Development
The vehicle is intended to have about 12,430 miles (20,000 km) range and good subsonic and supersonic fuel efficiency, thus avoiding the problems inherent in earlier supersonic aircraft. The top speed is projected to be Mach 5+. It calls for the use of liquid hydrogen as a fuel, which has twice the specific impulse of kerosene, and can be used to cool the vehicle and the air entering the engines via a precooler.
| “ | Our work shows that it is possible technically; now it's up to the world to decide if it wants it. | ” |
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— Alan Bond, managing director of Reaction Engines Limited |
The developers say it would be able to fly from Brussels to Sydney in about 4.6 hours, compared to around a complete day of travel with normal aircraft. The cost of a ticket is intended to be roughly business class level.
Read more about this topic: Reaction Engines A2
Famous quotes containing the word development:
“Men are only as good as their technical development allows them to be.”
—George Orwell (1903–1950)
“And then ... he flung open the door of my compartment, and ushered in “Ma young and lovely lady!” I muttered to myself with some bitterness. “And this is, of course, the opening scene of Vol. I. She is the Heroine. And I am one of those subordinate characters that only turn up when needed for the development of her destiny, and whose final appearance is outside the church, waiting to greet the Happy Pair!””
—Lewis Carroll [Charles Lutwidge Dodgson] (1832–1898)
“The man, or the boy, in his development is psychologically deterred from incorporating serving characteristics by an easily observable fact: there are already people around who are clearly meant to serve and they are girls and women. To perform the activities these people are doing is to risk being, and being thought of, and thinking of oneself, as a woman. This has been made a terrifying prospect and has been made to constitute a major threat to masculine identity.”
—Jean Baker Miller (20th century)