The Paradoxal hypersonic jet, a commercial passenger aircraft concept, would take customers into suborbital space and travel from London to New York City in two hours.
The concept aircraft was developed by Juan Garcia Mansilla, an industrial designer from Argentina, according to London's newspaper The Sun. The publication said the Paradoxal could be developed by governmental agencies as well as commercially.
"It uses a Rotary Ramjet engine as the air-breathing engine and then converts to a rocket to reach a suborbital altitude," the website Imaginactive, a nonprofit that provides platforms for vehicle engineers, noted. "A line of counterflowing jets of air on the aircraft's leading edges reduces heat and drag during the ascent and re-entry phases of the flight.
"The Paradoxal would thus be able to fly from Los Angeles to Sydney in less than three hours (7,585 miles) and make a gracious suborbital parabolic incursion into space for a fascinating view of the stars and earth from space," Imaginactive continued.
The website said the edge of the aircraft's wings would be fitted with "Long Penetration Mode (LPM) nozzles," which would allow air to flow out of them to create a "paradoxal" effect that will allow the plane to fly faster.
The engines or onboard tanks of compressed air would supply air to the nozzles as the aircraft's speed increased to supersonic and then hypersonic velocities, Imaginactive noted. The nozzles' effect would cut thermal loads and reduce drag.
"For this reason, the Paradoxal has a flying wing or blended wing body shape with one long leading edge," Imaginactive stated. "Passengers sit in one large, theatre-like cabin. Galleys, heads, and baggage stowage compartments are aft. Gone are the days of tube-and-wing planes with their long rows of cramped seats.
"For the cruise part of the trajectory, the passenger plane would fly well above the stratosphere, at the very edge of black space. Hundreds of passengers would enjoy spectacular views of our planet," the website continued.
The Daily Mail noted that the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory was able to develop a supersonic-combustion ramjet, or scramjet in May 2013 that flew for 240 seconds, reaching Mach 5.1, over the Pacific Oceans, representing a breakthrough in the technology.
Current gas-turbine engines max out at Mach 2.5.
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.