European startup promises travel times from Frankfurt, Germany, to Sydney, Australia, in 4 hours and 15, against the current more than 18 hours
It’s been two decades since the era of supersonic commercial flight ended with the Concorde’s final landing at an airfield in southwest England.
In recent years, various pretenders to the throne – supersonic, hypersonic, hydrogen-powered, with anti-boom technology – have been swirling around, at least conceptually, but many of those projects that promise continuous super-fast travel have stalled instead, failed. or experienced delays.
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Now, a European hypersonic startup is in the works, promising attractive travel times such as Frankfurt, Germany, to Sydney, Australia, in 4 hours and 15 minutes, or from the United States to Dubai in 3 hours and 30 minutes.
The Destinus project is a hydrogen-powered flight at five times the speed of sound, reducing flight times to less than a quarter of current commercial air travel.
Headquartered in Switzerland with a team of around 120 employees spread across Spain, France and Germany, Destinus was founded in 2021 but has been hitting milestones quickly. Its first two prototypes made successful test flights and are about to start testing hydrogen-powered flights. Its third prototype – Destinus 3 – should make its maiden flight by the end of the year.
Hydrogen is Destinus’ fuel of choice because it is a clean, renewable source of energy that is increasingly cheaper to produce and able to help it realize its speed and long-term ambitions. Hydrogen-powered aviation is still in its infancy, with hydrogen jet engines yet to enter commercial use. Airbus is developing a hydrogen jet engine that it says will begin flight testing in 2026.
Their long-term goal is to be fully powered by hydrogen and zero emissions, but while hydrogen production is still increasing, their short-term plan is to trigger liftoff on Jet A – conventional jet fuel – and then switch when they reach speeds of about Mach 3, about 3,219 km/h.
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