New York-to-London in less than four hours?| Loungtastic
This New Plane Could Fly From the UK to New York in 20 Minutes
Mustafa Gatollari
How great would it be if you could travel to the other side of the Atlantic in the same amount of time it takes you to get to work in the morning? While this sounds like the stuff dreams are made of, those dreams might just become reality soon thanks to the invention of the new "Antipode" plane, which professes to be capable of transporting passengers from London to New York in 20 MINUTES.
But the rocket jet could seriously achieve such a feat. As METRO reports, the plane would travel at supersonic speeds after take off, which would probably feel more like blast off, and would ultimately reach an acceleration of a staggering 24 times the speed of sound.
Concorde who?
The brains behind the invention is Canadian designer Charles Bombardier. He explained it would work using the concept "long penetration mode" to channel air super speedily via a nozzle on its nose, meaning it could travel at 18,264 miles per hour. That's a casual 10 times faster than the Concorde flew.
Before you have images of being blasted into space, the jet only flies at 40,000 feet — not dissimilar to the current commercial planes we're used to.
While this sounds great and all, if it does ever make it to the mainstream market, it's going to be expensive. The aircraft will apparently only seat 10 people, so you can probably imagine how much one of those places would cost.
Still, it looks like the future could be here sooner than we thought.
An F-16 pilot flying over ISIS-held territory suffered a malfunction of his fuel system and would have been forced to bail out if it weren't for a KC-135 Stratotanker crew that offered to escort the jet home, the Air Force said in a press release.
"We were in the area of responsibility and were already mated with some A-10 Thunderbolt IIs that were tasked with observing and providing close-air-support for our allies on the ground," said Capt. Nathanial Beer, 384th Air Refueling Squadron pilot. "The lead F-16 came up first and then had a pressure disconnect after about 500 pounds of fuel. We were expecting to offload about 2,500 pounds."
After the pilot completed his checklist, it became apparent that 80 percent of his fuel supply was trapped in the tanks and couldn't get to the engine. The pilots would have to bail out over ISIS territory or try to make it back to allied airspace.
F-16 was saved from ISIS | Loungtastic
500 pounds of fuel is very little in an F-16, so the KC-135 flew home with the fighter and topped off its gas every 15 minutes.
"The first thought I had from reading the note from the deployed location was extreme pride for the crew in how they handled the emergency," said Lt. Col. Eric Hallberg, 384th Air Refueling Squadron commander.
"Knowing the risks to their own safety, they put the life of the F-16 pilot first and made what could've been an international tragedy, a feel-good news story. I'm sure they think it was not a big deal, however, that's because they never want the glory or fame."
The KC-135 crew returned to their planned operation once the F-16 was safely home and were able to complete all of their scheduled missions despite the detour.
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