The future of flight is powered by this Mach-5 engine

Hypersonic flights: faster, more efficient, and potentially game-changing for global connectivity. See what Hermeus is building:

What if you could fly across the Atlantic in just 90 minutes? Hermeus, led by AJ Piplica, is working on making that a reality. Their Mach 5 aircraft, capable of flying at five times the speed of sound, could completely change the way we think about travel—turning long-haul flights into quick trips.

But the impact goes far beyond just faster travel. Hypersonic flight has the potential to transform global trade, boost economies, and bring people closer together. Hermeus is starting by applying this technology to military aircraft, learning from past innovations like the Concorde, to make sure their approach is both sustainable and groundbreaking.

With their innovative Chimera engine and a focus on pushing the limits of speed, Hermeus is aiming to create a world where traveling across continents is as simple as a regional flight. This is more than just a leap in technology—it’s about making the world feel a little smaller and more connected.

[KyrilPG]

Nice and fun and all, but what fuel will these planes use? And how much?
One of the main reasons for Concorde's commercial failure was the first oil crisis.
This fantastic bird had a drinking problem, Concorde guzzled fuel, like all supersonic / afterburner-using planes.

There's few doubts about the possibility of building hypersonic planes, but making them viable commercially and environmentally is a wholy different challenge, and one that's much more unlikely to succeed.

The AB duopoly is producing planes that need less fuel per passenger than cars. So, how are hypersonic planes going to work energy-wise?
We just can't go back to the era of fuel guzzling aviation.

[bluceree]

Freethink uploaded a video about this a couple of weeks ago. Astro Mechanica seems to be doing better theory than Hermeus.

[eldersilva]

I have been following this company for a while, we are going to take a huge leap in engineering with this company! They have grown enormously from there begin stages testing engines out of a box trailer. What concerns me is his gout in his right ankle

[keshavtulsyan]

Well can’t really think of commercial uses, but they can make a huge difference for fighter jet engines. If they can produce what they are promising.

[TennisGvy]

Hermeus is the most vaporware of vaporware. The engine is the easy part, who tf cares about the engine if the airframe can only do one flight cycle?

[saxtant]

I think the biggest problem with hypersonic engines is the development cycle. When things go wrong at mach 5, you may not get enough information from the debris to establish what you need to do to avoid this happening again. It is going to take a lot of mistakes before the deaths slow down enough to recover investment costs.

[williamsteele]

@4:52, the video has an text overlay error in it... the Concord program wasn't about building the first hypersonic commercial aircraft, it was to build a supersonic commercial aircraft.

[roqua]

28:00 Interviewer gets it. The "maniacal focus" on succeeding, regardless of impediments means sacrificing a meaningful fraction of one's best productive years on making this technology work, keeping the West in leadership and ensuring our values and the international rules-based order do not fracture.

[voraciousvlad]

Exciting to get there faster. But have there been studies on the impact of every aircraft creating sonic booms.

[NathanMureithi]

best replacement for never flying Concorde

[DataSmithy]

I would rather see super-efficient air transportation, that may be slower and cheaper, but also more energy efficient. I don't think these super fast planes will make sense except for the super rich.

[steampunk]

Today’s jetliners do fly at roughly Mach 0.8–0.85, but this is at altitude, generally greater than 30, 000ft. That doesn’t correspond to 600-650mph. At such altitudes, the speed of sound is lower. Mach 0.85 at 36, 000 ft is only 560mph. Strange to provide such an inaccuracy in a video like this. Further, these are airspeeds, not speed over ground.

[mcbananabread]

How are they going to commercialize hypersonic flight when commercial planes are banned from flying over Mach 1 as mentioned at the beginning of the video?

[mastiff]

Listening to this guy while doing something else I'm thinking BullShitter like that guy from Nikola that got busted.

[reidabee]

This is so cool. Love the editing on this one too!

[request_lift]

Let’s just remember why Concorde crashed shall we. It was nothing to do with it being supersonic!

[samarthpyati]

Hope I get into a new concorde by the end of this decade.

[repalmore]

Why would a UAS pilot wear a flight suit? Almost no chance of fire on the "flight deck".

[xoxide]

They are not only true but they are underestimate so... we need to go way faster we are talking space flight UP and won to land in order push no only speed but quantity and size of cargo

[towardsAlignment]

Really?? “making the world regional [to] grow trade” - that’s the kind of innovation we need in 1st century?