A Synergetic Air-Breathing Rocket Engine (Sabre) fitted jet can fly five times the speed of sound, or Mach 5, and reach any place in the world within just four hours.
Air travel has become very normal for people to travel from one place to another. Despite the fact that air travel is one of the fastest ways of traveling from one place to another, passengers still want a quicker aircraft that can fly faster than existing aeroplanes. A British firm called Reaction Engines is working on an aircraft called Skylon, which will have the superfast Sabre and will make long distance travel extremely fast.
Alan Bond, chief engineer at Reaction Engines, revealed that the Sabre system can be cooled by over 1,000 degrees Celsius in just .01 seconds without causing any ice blockages. This ability of the engine to cool off faster will enable it to run at higher speeds when compared to existing engines.
The technology behind Sabre includes a cooling system that uses several thin pipes, which are arranged in a swirl pattern. These pipes are filled with condensed helium, which extracts heat from the air and cools it down to -150 degree Celsius before it enters into the engine.
Bond revealed that the Sabre engine will revolutionize the aviation industry and an aircraft with Sabre can carry 300 passengers from Europe to Australia in a matter of just four hours.
"If you wanted to go to Australia, or anywhere else in the antipodal world in four hours or so, then that would be the best way to go and you would pay [the cost of] a first class or business class flight," said Bond in 2012.
The Skylon aircraft measures 276 feet long, which will take off and land horizontally similar to a plane. The horizontal landing and take-off will make the aircraft easier to re-use. Unfortunately, the Skylon has no windows, which may concern a few flyers. An aircraft with the superfast Sabre will not be cheap. Experts believe that future aircrafts will need extreme re-designing to use Sabre and only 10 percent of commercial aircrafts may use Sabre.
The Sabre will also allow Skylon to travel in outer space with the capability of transporting 15 tons of cargo.
Reaction Engines suggests that the technology behind Sabre is the biggest stride in the history of air travel since the jet engine was first invented. Long-distant travelers will have to wait a few more years before taking advantage of Skylon as Reaction Engines is hoping to start test flights in 2019.
Check out a short video of Bond talking about Sabre:
