LOOKING more like a rocketship than an airliner – this incredible aircraft could one day be the future of travel, ferrying people halfway around the world in just minutes.
Designs for the aircraft – dubbed the SKY Magnetar – show it could hit speeds of 4,200mph, more than three times faster than Concorde.
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And that means you could fly from London to New York in just 50 minutes – smashing the previous record of 2 hours 52 minutes.
The sleek design resembles a spacecraft, with a sleek body featuring four wings and two massive engines.
SKY Magnetar – the name taken from a type of neutron star – is half plane and half rocket, being 367 feet long and with space for some 120 passengers.
Air travellers would sit in two-by-two rows down the narrow pressurised cabin.
And while it is hoped they could be treated in luxury, the plane’s designer Oscar Vinals explained he has not included windows.
With the speeds and pressures involved, he believes it is safer to just have small round ports on the top the cabin like a space capsule.
The concept artist, from Spain, would hope each seat would have a “virtual window” screens to give passengers entertainment.
But even the longest journeys about the SKY Magnetar would feel like a short hop.
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The plane would be controlled by two pilots and an AI.
It is hoped to have a range of 7,456 miles – meaning in theory it would be able to reach anywhere in the world in as little as two hours.
And to hit the staggering speeds he is relying on the concept of “combined cycle” engines.
The experimental tech may have been used on the top secret NASA X-43 plane – which hit hypersonic speeds of nearly Mach 10.
Oscar would also hope to make use of the concept of “bladeless” turbines – such as those developed by Dyson and used in their fans.
And he hopes the plane would also be eco-friendly as it would be powered by hydrogen rather than traditional jet fuel.
Oscar is an ambitious designer – who explains he uses a mix of modern technology and upcoming theoretical technologies.
He has previously dreamed up craft such as the HSP Magnavem, a massive double-decker nuclear airliner, and the Hyper Sting, a supersonic plane twice as fast as Concorde.
However, so far no one has committed to building and testing one of Oscar’s monster machines.
But Oscar hopes that his designs will continue to drive the discussion around supersonic and hypersonic air travel.
“Since Concorde retired, interest around supersonic travel has been picking up pace, and several super-fast planes are under development or new disruptive concepts appear,” he told The Sun Online.
“But, we could have faster options to travel, the interest around hypersonic travel has been picking up too.
“The aeronautical industry is beginning to be in a position to carry out projects that bring us closer to both future realities.”
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Superfast commercial flights were the dream that led to the development of joint British and French jet Concorde.
But it was retired in 2003.
Concorde was killed by the noise, the expense and the small passenger capacity – with the ritzy plane being priced out as air travel became more and more affordable.
And since then there has not been a supersonic airliner, with today’s fastest jets being the Boeing 747-8i, which can hit speeds of 660mph.
But that is half the speed of Concorde, and one sixth the possible speed of the SKY Magnetar.
Oscar first became interested in airliners as a hobby – with his main career working as a designer in high-performance cars and motorsport.
And he even saw one of his designs – The Sky Whale – recently featured at the exhibition on future transport at the Sheikh Abdullah Al Salem Cultural Centre in Kuwait.
“I became interested in aeronautics, after a bad experience during a flight that fortunately ended only in a big scare,” Oscar previously told The Sun Online.
“My interest in knowing more about airplanes and all their aspects became in a more serious ‘hobby’ and with the goal of trying to ‘improve’ future commercial airplanes, designing concepts based on my personal studies about them and how it would be possible to get a feasible design.
“I don’t design concepts merely to be only beautiful or for a sci-fi experience, all projects are based on a previous technician studies with a lot of accurate information, so the result is a realistic and feasible concept.”
