Visit us on FacebookFiled under: Uncategorized | Tags: A2, Hypersonic Aircraft, Reaction Engines
Imagine having a late breakfast in Europe and then dinner in Australia, all in the same day. (No time zone trickery involved.) And imagine, too, paying no more for that junket than you would for a current business class ticket. That’s the kind of itinerary, and pricing, promised by Reaction Engines, a U.K. company working on the design of a hypersonic aircraft called the A2. It’s an ambition that runs on liquid hydrogen fuel.The A2 would be a very big plane–roughly twice as long as the new Airbus A380 jumbo jet, though with about half the wingspan. Reaction Engines reckons on its Web site that the A2 would seat 300 passengers, “thought to be the minimum to achieve a competitive seat/mile cost.”Flight time from Brussels to Sydney would be about 4.6 hours, compared with the current 22. Along the way, the aircraft would achieve sustained Mach 5 flight (around 3,900 miles per hour), or five times the speed of sound, for several hours, the company says. The engine is also intended to deliver good subsonic performance–and just “moderate takeoff noise.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: AGV, France, Italy, Rail Travel, TGV, Train Travel
In three years, passengers on a High-speed train will travel faster than ever before. The new train, called the AGV (Automotrice Grande Vitesse) train will travel at up to 360km/h (224mph), powered by engines placed under each carriage.
The absence of locomotives at either end allows it to carry more passengers – up to 700 people in more spacious compartments. With an engine under each carriage, the AGV – which translates as “high-speed railcar” – is unlike the TGV, which has engines only at the back and front.
The new AGV trains, designed by Alstom, are set to travel 1,000km (600 miles) in three hours, which is “a new stage in the competition with the airlines”, said Alstom’s Executive Chairman, Patrick Kron.
The TGV’s maximum speed currently is 320km/h. But a modified TGV achieved a world rail speed record for a train on conventional rails last April, reaching 574.8km/h. The AGV’s new engines are more energy-efficient and it also reduces maintenance costs, the company says. An Italian operator has already bought 25 of the AGV trains, and will run them on the Italian high-speed network at a speed of 300km/h in 2011.
