A Chinese aerospace company has successfully completed the first test flight of a groundbreaking hypersonic passenger aircraft.
All I want to know is how safe it is, and how loud the sonic boom would be when flew over, not how expensive the ticket would be, nor “Will regular passengers be able to handle the physical effects of such high-speed travel.”
I’ve heard of Boom Aerospace from the US, which is a little further along in their development process, although they are only super sonic.
This article is based on a report from the Independent https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/china-hypersonic-flights-speed-concorde-b2051192.html nowhere does it say they have completed a test flight.
The brand Space Transportation, also known as the company Beijing Lingkong Tianxing Technology, has released an animated video which shows how its proposed “space flights” might look
The article does link to that URL behind the line “the first test flight”, but that seems erroneous. This story actually seems to be based on this Chinese press release: https://www.spacetransportation.com.cn/news/info/22.html
But it also seems like there’s some confusion between an “aircraft test” and a “test flight”. I’m not convinced this thing has ever flown.
Won’t happen. The primary reason the Concord failed was that they couldn’t make enough money. Running engines to push a plane that fast are super expensive.
Let’s not forget that the Concord failed in 2003. I wonder what started happening around then that made that actual flying part a smaller fraction of the overall time spent traveling…
Even if you can step through a portal and instantaneously get to London from NY, if you still have to go through the rest of the airline process the time savings just isn’t that huge.
The one where a part from another plane fell off and got ingested into the Concord’s engine? It’s hard to see that as Concord’s fault, but there was significant loss of life and reputation. But that really shouldn’t be characterized as a Concord failure.
No, 9/11 security theatre
