Chinese prototype a precursor to hypersonic passenger travel anywhere in the world in 2 hours, says team

Completion of all test flights by 2025 will allow the development of a passenger aircraft that can travel more than 6,000km at Mach 6: researchers

Challenges for the project include devising a way to slow and land during an emergency as well as commercial viability

Zhang Tong

Zhang Tong in Beijing

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Published: 5:55pm, 27 Jun, 2022

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A small prototype hypersonic aircraft for civilian use has finished the first stage of testing in China, say scientists involved in the project, bringing the project a step closer to developing a passenger aircraft that can travel six times the speed of sound.

The Nanqiang No 1 unmanned aircraft weighs just 500kg (1,100 pounds) but it can reach five times the speed of sound, or faster, according to the team.

The researchers have squeezed into its small body three different types of power systems, a design some experts thought would never work.

Air inlet and exhaust of the MUTTER hypersonic engine design that uses three different types of power systems. Image: Yin Zeyong

Air inlet and exhaust of the MUTTER hypersonic engine design that uses three different types of power systems. Image: Yin Zeyong

The drone can take off and land on a runway like an ordinary plane.

The completion of all test flights by 2025 will pave the way for the development of a full-sized hypersonic aircraft that can transport 10 passengers more than 6,000km (3,700 miles) at Mach 6, according to the research team.

“The breakthrough of this technology will greatly shorten the round-the-world flight time,” lead project scientist Yin Zeyong wrote in a paper published last week in Acta Aeronautica et Astronautica Sinica, a peer-reviewed journal run by the China Society of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

“It can change human civilisation,” said Yin, director of science and technology with the Aero Engine Corporation of China.

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Hypersonic flight technology could cut global travel time to anywhere to under two hours, according to Yin’s team.

But the technology and its application has so far remained mostly in the hands of the military. A hypersonic missile, for instance, can hit a high-value target before most missile defence systems can react.

Many countries are engaged in a heated race on hypersonic technology. China, now in a leading position, plans to build a small fleet of manned hypersonic aircraft that can arrive anywhere on the planet within an hour or two by 2035.

Nearly all Chinese hypersonic aircraft programmes remain classified. The paper by Yin and his collaborators at Xiamen University in southeastern Fujian province offered a rare peek into the technical route and progress in this sensitive sector.

Nanqiang No 1 used a state-of-the-art combined cycle engine design known as multi-ducted twin-turbines ejector-ramjet/scramjet, or MUTTER.

The timeline of a six-year test flight programme starting in 2019. Image: Yin Zeyong

The timeline of a six-year test flight programme starting in 2019. Image: Yin Zeyong

The unique power system includes a pair of turbine engines, a small rocket and two air-breathing ramjet or scramjet engines.

This scheme is more complex than most hypersonic flight vehicles proposed before. Some experts opposed the idea because adding the rocket, for instance, could make the aircraft too heavy for a long distance flight.

Yin’s team stuck to the MUTTER design, with a number of innovations to improve flight efficiency, such as forcing three different types of engines to share a single air inlet.

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While it had not been done before, computer modelling, ground testing and early test flights suggested the idea worked.

When taking off from a runway, the two turbines could provide a high thrust at speed below Mach 2, according to the researchers. The rocket engine, although relatively small, would accelerate the aircraft to Mach 4. Then the sub-ramjet above and the main-ramjet below the aircraft would ignite and take the plane to a cruising speed at Mach 6.

According to a report by Science and Technology Daily in 2020, during the first stage of the test flights, which started in 2019, Yin’s team kept the plane below the speed of sound.

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By the time they wrote the paper, the work had moved to the second stage, pushing the speed to Mach 4, according to the researchers.

The construction of a full-sized passenger plane with a total weight reaching 72 tonnes would likely begin before the end of the six-year programme.

The project faces many technical challenges.

It is not clear whether the small rocket engine can be reused after being put to work in an extreme environment.

A hypersonic airliner would carry 10 adult passengers, making up only about 2 per cent of its weight. But Yin said the technology must be more efficient if it is to be commercially attractive.

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The researchers must also devise an effective plan to slow down and land the aircraft quickly in an emergency.

“China wants to use a dozen or two dozen years to complete what others have done in over 100 years,” said Yin, then 73 years old, in an interview with China Youth Daily in 2018.

“We have to make up for lots of missed lessons.”

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5140837&forum_id=2#44753973)