Chinese plane designed to travel twice as fast as Concorde completes test flight
After testing prototype, Space Transportation says it aims to have a full-sized supersonic passenger jet ready for its maiden flight in 2027
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Zhang Tongin Beijing
Published: 8:00pm, 28 Oct 2024
A Chinese company says it has conducted a test flight of a prototype commercial transport plane that can travel at Mach 4 – or twice the speed of a Concorde.
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Space Transportation, which is headquartered in Beijing, on Sunday said its Yunxing prototype had successfully completed the test flight a day earlier.
The company, also known as Lingkong Tianxing Technology, said a follow-up assessment of its engine technology would take place in November.
It aims to have a full-sized supersonic passenger jet ready to take its maiden flight in 2027.
According to the company, that aircraft will be able to whisk passengers from Beijing to New York in about two hours, at a cruising speed of more than four times the speed of sound.
The last civilian supersonic jet was the Concorde, developed jointly by French and British aerospace companies. It entered service in 1976, cruising at twice the speed of sound until it was retired in 2003.
