This hypersonic jet could make a New York-Mumbai run in 25 minutesMumbai, Jan 27(AZINS) When it comes to air travel, there are primarily three factors that define the state of the art: capacity, comfort and speed. And while, with the likes of the Airbus A380s and the Boeing Dreamliners--there have been huge strides in the first two areas, the issue of commercial aircraft speed has all but plateaued over the past four-and-a-half decades: ever since the legendary Concorde made her maiden flight on 2 March 1969, it sparked unparalleled excitement at the prospect of faster-than-sound commercial travel.

But it’s been about 15 years that this iconic aircraft last took to the skies commercially, and there’s been no real news of a successor.

All that just may change though--a company called Imaginactive recently unveiled plans for a hypersonic private jet concept. Hypersonic, indicating many times the speed of sound, is something that warrants being used with this aircraft: the jet could reach speeds of up to Mach 24, or a blistering 29,618 kilometers per hour.

While at first glance this has all the trappings of vapourware, the fact that the person behind this design has solid aircraft and commercial vehicle design lineage warrants another look. The designer, Charles Bombardier, is a Canadian-born engineer whose family business is Bombardier Inc and Bombardier Recreational Products. The Bombardier brand has long since been synonymous in the world of transportation for everything from creating the finest passenger train carriages to the world’s most advanced private jets to even being the inventor of the snowmobile.

This particular new-age jet, called the Antipode, is designed to have wing-mounted boosters that provide enough thrust to propel the aircraft to an altitude of 40,000 feet at Mach 5 before detaching from the accelerators. After separation, a supersonic combustion ramjet engine kicks in, pushing the plane to its top speed of Mach 24.

The airplane also incorporates a special design feature that enables it to withstand and dissipate the intense heat that is inherent to such extreme speeds: a nozzle at the front of the airplane enables a phenomenon called Long Penetration Mode (LPM,) which reduces heat buildup on the surface of the airplane while countering the buildup of shockwaves as it accelerates past the sound barrier.

Imaginactive--the website propounding this aircraft design--doesn’t actually build anything. It is a non-profit organization that releases design ideas that can be taken up by other companies for actual implementation.

It’s left to be seen, though, whether any aircraft manufacturer does decide to take up the challenge of rebooting supersonic commercial travel.