Technology
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Now Concorde flights are a thing of the past, it seems pretty crazy you could once commercially fly from New York to London in around three and a half hours. However, a Canadian engineer has designed a concept plane which he claims could do that journey in just 11 minutes.
The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content.Charles Bombardier is behind this ambitious and outlandish design he has called “The Antipode.” His concept has room for 10 passengers, who will travel at heights of 12,192 meters (40,000 feet) and speeds of over 20,000 kilometers per hour (12,430 miles per hour). All of this will be powered by reusable liquid-oxygen or kerosene rockets.
At these speeds, the plane could travel from New York to Dubai in 22 minutes, New York to Hong Kong in 26 minutes, and New York to Sydney in just 32 minutes.
The Antipode could be up to 12 times faster than Concorde. Charles Bombardier/Imaginactive
Many of the practicalities behind Bombardier’s plane design remain unclear, such as how the plane decelerates, how it could cope with the exceedingly high temperatures generated during travel, or how passengers are expected to deal with the extreme levels of G-force.
Bombardier's company, Imaginactive, are the mavericks who put out this design. As a non-profit organization, they hope to simply put out innovative ideas openly and for free online with the hope entrepreneurs and engineers will do the rest of the leg work. Among their multiple designs are electric flying saucers, autonomous snowmobile surfboards and another design of hypersonic plane called Skreemr.
As of yet, the Antipode – along with the bulk of the other designs – remains unbuilt and is still looking for investors.
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