Chinese airliner could be hypersonic... or just hype

Beijing says it’s building a passenger plane that will fly from London to New York in under two hours. Jonathan Margolis has seen China’s previous boasts, and he has serious doubts

- Jonathan Margol

The news this week that a Chinese company has test flown a prototype for a hypersonic passenger aircraft that could whisk 70 passengers across the Atlantic in 90 minutes as early as 2027 has understandably made headlines around the world.

The new Yunxing aircraft, its Beijing maker says, will be capable of 3,100mph – more than double the speed of the late, great Anglo-French Concorde. The prospect of an Atlantic hop of under two hours and a more leisurely four-hour flight from London to Sydney is mindblowing – the added detail from makers Lingkong Tianxing Technology that the Yunxing will take off and land vertically (VTOL) is straight 1950s science fiction comic territory.

We should be extremely cautious about being dismissive of Chinese technological advances. Even a few years ago, the idea that dozens of really very good, fully Chinese electric cars and buses would be available – and in service – in Britain in 2024 would have been laughable. Thirty years ago, most Chinese consumer products were the like of cheap, tinny cameras and ornamental fans. They’ve come a huge distance, but even today, wholly Chinese consumer products, as opposed to sophisticated Western and Japanese innovations manufactured in China, are still quite rare.

But news of the Yunxing needs to be put into context. A humungous amount of context. Context which, I believe, makes the prospect of pigs flying a little more likely than the Yunxing ever, let alone in three years, whooshing up vertically over central London (VTOL aircraft don’t need an airport) and plopping down in central Manhattan in the time it takes you to watch three episodes of Eastenders.