Since Concorde made its last flight more than 20 years ago, supersonic air travel has disappeared from the commercial aviation landscape. Not from corporate interests, however. That has grown dramatically in the last decade, with many companies around the world working to design jets that don't suffer from Concorde's shortcomings and fly even faster if possible.
One of these proposals is lo Sky Magnetar, a futuristic hypersonic hydrogen aircraft that could revolutionize the way we travel.
Half plane, half rocket
Sky Magnetar is the fruit of the Spanish designer's fervent imagination oscar vinals, which seems ready to hurtle towards the stars, rather than into the sky. But don't let the futuristic look fool you. It is certainly a dream, but a "serious dream", based on cutting-edge technologies and innovative engineering solutions that aim to outperform the former Concorde.
If the legendary plane "with the beak" took 3 hours and 20 minutes to arrive in New York from London, Sky Magnetar promises to be three times faster, reaching the stratospheric speed of 6.800 km/h (approximately 4.200 mph). To give you an idea, at this speed you could take off from New York, watch a football game, and land before it's over. Possible?
A transformer aircraft
How does the Sky Magnetar reach these mind-boggling speeds? The secret lies in its innovative propulsion system, which combines a Dyson bladeless jet engine with six turbines for subsonic speeds and a rocket engine for supersonic and hypersonic speeds. In practice, this plane is a bit like a transformer: when it flies at normal speeds it behaves like a jet, but when it decides to go all out it turns into a rocket. And by using hydrogen as a fuel, it produces no polluting emissions.
Obviously, flying at these speeds is no walk in the park. The friction with the air generates incredible heat, which could turn the plane into a microwave oven. But fear not: the Sky Magnetar features cutting-edge composite heat shields and an active cooling system that pumps fluids through closed-loop piping. In short, even if it's as hot outside as on Venus, inside you're as cool as in a spa.
Rather than windows, here we have space hatches
Another peculiarity of the Sky Magnetar is the absence of the classic windows. In their place, there are small portholes on top of the cabin, like in a spaceship. Everyone with their heads up to look outside? It won't be necessary: inside there will be virtual windows that will project a real-time view of the outside. It will be like being in a video game, but without the risk of crashing into an asteroid.
Finally, a gem for technology enthusiasts: the Sky Magnetar will be piloted by a system based on artificial intelligence, which will be able to take control of the plane when necessary. Human pilots will still be there, but they will be more supervisors than anything else. In short, this plane is so advanced that it could drive itself while the pilots take a nap or play chess.
Is it really just a dream?
Well, for now yes. The Sky Magnetar is a concept that would require a great deal of work to even reach the prototype stage. Maybe one day it will become a reality and we can actually fly from one continent to another in less than two hours.
In the meantime, we await other projects (such as destiny) which are in more concrete stages, but if we see something similar to the Sky Magnetar around, it will mean that Oscar Vinals was right. And the sky will no longer be the limit.
