China wants to become a world superpower and one of the things that needs to be done is better economic, infrastructure, technology and military strength than the United States. This week the company Space Transportation (also known as Lingkong Tianxing Technology) based in Beijing announced the success of their supersonic prototype aircraft which will fly at a speed of Mach 4 (4939 km/h).
If this aircraft becomes a reality, it will fly twice as fast as Concorde (Mach 2.04) and faster than the SR-71 Blackbird spy plane (Mach 3.5). The supersonic passenger plane named Yunxing is targeted to make its first real-scale flight by 2027. Space Transportation will now test the plane's engine in November.
The shared mockup shows Yunxing's design being similar to the SR-71. With two engines on the wing and also an all-black body. There is no further information on the number of passengers that can be carried or the flight distance. With a speed of Mach 4, the trip from Beijing to New York can be done in just two hours compared to almost 16 hours now.
Apart from China, only the United States currently has a project to develop a supersonic passenger plane (SST). NASA is already testing the X-59 QueSST prototype aircraft which will fly silently without the sonic boom issue. Meanwhile, Boom Supersonic also successfully tested the XB-1 prototype for the Overture passenger plane that will fly at a speed of Mach 1.7.