Gothic delta wings and hypersonic flight – the future of production at Broughton?

Airbus has filed plans with the US Patent and Trademark Office for a hypersonic plane which could, in theory, fly between London and New York in less than an hour.

Quickly dubbed ‘Concorde 2’ by the media, the new patent for the Airbus Ultra Rapid Air Vehicle and Related Method for Aerial Locomotion describes a plane powered by turbojets, ramjets, and a rocket.

The fuselage of the plane would be filled with hydrogen in a semi-frozen ‘slush like’ state along with liquid oxygen tanks to help propel the plane

Designed to carry 2 or 3 tons of cargo or 20 passengers the plane can reach speeds of up to Mach 4.5 equal to 4 1/2 times the speed of sound over distances of 5,600 miles.

It currently takes an Airbus A330 around seven to eight hours to cross the Atlantic.

The patented craft would fly at the edge of space, to do this a rocket motor combined with conventional jets power a “near vertical ascendant flight” until it breaks the sound barrier, engines would be retracted in the fuselage and ramjets deployed to take over.

The plane’s aerodynamics are designed to limit and reduce the huge sonic boom flight at supersonic speed creates, plans also include a ‘Gothic Delta Wing’ design, this would clearly be of interest to the wing manufacturing plant at Broughton Airbus.

Patent Yogi goes into a little more detail in his video:

As well as commercial and private passenger usage Airbus envisages the hypersonic plane could be a handy military application, armed with high-power electromagnetic pulse weapons to conduct precision strikes on high-value targets.

It’s unlikely however the plane in its current form would ever be built, Airbus submits hundreds of patent applications for futuristic design concepts such as vertical seating with the majority not seeing the ‘light of day’ however technology from such concepts can make its way into more mainstream production.