Japan is testing a passenger plane at least twice as fast as the legendary Concorde. Two hours from Tokyo in the USA
A Japanese agency is making major strides in developing an experimental hypersonic plane capable of flying at speeds of Mach 5. The project promises to cut a trip from Tokyo to the US to just two hours, but experts warn that the technology won't be available to the general public for another two decades.
The Japanese are working on a hypersonic plane/FOTO:X
As major global powers vie for technological and military supremacy, Japan is consolidating its position at the forefront of future civil aviation. The Japanese Space Agency (JAXA) has successfully completed a crucial simulation at a ramjet engine test facility at the Kakuda Space Center in Miyagi Prefecture, according to the publication Interesting Engineering.
The researchers simulated real flight conditions at speeds of Mach 5 – that's about five times the speed of sound and two and a half times faster than the famous Concorde. The success of the test represents a benchmark, validating the performance of the thermal protection system, control surfaces and combustion of the ramjet engine in extreme hypersonic conditions. At such breathtaking speeds, temperatures around the aircraft can reach the critical threshold of 1,000°C, making thermal management a matter of national and technological security.
The next phase of the Japanese program could include mounting the experimental aircraft on a sounding rocket or similar launch vehicle to demonstrate Mach 5 capabilities in real flight.
Two hours from Tokyo in the USA, at an altitude of 27 kilometers
Japan's efforts are not isolated, but part of a fierce global competition to control ultra-fast transportation systems. If JAXA's project is completed, a trip from Tokyo to the United States — which currently takes about half a day on a standard commercial plane — will be cut to just two hours.
To achieve this performance, the aircraft would have to fly at an altitude of about 27 kilometers, which is more than twice the altitude at which conventional aircraft fly. A Mach 5 hypersonic passenger jet would cruise at about 5,300 km/h (3,300 mph), six times faster than current commercial fleets. By comparison, the legendary supersonic plane Concorde, withdrawn from service in 2003, reached a maximum speed of “only” Mach 2 (about 2,250 km/h).
A promise for the coming decades
Despite the excitement generated by the success of the laboratory tests, specialists urge realism. Professor Hideyuki Taguchi, from the Tokyo University of Science, explained to the Mainichi publication the complexity of this approach:
“The development of a conventional aircraft normally takes around 10 years. Since the development of a hypersonic passenger aircraft requires two distinct stages of demonstration – first an experimental aircraft, followed by the passenger aircraft – we estimate that the entire process will be completed in around 20 years.”
For his part, Tetsuya Sato, a professor at Waseda University, emphasized that this result is only the first step in a long way, the real dream of the researchers being to translate this data into a real demonstration flight.
The new technological arms race in aviation
Japan is not the only player investing heavily in this niche. The competition for super and hypersonic passenger transport includes players of global caliber. Recently, NASA has made major progress with its X-59 experimental aircraft, while Boom Supersonic has successfully tested the XB-1 prototype, both projects focused on overcoming the efficiency barriers and reducing the noise produced by the supersonic boom – an unresolved issue that contributed to Concorde's commercial decline in the past.
