Airbus Wins US Patent for Hypersonic Plane; Concept Would Fly from Paris to Tokyo in 3 Hours

It’s a big week for interesting U.S. Patent announcements. On Monday I reported on Thoth Technology receiving a patent for an inflatable “space elevator”, a giant structure rising from the ground and enabling payloads to be placed into orbit without having to use rockets

Some of you questioned whether a space plane could indeed land on such a tower as claimed by the patent holder (a good question indeed), but hey, don’t shoot the messenger—I don’t grant these patents, I’m just reporting on them.

Today I want to discuss newly-minted U.S. patent 907661 B2, just granted to Airbus Group, the European airliner and military jet giant. Airbus received this patent for a hypersonic plane that it says could fly from London to New York in 1 hour, and Paris to Tokyo in under three hours, significantly trimming the current 12-hour endurance flight.

The hypersonic plane would take off using two jet engines mounted under the fuselage, which would propel the vehicle to nearly the speed of sound, before retracting into the plane.  Then, rocket boosters mounted in the rear of the aircraft would be used to begin a sharp ascent, attaining the necessary speed to initiate ramjet engine operation.

Ramjets are air-breathing jet engines that use the engine's forward motion to compress incoming air, eliminating the need for an axial compressor. A ramjet-powered vehicle requires an assisted take-off to accelerate it to a speed where it begins to produce thrust.

The Ramjet engines would take the plane up to altitudes of over 100,000 feet as the plane cruises at speeds up to Mach 4.5, or 4.5 times the speed of sound.

As the proposed aircraft lifts off the runway, it would climb almost vertically, like a ballistic missile. By climbing vertically, Airbus engineers believe the plane would avoid the supersonic boom that limited the supersonic airliner Concorde's deployment to the North Atlantic, where for over 20 years it flew at twice the speed of sound.

According to Airbus the Concorde's hydrogen-powered successor would once again use its turbojets to enable landing.

For commercial use the proposed airliner would be limited to carrying only 20 passengers (largely for weight reasons—among other things it has to carry rocket propellant as well as jet fuel). The aircraft manufacturer says the hypersonic jet could also be developed for military applications.

There is no timetable for development, but don’t hold your breath (we’re talking decades here) because lots of technical issues have to be resolved before Airbus’s concept leaves the drawing board.