There's a company out there right now that wants to ferry commercial air passengers from New York to Paris in an hour and a half.
It's called Hermeus, and it just conducted another breakthrough test.
Working at the Notre Dame Turbomachinery Laboratory in Indiana, the company's engine, Chimera, switched between turbojet and ramjet power - an absolute first for a commercial company.
But that's just one more step toward Hermeus' ultimate goal of making hypersonic travel a reality for the wealthy and well-connected.
You see, the was founded in 2019 and it's gotten some notable attention since then...
In 2020, it won a $1.5 million contract from the U.S. Air Force to develop a hypersonic plane capable of carrying the president.
By hypersonic, of course, we mean a jet capable of flying faster than five times the speed of sound, or Mach 5.
To put that in perspective, the record for the fastest manned aircraft flight is Mach 6.7 (4,520 mph), set in 1967 by the X-15. However, that was effectively a rocket with a seat, specifically designed to set the record. It also had to be launched from a B-52 bomber.
So a better comparison - an air-breathing aircraft powered by jet engines rather than a rocket - would be the SR-71 Blackbird, which traveled at Mach 3.3
And when it comes to commercial passenger flight, you'd have to turn to the Concorde, which flew at Mach 2.04 (1,350 mph) with enough seats for 100 passengers.
The Hermeus plane, should it succeed, would torch them both.