Commercial Hypersonic Travel Can Have You Flying 13,000 Miles In 10 Minutes!

If engineers start up a hypersonic engine at the University of Central Florida (UCF) and you’re not around to hear it, does it make a sound?

Hypersonic travel is anything that travels by at least 5x more than the speed of sound. A team of aerospace engineers at UCF have created the first stable hypersonic engine, and it can have you travelling across the world at 13,000 miles per hour!

Compared to the 575 mph a typical jet flies, commercial hypersonic travel is a first-class trade-off anybody would be willing to make.

In fact, a flight from Tampa, FL to California would take nearly 5 hours on a typical commercial jet; whereas, with a commercial hypersonic aircraft, it will only take 10 minutes.

So here’s the question: When can we expect commercial hypersonic air flights?

When we stop combusting engines and start detonating them! With a little background information, you’ll be shocked to know why.

Challenges and Limitations of Commercial Hypersonic Travel

The challenge with commercial hypersonic air travel is that maintaining combustion to keep the movement of an aircraft going in a stable way becomes difficult. The difficulty comes from both the combustion and aerodynamics that happens in such high speeds.

What Engineering Challenges Arise in Controlling and Stabilizing Hypersonic Aircraft at Such High Speeds?

Combustion is the process of burning fuel. It happens when fuel mixes with air, creating a reaction that releases energy in the form of heat. This mixture of air and fuel create combustion, and combustion is what generates the thrust needed for the movement of most vehicles.

But hypersonic vehicles are quite different. A combustion engine is not very efficient for vehicles to achieve stable hypersonic speeds. For a hypersonic aircraft to fly commercially, a detonation engine is needed.

Detonation can thrust vehicles into much higher speeds than combustion, so creating a detonation engine is important for commercial hypersonic air travel. Detonation engines were thought of as impossible for a very long time, not because you couldn’t create them, but because stabilizing them is difficult.

On one hand, detonation can greatly speed up a vehicle or aircraft, but on the other hand, both the power and the speed it creates makes stabilizing the engine even harder.

How Do Aerodynamic Forces Impact the Design and Operation of Hypersonic Vehicles?

Aerodynamics relates to the motion of air around an object—in this case, an aircraft. As you can imagine, friction between an aircraft and the air it travels through generates a tremendous amount of heat. The faster the vehicle, the more heat created.

Commercial hypersonic vehicles must be able to manage the heat created at hypersonic speeds to keep from being damaged altogether.

Hypersonic aircraft do exist, but only in experimental forms such as in military application. NASA’s Hyper-X program develops some of these vehicles, one of which is the X-43A which could handle hypersonic speeds of Mach 6.8 (6.8x faster than the speed of sound).

But vehicles for commercial hypersonic air travel is still a work in progress

Engineers say that we will have these vehicles by 2050, but it may even be sooner that that. Here’s why.

Future Prospects and Developments in Hypersonic Travel

The worlds first stable hypersonic engine was created back in 2020 by a team of aerospace engineers at UCF, and they have continued to refine the technology since. This work is revolutionizing hypersonic technology in a way that had been thought of as impossible just a few years ago.

To create a stable engine for commercial hypersonic air travel, an engine must first be created that can handle detonation, but not only that, this engine must actually create more detonations while controlling.

This is because in order to achieve hypersonic speeds and then keep it at that level, there needs to be repeated detonations thrusting the vehicle forward.

The development at UCF did just that. They created a Rotating Detonation Engine (RDE) called the HyperReact.

What Technological Advancements are Driving the Development of Commercial Hypersonic Travel?

When combustion happens, a large amount of energy creates a high-pressure wave known as a shockwave. This compression creates higher pressure and temperatures which inject fuel into the air stream. This mixture of air and fuel create combustion, and combustion is what generates the thrust needed for a vehicles movement.

Rotating Detonation Engines (RDEs) are quite different. The shockwave generated from the detonation are carried to the “test” section of the HyperReact where the wave repeatedly triggers detonations faster than the speed of sound (picture Wile E. Coyote lighting up his rocket to catch up to Road Runner).

Theoretically, this engine can allow for hypersonic air travel at speeds of up to 17 Mach (17x the speed of sound).

Hypersonic technology with the development of the Rotating Detonating Engine will pave the way for commercial hypersonic air travel. But even before that happens, RED engines will be used for space launches and eventually space exploration.

NASA has already begun testing 3D-printed Rotating Detonating Rocket Engines (RDRE) in 2024.

How Soon Can We Expect Commercial Hypersonic Travel to Become a Reality?

Since we now have the worlds first stable hypersonic engine, the worlds first commercial hypersonic flight won’t be far off. Professor Kareem Ahmed, UCF professor and team lead of the experimental HyperReact prototype, say’s its very likely we will have commercial hypersonic travel by 2050.

Its important to note that hypersonic air flight has happened before, but only in experimental form. NASA’s X-43A aircraft flew for nearly 8,000 miles at Mach 10 levels. The difference is that the X-43A flew on scramjets and not Rotating Detonation Engines (RDEs).

Scramjets are combustion engines also capable of hypersonic speeds but, which are less efficient than Rotating Detonation Engines (RDEs) because they rely on combustion, not continuous detonation.

This makes RDE’s the better choice for commercial hypersonic travel, and it explains why NASA has been testing them for space launches.

One thing is certain:

We can shoot for the stars but that shot needs to be made here on Earth… If we can land on the moon, we’ll probably have commercial hypersonic travel soon.