    For anyone starting to read his comment just skip down to the last sentence.

    It’s handy when commenters make their agenda so obvious.

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    Mute Pato
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    Jul 28th 2023, 3:04 PM

    The British left did they? How come I still see them when I go to Enniskillen?

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