Jet may cost over $150 million.
By Sreekanth A Nair
The idea of flying from London to New York in just 11 minutes seems impossible, but if Charles Bombardier’s new concept succeeds, it may be possible one day.
Bombardier’s new concept jet labeled “Antipode’ can reach Mach 24 speed. That means it can fly at more than twice the speed of the Skreemr and 12 times faster than Concorde.
The flight can carry 10 people at a time and fly up to 20,000 kilometers in an hour, which makes it possible to fly from London to New York in just 11 minutes.
‘I wanted to create an aircraft concept capable of reaching its antipode—or diametrical opposite—as fast as possible,’ Bombardier told Forbes.
In October, he had revealed his skreemr concept plane that could be launched with a magnetic railgun system that could move the plane to the sky to reach the speed of Mach 10.
In the launching system, the jet would be placed on a pair of conductive parallel rails and will be accelerated using a powerful electromagnetic field. The jet could reach Mach 4 speed using liquid oxygen or kerosene rockets and then scramjet engines could be used to reach the speed of Mach 10.
“One foreseeable problem was the sonic boom noise it would generate over land and the massive amount of heat that would build up on its nose and wings,” he told DailyMail.
The Antipode can directly take off from an air base using reusable rocket boosters attached to its wings which help it to reach 40000 feet and Mach 5 speed.
Once the jet reaches Mach 5, the rocket boosters would separate from the wings and return to the airbase.
Then the computer in the jet would ignite its supersonic combustion ramjet engine which would take it to Mach 24.
‘The Antipode could be used as business or military aircraft to transport two highly ranked officials across the globe (up to 20,000 km) in less than an hour,’ Bombardier told DailyMail.
‘I think the cost will be at least over $150 million per plane and it could become a reality if there is a demand. But first, further research needs to be conducted,’ he added.