Airbus, which recently filed design patents for a huge follow-on to the A380 also has its mind on smaller and faster. Last week, they filed for U.S. patents on technology and design for a plane that would fly at more than 4 times the speed of sound and cruise at 100,000 feet.
It would also carry a small passenger load, perhaps as few as 20. Airbus believes there's a market for a plane that would allow high-powered executives and the idle rich to breakfast in London, lunch and do business in New York, and be home for dinner. And, of course, they are not blind to the military possibilities.
If built, which Airbus has not said anything about yet, it would be only the world's second supersonic passenger plane after the Concorde, built by Airbus' predecessor, Aerospatiale. Only a few of the Mach 2 Concordes were built; their sonic boom issues kept them from most airports and from flying over land at supersonic speeds. The last left service a dozen years ago.
The new patent design addresses that issue; the design uses a combination of conventional jets, ramjets and a rocket engine. The rocket engine would lift the plane off almost vertically, with no sonic boom audible away from the launch. In flight at high altitude, ramjet engines would take over, and the conventional jet would be used for landing.
It may turn out to be just pie in the sky; Airbus and Boeing routinely file "advanced thinking" patents to protect their research rights. On the other hand, many of the concepts and technologies covered find their way into less flashy projects down the road. Much of the work that went into Boeing's "Sonic Cruiser" project of the early 1990s ended up in the 787 Dreamliner.
The video above includes a discussion of how the new technologies would work, and an article with more details is HERE in The Telegraph (UK)
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