From London to New York in an hour. First flights in a decade?

Synergetic Air Breathing Rocket Engine, or SABER, is the latest idea that arose as a result of cooperation between a British and Australian space agency. The innovative engine will allow passengers to fly from London to New York in just 60 minutes, and to Sydney in up to four hours.

At the moment, the modern design is in the ground testing phase. In the air, an unusual aircraft manufactured by the British and Australians could appear as early as mid-next year. And this again means that if all the elements of the plan go as intended, by 2030 the first passengers could have been on board. The British government has invested GBP 60 million in a new project.

The assumptions, however, are extremely ambitious, and meeting them will be really difficult. The plane is expected to move five times faster than sound. If you need to translate it into the history of aviation, then just imagine that the famous Concorde — flew twice as slowly. It could therefore develop a speed of over 6400 km / h. The new engine can also easily deal with the biggest problem of supersonic machines — overheating. Thanks to the cosmic experience of both sides of the project, they can also be much more efficient and environmentally friendly. The creators want to transfer solutions known from astronautics to passenger flights on earth.

One should not forget that SABER will have a lot of competition. Many companies promise that in the coming years their supersonic machines will appear in the sky. Boeing is working on its hypersonic machine, which would be ready after 2030, Airbus in cooperation with Aerion wants to release a supersonic commercial aircraft, and NASA is intensively working on a project called LBFD, i.e. Low-Boom Flight Demonstrator. As a result, the products released by these companies were to cover the transatlantic route in 2 or 3 hours. One of the American start-ups assured that he could create a supersonic plane that would fly from New York to London in 90 minutes. But the promise of just a 60-minute flight is something completely new.

Is it real? We will find out over the next several years.