“Chinese scientists have sent a hypersonic aircraft with a remarkably bulky body soaring through the sky, reaching a speed that could cover the distance from Beijing to New York in two hours,” wrote South China Morning Post on Dec. 11, with regard to a test flight over the Gobi Desert.
This was a design that was put forward six years ago, with great skepticism about the feasibility of the proposal. The design marks a clear distinction from the slim vehicles hitherto used in hypersonic tests and moots the possibility of using such technology in powering jumbo jets.
