Meet the plane that will travel anywhere in four hours

São Paulo - A British company is developing a new technology that promises to revolutionize air travel (especially the space). According to Reaction Engines, their planes will be able to travel anywhere in the world in just four hours. In addition, the company claims that the technology will be possible to make spaceflight at a lower cost than is possible today.

This is thanks to a technology that Reaction Engines named Sabre in its turbines. With it, an aircraft must be capable of reaching Mach 5.5 speed, ie travel to more than five times the speed of sound - equivalent to 6700 kilometers per hour.

In a video (at the end of this text in English), the chief engineer of the company, Alan Bond, explains allowing the Skylon (the plane of the company) to reach that speed. Basically, the main asset is the ability to cool the air.

More than 1,250 tons of atmospheric air are captured by the turbines of the Skylon while it flies. With "precooler" technology, the air inside the turbine is cooled to a temperature of thousand degrees Celsius to -150 degrees. This allows the system to operate at a much higher power than it is today without the turbine suffers from high temperatures.

As a result, a much higher speed can be achieved. The company claims that this will allow travel between distant points of the planet in just four hours.

Initially the company works with the turbine in a drone aircraft to transport cargo space. A version of the aircraft for passenger transport is under development.

A partnership with the European Space Agency is working to make the technology economically viable. For now, they work with a jet with capacity for 300 passengers. According to the company, a smaller number would leave the project unfeasible due to its price per passenger.

The Skylon and its technology are still in development and testing. The forecast is that they can be used commercially from 2019.